New Releases by Laurell K. Hamilton

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • Meet Merry Gentry, paranormal P.I., and enter a thrilling, sensual world as dangerous as it is beautiful, full of earthly pleasures and dazzling magic, and ruled by the all-consuming passions of immortal beings once worshipped as gods . . . or demons. “I’ve never read a writer with a more fertile imagination.”—Diana Gabaldon Merry Gentry, princess of the high court of Faerie, is posing as a human in Los Angeles, working as a private investigator specializing in supernatural crime. But now the queen’s assassin has been dispatched to fetch her—whether she likes it or not. Suddenly Merry finds herself a pawn in her dreaded aunt’s plans. The job that awaits her: enjoy the constant company of the most beautiful immortal men in the world. The reward: the crown—and the opportunity to continue to live. The penalty for failure: death.

Vampire hunter Anita Blake has always managed to overcome everything she faces. But this time there’s a monster that even she doesn’t know how to fight... A remote Florida island is the perfect wedding destination for the upcoming nuptials of Anita’s fellow U.S. Marshal and best friend, Edward. For Anita, the vacation is a welcome break, as it’s the first trip she gets to take with just wereleopards Micah and Nathaniel. But it’s not all fun and games and bachelor parties… In this tropical paradise, Micah discovers a horrific new form of lycanthropy, one that has afflicted a single family for generations. Believed to be the result of an ancient Greek curse, it turns human bodies into a mass of snakes. When long-simmering resentment leads to a big blow-up within the wedding party, the last thing Anita needs is more drama. But it finds her anyway when women start disappearing from the hotel, and worse, her own friends and lovers are considered the prime suspects. There’s a strange power afoot that Anita has never confronted before, a force that’s rendering those around her helpless. Unable to face it on her own, Anita is willing to accept help from even the deadliest places. Help that she will most certainly regret—if she survives at all, that is…

Vampire hunter Anita Blake leaps into uncharted territory in the all-new novella from #1 New York Times bestselling author Laurell K. Hamilton. For most people, summer barbecues are nothing to be afraid of. But Anita isn’t exactly plain vanilla—and neither is her love life. So it takes a special kind of courage to attend a barbecue thrown by her friend Sergeant Zerbrowski. Walking into a backyard full of cops and their families with wereleopards Micah and Nathaniel both looking gorgeous on her arm won’t be easy, even with almost-four-year-old Matthew Vespucci to break the ice… Anita is determined to have a good time with her family, just like everyone else. But it doesn’t take long for tensions to rise among the adults and kids. And Anita will learn that gossip and innuendo can be just as dangerous as anything the undead can throw at her… Includes a preview of Affliction, the new Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter novel “Hamilton remains one of the most inventive and exciting writers in the paranormal field.”—Charlaine Harris, #1 New York Times Bestselling Author “Long before Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight series and Charlaine Harris’s Sookie Stackhouse novels, [there was] sexy, strong-willed vampire hunter Anita Blake.”—USA Today “Laurell K. Hamilton is the reigning queen of the urban fantasy world.”—Midwest Book Review Laurell K. Hamilton is a full-time writer. She lives in a suburb of St. Louis with her family.

Micah’s estranged father lies dying, rotting away inside from some strange ailment that has his doctors whispering about “zombie disease.” Anita Blake makes her living off of zombies—but these aren’t the kind she knows so well. These creatures hunt in daylight, and are as fast and strong as vampires. If they bite you, you become just like them. And round and round it goes…Where will it stop? Even Anita Blake doesn’t know.

The adventures of U.S. Marshal and vampire hunter Anita Blake continue when word is leaked to her that hit men are headed to St. Louis and that she, Jean-Claude, and Richard are targets.

Watch a video The music came back up and the next group of little girls, slightly older, came out. There was a lot of that in the next hour and change. I liked dance, and it was no reflection on the kids, but my will to live began to seep away on about the fifth group of sequined children... Anita Blake is back in St. Louis and trying to live a normal life-as normal as possible for someone who is a legal vampire executioner and a U. S. Marshal. There are lovers, friends and their children, school programs to attend. In the midst of all the ordinary happiness a vampire from Anita''s past reaches out. She was supposed to be dead, killed in an explosion, but the Mother of All Darkness is the first vampire, their dark creator. It''s hard to kill a god. This dark goddess has reached out to her here-in St. Louis, home of everyone Anita loves most. The Mother of All Darkness has decided she has to act now or never, to control Anita, and all the vampires in America. The Mother of All Darkness believes that the triumvirate created by master vampire Jean-Claude with Anita and the werewolf Richard Zeeman has enough power for her to regain a body and to immigrate to the New World. But the body she wants to possess is already taken. Anita is about to learn a whole new meaning to sharing her body, one that has nothing to do with the bedroom. And if the Mother of All Darkness can''t succeed in taking over Anita''s body for herself, she means to see that no one else has the use of it, ever again. Even Belle Morte, not always a friend to Anita, has sent word: "Run if you can..."

Anita Blake has been asked to raise the dead-but the results aren''t going to make everybody happy...

You may know me best as Meredith Nic Essus, princess of faerie. Or perhaps as Merry Gentry, Los Angeles private eye. To protect my unborn children, I have turned my back on the crown, choosing exile in the human world with my beloved Frost and Darkness. Yet I cannot abandon my people. Someone is killing the fey, which has left the LAPD baffled and my guardsmen and me deeply disturbed. I thought I’d left the blood and politics behind in my own turbulent realm. But now I realize that evil knows no borders, and that nobody lives forever—even if they’re magical.

When a vampire serial killer sends Anita Blake a grisly souvenir from Las Vegas, she has to warn Sin City''s authorities what they''re dealing with. Only it''s worse than she thinks, in the latest work in the bestselling Vampire Hunter series.

A favor for a friend puts Anita Blake in the center of a full-blown scandal that threatens master vampire Jean- Claude''s reign-and makes her a pawn in an ancient vampire queen''s new rise to power.

Into Anita Blake''s world-a world already overflowing with power-come creatures so feared that centuries-old vampires refuse to mention their names.

First time in trade paperback: the fourth novel in the #1 New York Times bestselling series. Vampire hunter and zombie animator Anita Blake is an expert at sniffing out the bad from the good. But in The Lunatic Cafe-now in trade paperback for the first time-she''s about to learn that nothing is ever as it seems, especially in matters of the not-so-human heart. Dating a werewolf with self-esteem issues is stressing Anita out. Especially when something-or someone-starts taking out the city''s shapeshifters.

I am Meredith Gentry, princess and heir apparent to the throne in the realm of faerie, onetime private investigator in the mortal world. To be crowned queen, I must first continue the royal bloodline and give birth to an heir of my own. If I fail, my aunt, Queen Andais, will be free to do what she most desires: install her twisted son, Cel, as monarch . . . and kill me. My royal guards surround me, and my best loved–my Darkness and my Killing Frost–are always beside me, sworn to protect and make love to me. But still the threat grows greater. For despite all my carnal efforts, I remain childless, while the machinations of my sinister, sadistic Queen and her confederates remain tireless. So my bodyguards and I have slipped back into Los Angeles, hoping to outrun the gathering shadows of court intrigue. But even exile isn’t enough to escape the grasp of those with dark designs. Now King Taranis, powerful and vainglorious ruler of faerie’s Seelie Court, has leveled accusations against my noble guards of a heinous crime–and has gone so far as to ask the mortal authorities to prosecute. If he succeeds, my men face extradition to faerie and the hideous penalties that await them there. But I know that Taranis’s charges are baseless, and I sense that his true target is me. He tried to kill me when I was a child. Now I fear his intentions are far more terrifying.

In the thralls of supernatural passion, Anita Blake faces a most human dilemma.

The #1 New York Times bestselling author''s short story collection-including an all-new Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter story-now in paperback. From a woman who marries into a family of volatile wizards to a couple fleeing a gang of love-hungry cupids, from a girl who seeks sanctuary in the form of a graceful goose to the disgruntled superhero Captain Housework, readers will revel in the many twists and turns of fortune in these fantastical fairy tales and lush parables. Even hardened vampire hunter and zombie animator Anita Blake gets blindsided by the disturbing motives of her clients in the new "Those Who Seek Forgiveness" and in "The Girl Who Was Infatuated with Death."

Vampire hunter Anita Blake is called on to raise the dead-while trying to suppress her ever-growing feelings for a certain wereleopard.

There are lots of reasons to raise the dead-some private, some public. In this case, the feds have a witness who died before he could speak on the record. They want him raised so his testimony can be taken. So here I am, on a plane to Philadelphia, flying off to do my job. But I''m not alone. Micah is with me. Micah, head of the St. Louis wereleopard pard. King to my Queen. The only one of my lovers who can stir my blood with just a glance from his chartreuse cat''s eyes. I was happy to have him at my side. Until he mentioned that this will be our first time alone together. No Master Vampire. No Alpha Werewolf. Just me and Micah. And all my fears and doubts...

“Nonstop action . . . This book will leave you breathless.”—St. Louis Post-Dispatch “I’ve never read a writer with a more fertile imagination.”—DIANA GABALDON How much of my human side will I have to give up, and how much of the sinister side of faerie will I have to embrace? To sit on a throne that has ruled through bloodshed for centuries, I might have to become that which I dread the most. In Los Angeles she is Meredith Gentry, private investigator. In the faraway world of the faerie she is Princess Meredith, heir to a dark throne. In this realm of peril and deception, adversaries watch her every move, while the enemies of her aunt, the queen, lay in wait to usurp power. For the first time in history, human police will enter faerie—and Meredith will need all her allies when fate leads her into the arms of Mistral, Master of Storms, the queen’s new captain of the guard. Their passion will awaken powers long forgotten among the warriors of the court—and as Meredith’s enemies gather, both courts of faerie will face dire threat.

From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of A Stroke of Midnight comes “[a] sexy, tension-charged dark fantasy mystery" (Locus). “I’ve never read a writer with a more fertile imagination.”—Diana Gabaldon “I am Princess Meredith, heir to a throne—if I can stay alive long enough to claim it.” After eluding relentless assassination attempts by Prince Cel, her cousin and rival for the Faerie crown, Meredith Gentry, Los Angeles private eye, has a whole new set of problems. To become queen, she must bear a child before Cel can father one of his own. But havoc lies on the horizon: people are dying in mysterious, frightening ways, and suddenly the very existence of the place known as Faerie is at grave risk. So now, while she enjoys the greatest pleasures of her life attempting to conceive a baby with the warriors of her royal guard, she must fend off an ancient evil that could destroy the very fabric of reality. And that’s just her day job. . . .

Merry Gentry is ordered by her aunt, the Queen of Air and Darkness, to produce an heir to the throne of the Unseelie Court, but her enemies are intent on stopping her.

Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter, is not quite as human as she once was. Consumed by both the lusts of the vampire and the primal hungers of the wereleopards, her desires must be sated. But it is Jean-Claude, the Master Vampire, who needs her now. When she is asked to reanimate the body of a long-dead corpse, it seems like just another case to Anita. What she will soon discover is that the corpse may hold the secret to an ancient crime that not everyone wants to be remembered ... In the pulse-pounding new story of suspense and sensuality, Anita will need to muster all the dark forces of her passion if she is to save the ones she loves the most. Find out more about this title and others at www.orbitbooks.co.uk

For the first time in trade paperback: the fifth novel in the #1 New York Times bestselling series from Laurell K. Hamilton. When Branson, Missouri, is hit with a death wave ''four unsolved murders'' it doesn''t take an expert to realize that all is not well. But luckily for the locals, Anita Blake is an expert in the kinds of preternatural goings-on that have everyone spooked. And she''s got an ''in'' with the creature that can make sense of the slayings-the sexy master vampire known as Jean-Claude.

Anita Blake is a vampire hunter. But when someone else sets his sights on her prey, she must save them both from the inferno.

Unable to forget her fiance, whom she had left when she could not reconcile herself to his werewolf nature, vampire hunter Anita Blake seeks to prove his innocence when he is falsely accused of rape

In her tenth adventure, nothing can save vampire hunter Anita Blake from a twist of fate that draws her ever closer to the brink of humanity.

In the sixth adventure in the #1 New York Times bestselling series, Anita Blake’s unique skills make her a wanted woman—by vampire, by werewolf, and by a hit man... Though she’s dating a vampire and a werewolf, Anita is keeping them at arm’s length. Which isn’t easy considering that Jean-Claude is the master vampire of St. Louis and Richard Zeeman is the sexiest junior high school teacher she’s ever seen. Just to complicate Anita’s already messy life, someone has put a price on her head. Love cannot save her this time, so she turns to Edward, hit man extraordinaire for help. But finding the person behind it won’t be easy, because she’s made a lot of enemies—human and otherwise.