Hamilton continues Anita Blake’s battles with many foes in her tenth book, Narcissus in Chains. The book is available on Amazon in hardcover, paperback, Kindle, and audiobook, as well as at your local library and through the Libby App. The audiobook, read by Kimberly Alexis, brings Anita’s complex emotions to the surface.

Hamilton did a complete 360 with this book. Gone is the sarcastic, tough-as-nails Anita with her black-and-white attitude toward monsters. After six months away, Anita tries to regain her footing and the control she craves to survive, which she feels she lost after receiving the third vampire mark and becoming part of the triumvirate, a powerful, magical, and sexual bond formed by a necromancer, vampire, and executioner. Scared by her loss of self, she cast everyone out and focused on herself.

Just returned to St. Louis, Anita is reforming the friendships she abandoned, like with her best friend, Veronica ‘Ronnie’ Sims. She gets a call that Nathaniel, one of her wereleopards, got into trouble at a BDSM club, ‘Narcissus in Chains’. Against Ronnie’s wishes, she calls Jean-Claude for backup. At the club, Anita reunites with her other lover, Richard, whom Jean-Claude contacted. To ensure her safety during the rescue, Jean-Claude explains that they must marry the marks. Many changes follow: the marks are married, weresnakes attack Anita, and one of her leopards jumps on her to save her life, his claw digging into her stomach. Everyone believes Anita will actually become the leopard queen at the next full moon.

Enraged, Richard captures the wereleopard he believes responsible and threatens to execute him as per pack law, forcing Anita to rescue her leopard and face the reality that this could be the end of her relationship with Richard. Hamilton gives the audience graphic violence and relationship drama. The new facet of Anita’s personality is how marrying the marks affected her. Anita absorbed Jean-Claude’s incubus powers, turning her into a succubus. She cannot control her libido and is now having sex with almost anyone: newcomer wereleopard Micah, a five-way with Asher, Jean-Claude, Nathaniel, and Jason. She feels ashamed and remorseful afterward, but when the ‘Ardeur’ has a hold on her, she cannot control herself.

The book is filled with explicit sex, a weak plot, no direction, and violence to balance out the sex. This seems to be Hamilton’s new recipe for the series, which is a shame after having a decisive female lead become a sexual object. This total turnabout is what makes this a 2-star read.