It's actually all Laurell's fault

After thinking about it a bit I have come to the conclusion that part of my upset over the most recent Sookie Stackhouse book is due to the emotional baggage I still carry over my break up with the Anita Blake series. No, it isn't right or fair to compare a current flame to an ex, but poor Charlaine Harris will just have to deal with the disillusionment and bitterness that Laurell K. Hamilton left in her wake.

Because 7 years after the break up, the pain is still there.

For a decade our relationship was almost perfect. I still remember the day I picked up the first Anita Blake book, Guilty Pleasures, at WalMart. I read it front to back in one sitting and then reread it again the next day. Here was a new genre, paranormal urban fantasy, and it combined elements of all my favourite kinds of books: a strong female lead character, supernatural beings, mystery, and science fiction.

For the next eight years and nine books everything was blissful. I bought the new Anita books as soon as they came out and recommended them to anyone I thought would have the slightest interest. I bought copies as gifts and sent them to friends in Australia and England so they could meet Anita, too. I reveled in getting to know Anita better, slowly becoming immersed in her complex world and its inhabitants.

Looking back, you can usually pinpoint the moment a relationship started to go bad. You can say, yes, that's when it all began: the uncharacteristic behaviour, the emotional disconnection, the realization that someone you care about has turned into a stranger. You hope that it's just a phase, that the person you've spent so much time with is still there, somewhere, and will come back to you, but you fear the changes may be permanent and nothing you can do will help.

In this case, it all went bad with Narcissus in Chains.

I finished that book - which I paid hardcover prices for, such was my devotion! - and sat in stunned silence for a moment, then pitched it across the room. It landed across the bedroom standing cover side up on my laundry hamper, mocking me.

Who was this woman who had called herself "Anita" for 400+ pages? What the hell was up with this 'ardeur' and why didn't anyone, especially Anita, notice it before? I was supposed to actually believe that Anita, who had taken 5 books to sleep with someone she knew and loved would have sex with some milquetoast guy she had just met? And what was with all the badly written D/s?

I didn't give up hope. Surely things would get better. The Anita I knew had to be in there somewhere.

The next book proved I was hoping in vain. Things just got worse. Anita was firmly on the road to becoming Anita Sue. She was irresistible to men (dead, alive or in between), acquiring handy new super powers right and left and, thanks to the convenient though unbelievable ardeur, having sex with just about every man in her life, singly and in multiples. (But none of them minded sharing because, well, she is just that great!) Where was the character development? Where was the plot? And why were the sex scenes be so badly written?

Upon finishing Cerulean Sins, I knew we'd reached the end. I had to walk away. After ten years, I vowed to never buy another Anita Blake book.

I'm afraid, somewhere deep down, that Dead and Gone, may be another Narcissus in Chains. I really didn't recognize or like the Sookie in this book and that scares me. I really dread another break up.

Hopefully, though, if the worst happens, Charlaine (unlike Laurell) won't try and blame it all on me, claiming I am not sophisticated and intelligent enough to appreciate her. I like my break ups amicable, thank you.