Author | Laurell K. Hamilton |
---|---|
Cover artist | Craig White (US editions) |
Language | English |
Series | Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter |
Genre | mystery, horror, Erotic novel |
Publisher | Berkley Books (Berkley edition) |
Publication date | 2003 (Berkley edition) |
Publication place | United States |
Media type | Print (Paperback) |
Pages | 405 (Berkley edition) |
ISBN | 0-425-18836-1 (Berkley edition) |
OCLC | 51150692 |
813/.54 21 | |
LC Class | PS3558.A443357 C4 2003 |
Preceded by | Narcissus in Chains |
Followed by | Incubus Dreams |
Cerulean Sins is a horror/mystery/erotica novel by American writer Laurell K. Hamilton, the eleventh book in the Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter.
Cerulean Sins apparently takes place some time after the events of the previous novel, Narcissus in Chains. Anita is happily living with Micah and Nathaniel and dating Micah and Jean-Claude. However, as usual, Anita is confronted by a series of simultaneous problems.
First, she appears to be attracting the attention of a number of spies, including Leo Harlan, a professional assassin who claims to want Anita to reanimate one of his ancestors to assist in genealogical research and two mercenaries who Anita arrests via her Federal Marshal status after noticing them following her.
Second, Jean-Claude is unpleasantly surprised by an early visit from Musette and her entourage, all of whom are representatives of the founder of Jean-Claude's bloodline, Belle Morte and represent an attempt by Belle Morte to test and possibly punish or capture Jean-Claude and his followers.
Third, Anita learns of a series of shockingly brutal rapes and murders, apparently committed by a shapeshifter serial killer. However, because of her deteriorating relationship with Dolph, Anita is unable to get cooperation from the police in solving the crimes.
Anita ultimately learns that the mercenaries have been spying on her to consider recruiting her for a secret mission overseas. As Agent Bradford warned Anita in Obsidian Butterfly, Anita has come to the attention of one or more secret agencies within the US government. Luckily for Anita, at her mentor Marianne's insistence, Anita had stopped using animal sacrifices to raise zombies. Without the additional power granted by an animal sacrifice, Anita's zombies were sufficiently "zombie-looking" to convince the mercenaries that she would not be able to perform the job, arguably validating Marianne's belief that the animal sacrifices would result in bad karma.
When the kidnapping lies, Anita confronts, outmaneuvers, or defeats Belle Morte several times. First, she and Jean-Claude take Asher to their cerulean bed in a menage a trois, making Asher their lover and therefore immune to most of Belle Morte's advances. Second, Anita, with help from Richard, Jean-Claude, and her wereleopards, is able to block Belle Morte's attempts to make Anita her human servant. Third, Anita is ultimately able to trap Musette in their game of courtly politics, proving that Belle Morte and her proxy Musette has violated the terms of her invitation and forcing Musette and her people to leave.
More alarmingly, Anita begins to believe that Belle Morte is planning a war against the Mother of Darkness, the oldest and most powerful of the world's vampires. Although Anita and Jean-Claude do their best to avoid that conflict, the Mother of Darkness is beginning to awaken from a millennia-long sleep, and seems interested in Anita. Finally, Anita helps Zerbrowski track down the shapeshifting serial killer, who turns out to be a werewolf member of the mercenary team sent to observe Anita herself. After a confrontation in which several police officers are killed, Anita tracks down the werewolf a second time and executes him.
In the epilogue, Anita explains that she is continuing to date Micah and Jean-Claude, and that she has also added Asher to her list of lovers. She and Richard are still broken up, but Richard appears to be overcoming his death wish. Two of Belle Morte's vampires have received permission to remain in St. Louis, both to repair the damage done by their visit and to attempt to stay out of the way of any conflict between Belle Morte and the Mother of Darkness.
Cerulean Sins features the following major characters.
Recurring characters include:
Non-recurring characters include: Two werewolves that were used to track the rapist who was an alpha werewolf from a different country.
The death toll in Cerulean Sins includes: Four murder victims, three women and one man. The man was running from something and his death was a message for others who had tried to hide. The other three were unrelated but by the same bad guy who died in the end after Anita received an execution order for him. He had slaughtered the three women, reduced them to handfuls of meat and other body parts, essentially painting the wall with their blood. (2 police officers also die while trying to apprehend the suspect)
Power struggles are central to this novel, and at this point Anita has become an equal power to the Vampire Council, as discussed in a comparison of the series to Buffy the Vampire Slayer by media scholar Kevin Durand. [1] Durand argues that the power imbalance between men and women in earlier novels, where Anita is still gaining new powers and learning to deal with new responsibilities, is now equalised. [1]
Anita Blake is the title and viewpoint character of the Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter series by Laurell K. Hamilton. The series takes place in a parallel world in which supernatural characters like vampires and werewolves exist alongside regular humans, with Blake's jobs including the re-animation of the dead as well as the hunting and executing of supernatural creatures that have broken the law. Hamilton stated that she created the character after perceiving a gender inequality in detective fiction, with female characters rarely getting the same treatment as male heroes of the genre.
The Laughing Corpse is a horror/mystery novel by American writer Laurell K. Hamilton, the second book in her Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter series. It continues the adventures of Anita Blake, as she attempts to solve a particularly grisly set of murders, while simultaneously avoiding two potential threats to her life from people interested in using her talents as a zombie animator. Meanwhile, Anita continues to attempt to come to grips with her powers and her relationship with Jean-Claude, the vampire master of St. Louis and Anita's would be lover/master.
Circus of the Damned is a horror/mystery novel by American writer Laurell K. Hamilton, the third book in her Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter series. Within the novel, the "Circus of the Damned" is the name of a supernatural circus that operated by Jean-Claude and serves as one of the main locations within the book. Hamilton employed the practice of titling the novels after a location within each novel for most of the books in the series.
Bloody Bones is a horror/mystery novel by American writer Laurell K. Hamilton, the fifth book in the Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter series.
The Killing Dance is a horror/mystery novel by American writer Laurell K. Hamilton, the sixth book in the Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter series.
Burnt Offerings is the seventh in the Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter series of horror/mystery/erotica novels by Laurell K. Hamilton.
Blue Moon is the eighth in the Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter series of horror/mystery/erotica novels by Laurell K. Hamilton.
Narcissus in Chains is the tenth book in the Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter series of horror/mystery/erotica novels by Laurell K. Hamilton.
Incubus Dreams is a horror/mystery/erotica novel by American writer Laurell K. Hamilton, the twelfth book in the Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter series.
Micah is a horror/mystery/erotica novel by American writer Laurell K. Hamilton, the thirteenth book in the Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter series.
Danse Macabre is a horror/mystery/erotica novel by American writer Laurell K. Hamilton, the fourteenth book in the Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter series.
Richard Alaric Zeeman is a fictional character in the Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter series of novels by Laurell K. Hamilton.
This is an alphabetical listing of members of the Vampire Council and their followers in Laurell K. Hamilton's Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter series of novels.
Asher is a fictional character in Laurell K. Hamilton's Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter series of novels. Asher is a Master Vampire, and the lover of Jean-Claude and Anita Blake.
The Harlequin is the fifteenth book in the Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter series of horror/mystery/erotica novels by Laurell K. Hamilton; it was released June 5, 2007.
Blood Noir is the sixteenth book in the Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter series of horror/mystery/erotica novels by Laurell K. Hamilton.
Flirt is a 2010 New York Times bestselling erotic thriller by novelist Laurell K. Hamilton. The novella was published on February 2, 2010, by Berkley Hardcover and is the eighteenth book in the Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter series. The afterword of Flirt contains several pages of discussion about Hamilton's inspiration for the novella as well as a comic by Jennie Breeden.
Bullet is the nineteenth book in the Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter series of horror/mystery/erotica novels by Laurell K. Hamilton. It debuted at #2 on The New York Times Best Seller list for Hardcover Fiction.
Affliction is a 2013 urban fantasy novel by American writer Laurell K. Hamilton, the 22nd book in the Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter series. The novel follows Anita Blake and her various lovers as she travels to Colorado and works to uncover a series of murders and infections involving flesh-eating zombies.