Thank you @berkleypub for the advanced reading copy via Netgalley, receipt of which did not impact my review.

Smolder is book 29 (!!) in the Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter series. I did not realize it was book 29 when I accepted the ARC. Which is my own fault! It was a little tricky to follow at times - there are lots of characters, many of whom are part of Anita and Jean-Claude’s poly relationship.

The book is centered on the prep for Anita and Jean-Claude’s upcoming marriage but there is a supernatural charm and murder investigation getting in the way. Fans of paranormal romance are sure to love the addition to this long-running series.

Reviews by the Wicked Reads Review Team

Erica – ☆☆☆☆
SMOLDER is the 29th installment in the Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter series. No, you can absolutely not read this as a standalone or out of series order. Do you need to read all 28 books prior? No. As long as you've read most of them, there would be no issue keeping up with the world building.

This review will have a different format than usual, a list rather than paragraph form, while trying to avoid spoilers. We're 29 books deep – fans will understand why I'm making a list. As someone who spent the last eight weeks rereading every novel and short in this series, I feel like a bit of an expert on what readers and fans are looking for in the newest installment, in order to gauge if they wish to read or skip.

1: Edward and Peter open the novel. It was some much needed dark humor and a strong emotional connection devoid of any agenda. Anita needs Edward in her life, as do the readers. We need Edward in Anita's life.

2: Anita finally speaks to her father after 29 novels. While only on the phone, it sets up the next novel in the series, which will include her entire family. Some heavy emotional labor is shown, which serves to make Anita much more relatable to readers. Human. Plucked my heartstrings and drew tears to my eyes, made me remember the Anita that captured my heart.

3: We get a glimpse of Jason. Sure did miss him.

4: Dolph is back, even if only a cameo. He may not speak as Dolph used to, but it was nice to have a grounding force back in Anita's life.

5: Richard is back and he threw one helluva curve ball.

6: We're still dragging a dead horse up a never-ending hill, but it is less than in past novels. The poly negotiations are still there, wish it was toned down even more, but it made sense this time around. I wish Anita didn't get coerced into being with people she doesn't love, let alone even like, but Anita has self-awareness of this fact. FINALLY. I do believe sexuality is fluid, but Hamilton seems to believe you can convince yourself, be coerced, or grit your teeth and bear it when it comes to sexual preferences. I'm not a fan of this narrative. I was born this way – life experience and knowledge made me aware and accept it. Being pestered or forced isn't going to change my orientation.

7: A big bad dragon blows into town. Lots of discussions over this, yet it was left dangling for the next installment. While not a cliffhanger, elements and plots that manifested during SMOLDER took a backseat, used as a vehicle to push something that has been on the horizon for 29 novels. I assume this will be picked back up during SLAY. I just wish this long-anticipated element was more climactic.

8: This wasn't an orgy-filled erotic novel. There was one portion of the novel that was sex-centric. It was more like two scenes that bled into one. The first scene made me hot under the collar, the second was a scene fans have been thirsting for for decades. It fell flat to me. Anita was disconnected. As a reader, I was emotionally disconnected as well. It was almost fade-to-black-esque. It was happening with no details, which would have been fine, but there weren't many emotions either. I understood because Anita was conflicted. I just wish I could get this scene in another's point of view, better yet – two points of view. Anita wasn't the best person to show this "connection."

9: Who here wants to see Kane get TKOed by a human?

10: There are still characters that I just feel are a waste of page-time. They pop up out of nowhere, lend nothing to the story or the series, but are just in the way. There are less of these every book as Hamilton gives Anita self-awareness to not cave to the boundaries she's set. There needs to be more boundaries. The biggest issue is how these characters are devoid of character traits outside of appearance and neediness. They're just there, in the way, popping up out of nowhere, and I'm unsure why they're included. There's no emotional connection. Most of Anita's tigers to call and two of her three brides are just one-dimensional cards tossed on the table in the discard pile to muck up the game.

There was an entire section, that even JC commented on how these people kept stepping in their path to distract them from the matter at hand, minutes from dawn when he dies for the day.

Imagine you're running to the bathroom before you pee yourself, but everyone you pass grabs your arm and forces you to talk for an hour about things that happened a decade ago. The closer you get to the bathroom, the more people who refuse to hear your no or pleas for a toilet. They grab you and refuse to let you go, ridiculous, unnecessary conversations. One has the audacity to tell you to suck her breasts. (You have to pee, remember. In this case, JC is about to crash for the day and needed to do some metaphysics before that happens.) Then all the sudden, your creator forgets you were on the way to the bathroom and doesn't even make you pee your pants. This is Anita with all the people around her, with Hamilton driving the bus.

Dawn is in a matter of minutes, JC is in a panic, why is kissing Angel important RIGHT NOW? WHY? Just kiss her and get it over with and walk away, why discuss it. Why even stop in the hallway. Nod and walk by – King and Queen in a crisis, no you don't matter right now, Angel.

I read this entire scene in pure frustration, unsure why I had to deal with this tedium. It always feels so forced and cringy. It ultimately tied together, but it could have been tied together without Angel. She wasn't the tie, her brother was.

As a woman who enjoys other women, I find pushing women at Anita uncomfortable and cringy. Society pushes us enough, experiencing this via Anita's eyes is not sexy – it's exhausting and painful. At least we don't have to suffer through Jade, but I wish Envy and Angel would go away. The guys with them aren’t the issue. But insufferably dealing with Angel being demanding when they're in a metaphysical crisis seemed ridiculous at best. It just left me thinking, "Go away! I'd rather have Kane on scene. At least he fits the dynamic happening." (My wish was granted seconds later. Ha!) Hamilton forcing Anita to pretend to want women... the readers don't buy into it. It's like lying to yourself and everyone around you realizes but you.

11: I'm glad the characters are in therapy, but mentioning this in every conversation is now another dead horse being dragged up yet another mountain. Is it a conversation? A negotiation? Verbal combat? They're all so insufferable. It's not as bad as in previous installments but I hope Hamilton keeps whittling this down to a minimum. I couldn't have people like this in my life, yet everyone in Anita's life is like this. It's why I understand Anita's need to go out of town for Marshal business with Edward. How refreshing that violence is easier than clingy, needy, emotional vampires. All of them start to sound the same when the whining begins. I wish Hamilton would write a scene where Anita just walks off and they don't realize until later that they've been whining to one another and mommy left. I think they all need more therapy. Less talking to each other and more to their doctors.

12: JC screaming "Enough!" "You will keep a civil tongue in your head toward my queen, or I will tear it from your head and let you wait in silence for it to grow back." JC's balls dropped. I just wish he would do this more often. Tell people to step off and get out of his face and leave Anita alone. Stop the whining. Be king. Why suffer from the weight of all the power if you can't tell your underlings to back off?

Overall Thoughts: Anita seems more self-aware, less likely to be coerced, even though numerous characters are nonstop manipulating her for their own ends. While not a cliffhanger, SMOLDER felt like half a novel since the plot threads introduced led to nowhere. I don't mind this, as I understand how difficult it is to successfully write what should be two novels because the plot was so big. But that doesn't mean that it wasn't obvious that the novel took three or four misturns, as if it wasn't sure which type of novel it wanted to be. Wedding. Cop. Relationship BS. Metaphysical Crisis.

I enjoyed SMOLDER, read in two sittings as I needed to go to bed for the night. It wasn't as frustrating and tedious as previous installments. It's always a homecoming to read characters that you know like the back of your hand. As Anita gets more powerful, now that she will be queen, I understand how everyone and anyone around her would need her, push her, pressure her, and hide behind her. Heavy is the head that wears the crown. I just wish Hamilton would write Anita's nearest and dearest to be soft places to fall, to be her equals, to help instead of hurt. Otherwise, this experiment in the ultimate poly group is more like abuse than love with Anita as its victim.

I saw this book cover and was immediately intrigued. So beautiful! When I requested this book on NetGalley though I didn’t realize it was part of a series, let alone book 29! Immediately it was clear that there were a lot of characters and a lot of history between them all. Despite going into this new world completely unaware of anything from the previous books, I didn’t find myself as confused as I thought I would be. The author did a good job eluding to the past events that were relevant to the current story without over explaining. She also introduced this world well in terms of which types of supernatural beings were in this world and the fact that they are known to the normal human population, which I found to be helpful. As I read this I couldn’t help but compare it to the Sookie Stackhouse series. Especially during one (unfortunately smaller) part of the book where Anita had to assist in an investigation relating to a vampire. Like I said, unfortunately this part was quite a small part of the book as it was my favourite. The majority of the book was Anita and the many side characters getting ready for a wedding. During this there was a lot of dialogue but not much anything else. I’m not sure if it’s because I haven’t read the previous books but I found these parts quite boring and uninteresting.

Thank you NetGalley and Berkley Publishing for giving me the opportunity to review this book! 😊

Smolder feels like a love letter to all of us Anita Blake fans who have been waiting around for certain events to happen for 20+ books.

As Anita's inner circle grows, so does the careful balancing act she has to go through to keep everyone happy; the last few books have seen Anita either away from home or focusing on other people, so Smolder felt like a return to older Anita Blake stories. Even as Anita continues to grow and work through her issues, I found myself giddy from the direction this plot went in. Sure, there was an enemy more powerful than Anita or even Jean-Claude had ever gone up against before. Their power structure was tested in new ways. But several things happened that I've been waiting a long time for, and it almost felt too good to be true.

Hamilton packed a lot into this 29th volume of the Anita Blake series. Between being called in to help on a case, trying to plan a wedding, encountering a new enemy, keeping the poly group's dynamics healthy, and reintroducing variables into her private life, Anita has a lot on her plate. I think Hamilton did a good job at keeping all these plot points balanced within the plot while simultaneously leaving a lot unfinished for future books to wrap up. Smolder definitely did not tie everything up in a neat bow; almost everything new in this book will have consequences or roles to play in the next book or books.

I truly enjoyed this Anita Blake novel. Hamilton brought back a lot of the things that originally made me fall in love with this series while also keeping Anita moving forward on her path. A lot happened in this book, and I can't wait to see what it means for all these characters going forward.

Another entry in the Anita Blake series finds Anita fighting for the lives of her collection of friends and lovers. This book features less sex than in previous books, however, Anita is still conflicted with her life, her lovers, her job, her family, etc. Therapy, the need for therapy, and how therapy has been helping, is mentioned so frequently in this story that it gets redundant. We get it...therapy is a good thing. Those readers who are invested in the Anita Blake universe will probably be content with this newest offering but new readers to her stories will be lost without the background revealed in previous works.

Smolder by Laurell K. Hamilton is a relationship intense paranormal romance blended with a supernatural suspense story line. It’s the twenty-ninth book in the series. Preternatural U.S. Marshal and vampire hunter Anita Blake is preparing for her wedding to the vampire king of America Jean-Claude. Humans think she is siding with the monsters and the vampires fear he has fallen under the spell of the most powerful necromancer in several millennia.

While Anita’s best friend U.S. Marshall Ted Forrester is being fitted for his best man clothing, she gets a call from the local police. They believe the Sunshine Murderer has hit again. However, that is not the only bad thing to occur in St. Louis. An ancient evil has arrived to challenge Jean-Claude for his crown. Even Jean-Claude’s enhanced powers as king along with Anita’s powers aren’t enough to defeat this being. They need more help to stop it.

This book focuses on relationships for a large part of the book. Whether it is Anita’s relationships with the many men and women in her life or with the local police or federal agents or friends, there is a lot of domestic drama. This is compounded by Jean-Claude’s relationships as well. Their struggle with all of the various types of relationships they have makes the suspense portion of the story more tangible and full of angst. However, I felt some disappointment that this book did not resolve all of the suspense threads.

The author does a great job on characterization. The story is well written with a unique situation that resulted in a showdown set-up with a powerful evil creature. It works to fix relationships and help Anita understand some of them better. There are some steamy scenes as well, but not as many as usual. My biggest quibble other than not knowing this was a set-up book for the next one was the urgent need for planning at the end that was continuously interrupted. With the amount of power that Jean-Claude and Anita have, I wanted them to be more forceful. Themes woven into the novel include romance, relationships of all types, violence, evil, power, anger, grief, jealousy, and much more.

Overall, this was an engrossing and entertaining novel with great characterization and complicated relationships. I recommend reading this series in order. The background and gradual addition of characters will make the experience more enjoyable.

Berkley Publishing Group and Sarah Hawley provided a complimentary digital ARC of this novel via NetGalley. All thoughts and opinions expressed in this review are my own. Publication date is currently set for March 21, 2023.

The latest in the Anita Blake. Vampire Hunter series (book 29) has Anita planning her wedding with Jean Claude, dealing with her feelings about her family who may or may not attend her wedding, dealing with someone exposing vampires to sunlight to end their lives, and a new very powerful entity coming to St. Louis to take over Jean Claude's rule and all his people.

This story is filled with the usual complexity of Anita's love-life. She is part of a poly group, all of whom seem to be in need of or involved in therapy. Anita's therapy is helping her deal with her childhood abuses and the lack of self-worth they engendered in her.

There was less of the blatant and egregious sex scenes that marred earlier books in the series for me. The one major sex scene happens as Jean Claude and Anita are fighting off the attack by the entity that wants to take over St. Louis. They need Richard's help to succeed because, without him, their power triad is just too weak. Richard has made quite a few personal changes since he was last featured in this series. He, too, has been to therapy to deal with his own issues about being a werewolf.

My main concern with this story was that it felt like only half of a novel. So many plot threads were left dangling. The issue with Anita's family is left unresolved. The Sunshine killings are left unresolved. Even the attack by the entity that wants St. Louis was left unresolved.

Read this one if you are current in the series...and look forward to the next book which will hopefully have some answers.

Smolder. Book 29. Is the long-anticipated wedding finally here? Not quite, but wedding preparations are kicking into high gear, including outfit fittings. It’s finally time for Anita to get back at Edward for being in his wedding. Fair’s fair, after all.
While I do just want to get to the wedding already, my favorite part of this book was the return of some old characters. It gets difficult to give everyone enough page time when there are about 10 main characters and double the number of side characters. I also really like the progression of Anita herself through monogamous to polyamorous relationships. The author puts in a lot of practical considerations and things that characters admit to learning in therapy, that make clear juggling so many people is work that takes thoughtful consideration and dedication. I can’t say I was excited to see Richard again, given his track record, but I am withholding judgement until the next book.
Which brings me to the thing I liked least: Smolder reads like Part 1 of a novel. There is an ending to the smaller arc, but not to the main conflict. It would probably have been too large of a book to squeeze both parts into one volume, but it still seems a little unsatisfying somehow. For this reason, 3.5 stars, and I am excited to read book 30 to get to the end of the larger plot and hopefully a WEDDING.

*Review copy obtained through Netgalley*

Okey, first hear me out before judging my 1-star review.

First of all, I am a very old fan of this series and I firmly believe that the quality only went downhill after Obsidian Butterfly. But. Since then, I've fully embraced the fact that the b-movie type of quality of Anita's reverse harem world is its own brand. People can love it or hate it but they still read it and get exactly what they expect from it.

Which is why my 1-star rating is fully good-natured. Yes, it was that terrible and yes, I rolled my eyes and enjoyed the predictability of the plot when 90% of action is a big, unending therapy session for Anita and her big bad puppy pile of lovers, and only 10% is an actual advancement of the plot. I read this while being stuck on a long flight and despite not having read the last 4 or 5 books in the series, I have not missed a thing, my dear readers.

*SPOILER*

Richard is back! And it actually made me feel much livelier. I miss the time when Anita only had him and Jean-Claude to worry about and you didn't need the spreadsheet for the rest of her partners. Ah, those were the days.... Anyway, get ready for a lot of talking, where the most amusing part of it is talking about feelings while you are in the middle of an emergency sex to ward off an attack (yes, non-fans, I know how it sounds!) and Jean-Claude already asked you a few times to stop yapping and just concentrate on getting bonked.

There is not much else going on, but the ending shows that at least a few chapters of the next book will be fun, cause Anita's family is here for the wedding. And there is a high chance I'll read it just for the hell of it.

Enjoy it or hate it at your own risk, but you have been warned.

P.S. the review will go up on the blog March 14th, on Amazon on March 21st and it's already on Goodreads under kara-karina. Thank you!

Oh my, I loved this addition to the Anita Blake series. I've seen some other reviewers say that they didn't enjoy the lack of action and short time period this book covered, but I don't have a problem with it. There are so many wonderful characters in this universe that I am always interested is seeing more character development, and taking up one novel to set up the major action for the next seems perfectly reasonable. I've seen it happen in other series, and I don't think it's even the first time it's happened in this one. I'm excited for the next book and I can't wait to get this one onto my library shelf.

In the world of Anita Blake you never know what will happen when a new case is introduced, a new member joins her poly group, or when things go array in the life of Jean Claude and his necromancer bride-to-be. Smoulder preps the reader for the upcoming marriage of Jean Claude and Anita while introducing a new investigation into her workload. At the site of a murder - Sunshine Murder - strange things happen, and from there on the basically in the next 24 hours, everything is upended. Jean Claude is threatened by what seems to be a more powerful vampire than he. Anita's protection crew and lovers busily discuss their therapies along with arguments and touching and feeling to keep themselves together. Introduce the fact that Anita's family is ready to arrive for the wedding and she knows how her father feels about her vampire fiancee besides her onging feelings of inadequacy she had growing up with her 'beautiful' stepmother and sister. Introduce some long ago friends and spend an afternoon and evening wondering when and if the wedding will survive as well as the characters. It's a story of character relationships, the entanglements ,and who knows what part they will all play when the marriage 'finally' happens likely in the next novel to come in the Anita Blake series. It's highly recommended that you have read the early books in the series to begin to understand all the characters and the parts they play in Anita's life

It's nice to see some things represented in this book that are important and empathetic in our times, like an understanding of therapy and boundaries. I think readers were expecting the wedding to take place, and the frustration of that not actually happening means that I place this book as a 3.5, but will round up for the star rating below. I will be interviewing her soon, though, and look forward to hearing her point of view on this choice, which may alter future ratings in other places.

I can't believe that I am saying this, but I didn't like this book. So much of it felt like an prologue for the next book that I just couldn't find myself getting sucked into the story like I normally do with the Anita Blake series.

This was such a great read! On my tablet it said it was 300 pages, so I was thinking that it was a shorter novel like Jason, Micah and Rafael. But it's not, it's actually 500 pages, and boy did the pages fly by! I just couldn't put it down!

This book sets up a lot of the conflicts that'll be addressed in the next book, maybe books. Like with her father and his family. That some of the characters have problems, like Jason, and Rodwina and Ru. There's the murder investigation of the vampire, and the group behind them. It also introduces a new big bad.

Most of this book is the relationships between these characters, and they therapy that they're attending. This is the book that brings back Richard. It was interesting to see how dynamics have changed, but this was needed set up for the future.

I have seen other reviews about how this book doesn't really do much. And external plot wise, it doesn't, it's just the set up. And it does take place over an afternoon and evening, which adds to that weird feel of this book. But I had a great time reading this book and I can't wait for the next!

This was a really great read, and I'm so exited for Slay, the excerpt we got of it as fantastic and I need to know what's going to happen next!

Smolder (Anita Blake series)
by Laurell K. Hamilton
I think I keep reading these books because I'm hoping she can find the greatness that was in the books at the beginning of the series. She rambles on and on about therapy and how everyone is in therapy or needs therapy. It's a good message but I read for therapy not to hear about it in my escape over and over again. Obviously, she needs to have a reason for Richard to have changed but there's no need to harp on it. It was great to see many of the characters in this novel interacting again and I do enjoy that, but there was very little action and A LOT of talking. Let's get back to the action.

Anita is preparing for her wedding to Jean-Claude while trying to balance her work and love life as well. The humans of the world believe she has gone over to the other side with the monsters while the vampires worry that their new king is under her spell as the most powerful necromancer in a thousand years.

Anita receives a call to assist the local police with the Sunshine Murders and even though she doesn’t want to leave Ted, Peter, or any of her bridal party alone she does what she does best and goes to work. Things start going sideways at the murder scene and only seems to get worse as the night goes on.

I struggled with rating this book between a 4 and a 5. I loved the story, but I did not like that the story did not get resolved and that is the only reason I considered the 4. Hamilton is a master writer that gives you more than you even realize and makes you think about some of the underlying themes of the story as you read it.

This whole book literally takes place in less than 24 hours and is mostly people thinking or talking about how much therapy has benefited them.

And am pro-therapy, still found it boring.

This is not a novel, this is introductory backstory for a different novel. I was so hopeful that this one would be more like the last one (Rafael) which I thought had actually contributed to the world building of the Blake universe and progressed some actual plot. But it didn't. It was nothing but reintroducing characters and those characters talking about therapy. Anita is still a misogynist, and unlike the rest of her issues this one never gets mentioned as something she's working on with her therapist. And she is working on so. many. things. with her therapist. It's the chorus of the book. I will agree that therapy is great, very useful, good for practically everyone but I'm not reading a paranormal romance book to get therapy tips. All in all, I don't even think you need to read this one to be ready for the next one, assuming you remember who these characters are. Another Big Bad showed up, but meh, it wasn't actually important.

WOW! Really disappointed with this installment. Let me preface this by saying I have loved this series and have really enjoyed all the books but this one. First, it starts strong with characters getting fitted for the upcoming wedding. Then we go to the scene of a murder...so far so good, right? WRONG!

We then spend the rest of the book fixing interpersonal relationships amongst the rather large cast of characters. Let me also say I am no prude and have absolutely no problems with the poly relationships within this series, nor the sex scenes...however a whole 500 page book of them that never advanced the over-arching story was a bit much. Additionally, this whole book took place over one 24-ish hour period.

There is a preview of the next book in the series, Slay, which I am assuming needed all the stuff in Smolder fixed before the story could continue? That's the only thing I can think of because no other book in this series has been like this one.