I read the first 5-6 Anita Blake novels a while ago and I had to stop and change tracks. Not that I don’t like the books, since I’ve read up to Cerulean Sins now, but I just needed something different. So I did something I try hard not to do and I left Blue Moon in the middle of the book. I think I was just tired of Anita’s quirky sort of self righteousness. She kills monsters, she sleeps with monsters and yet…she hates them.

She’s got several men on the hook and but she can’t decide which one to stick with. I find that a bit selfish, especially when she started out going “no sex EVER” (a now broken rule) and “not human=monsters” (also a now broken rule). She’s got a bazillion rules for a guy who either wants to sleep with her or date her. And some how it is always the man’s fault when he trips up over one of the rules. Which I find unfair. How is a man supposed to know not to do something when you don’t tell him not to?

On the other hand, it is nice to see a competent woman in the main character role. She knows her strengths and her weaknesses. She knows how to kill the bad guys (she is the Executioner after all) and is more than willing to do so. And yet we’ve seen her hurt and squeamish. She isn’t super human. She isn’t vapid. And I like that. It always seems that when the main character is a woman, she’s absolutely clueless as to what she is and/or what’s going on.

So Blue Moon is basically Anita coming to the rescue of her then boyfriend (one of two at the moment) Richard when he gets framed for rape in Tennessee. She has to get him out, face down the local pack and local vamps and figure out why he was framed in the first place. Not bad as a book, good enough for me to read the next book, Obsidian Butterfly.

I really liked Obsidian Butterfly. It features the character Edward (a.k.a.-Death, Ted Forrester). He’s a sociopath bounty hunter who kills exclusively monsters or interesting prey. He has made appearances before and he was Anita’s teacher. I like Edward because I like a lot of the bad guy characters in books and because he’s entertaining in his way. He is what he is and he really doesn’t care what you think of him. But he has a monster program where his alter ego, Ted Forrester, lives in New Mexico. Anita is a monster expert and possibly a friend. I find this one the best I’ve read so far simply because Edward was a main focus.

So all in all, I’d rate Blue Moon about a B- but Obsidian Butterfly an A.