A regular Anita Blake novel.
I have been reading these books for more than half my life and I will props continue to do so forever.

I love Anita and the gang and Laurell K Hamilton never really misses for me.

Despite being a 600 page book, this felt like a fast read for me.
Sucker Punch is a diversion from what the newer Anita Blake books have become, and was surprising because of that, but it wasn't a bad thing. More of a mystery reminiscent of the earlier books in the series, this book is much less adult and sexual than the series has tended to become.
I enjoyed the throwback to the earlier books, and found the story enjoyable, but not incredible.
A solid read in a long running series, which fans are likely to enjoy, and those who have taken a step back due to the adult nature of the later books might enjoy coming back to.

United States Marshals, Preternatural Branch, we kill monsters! Anita Blake is called in to execute a death warrant on Bobby a were-leopard who is accused of killing his Uncle. Time starts running out to prove his innocence amongst overwhelming evidence. Most of Anita’s coalition of supernaturals turn up to protect her. She is in a Poly group relationship with most of them but is having problems with her inner beasts attraction to Olaf a fellow Marshal and serial killer. This is my first taste of a long running series Anita is an engaging character that you can relate to with her inner struggle to have to execute a fellow were-leopard. She is walking a tightrope between the world of supernaturals who many humans think of as monsters and her job as a executioner for the State Marshals.
I voluntarily read and reviewed an Advance copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

It's been a while since I last read an Anita Blake book and this was a bit more in the same veins as the earlier books I suppose - more action, less multiple sex scenes. It was ok, but for a 600+ page book, there was a lot of not very much happening a lot of the time.

Anita is called in to help a fellow Marshall from the preternatural branch in a case that on the outside looks like a straight forward shapeshifter killing, but the evidence points to something else. Working alongside Winston Newman (who I guess appeared somewhere in a previous book - I may not have read that one!), she finds the local cops are not as helpful as she wants them to be.

Eventually Olaf aka Otto Jeffries and Edward, Ted, Forrester appear. Then loads of the Coalition turn up, many of whom are Anita's lovers and I expected there to be many sex scenes with all these around, but there wasn't. There was one incident with another girl when the ardeur kicked in for Anita, but that was it.

Most of the non-crime talk surrounded Anita and her possible dating/sex exploits with Olaf, the serial killer. I just don't understand why she was stringing him along when she had no intention of sleeping with him, regardless of how much he was trying. If you don't want to sleep with someone tell them. Yes this one is a scary badass, but being engaged to the Master Vampire of the City with multiple animals to call and bodyguards to protect her along with Ted himself, surely Anita and co could have taken him out if he got violent when she rejected him. I just thought all the talk about her sex life with all her various partners was pretty pointless - maybe that was the only way to get the sex in without there being actual sex scenes!

I can't say I have missed this series as much as I thought I would have done as the first 12-13 books or so were once favourites of mine, but this one just didn't excite me that much and I think it could have been written in a lot less pages and then it wouldn't have taken me 8 days to get through! I was definitely hoping for better, but maybe that's all we'll get for now - an average crime solving story, with lots of talk about sex!

I received this book from Netgalley, but this review is all my own opinion!

I wanted to like the latest Anita Blake novel but I couldn't. I was hoping that this would be more like the earlier novels in the series. I felt that the earlier novels were a good mix of mystery, relationship drama and character development but the ones directly preceding Sucker Punch had too much relationship discussion, (I hesitate to even call it drama since frankly it was boring) but Sucker Punch went too much the other way, it was Anita, Edward and Olaf doing Marshall stuff and no Jean-Claude or the others. The actual mystery element didn't do it for me either, it wasn't compelling, no unexpected twists. I really used to love this series, I can't count how many times I've re-read Obsidian Butterfly and the Skin Trade but Sucker Punch just didn't do it for me.

It's nice to have Anita working a case and not engaging in so much OTTP sexy times. It was good to explore more of Blake's world instead of just her relationships and get more of a plot in a book.
Unfortunately, the amount of relationships Anita has makes it difficult for me to connect with all of the characters and Anita herself tends to be quite frustrating. Her books are always entertaining to a degree but have become more tedious to read.

I received a copy of this book to review from Netgalley. Thank you for the opportunity.
This book has an interesting premise and some good writing. The pace is reasonable and prevents any lagging of the story.
However, at times the story becomes too scripted and predictable with little character development. I would have liked more lighthearted sections to add variety to the book and for the author to flesh out the world building more.
On the whole, an OK book.

Sucker Punch returns Anita Blake, back to her marshal roots as she is roped into another case.



I was fascinated with the case and the lack of rights Were have in America. The way that they are guilty before being proved innocent. I am wondering if this will be looked into more in the following books.

This book is more about Anita work-life than love life. (Although elements of her love life are mentioned.) The plot/ case that Anita is working I found interesting, I had guessed certain aspects. But other elements did catch me off guard. My favourite aspect of the case was them figuring out fact from fiction.

Otto makes an appearance in Sucker Punch, this part of the story I wasn't as fussed about. His obsession with Anita, although he is trying. I feel like there is only going to be one ending for this plotline. I am not that interested / connected to it.

The pacing of Sucker Punch is medium/ fast, there is always something interesting happening. It didn't lag so I had no problem picking it up and reading it for a couple of hours.

I did miss some of Anita normal group of people, but it was nice to have a limited smut book.



My rating for Sucker Punch is 4 out of 5.



Thanks to Netgalley and Headline for gifting me an ebook copy of Sucker Punch for a fair and honest review.

I have read all of the Anita Blake series and I absolutely loved them, this one didn't fail to excite and entertain me. I felt like it could've done with having scenes with some more of her romantic partners (Jean Claude, Micca and Nathaniel spring to mind) but it went back to the earlier books in the series, that focused on her solving crimes and hunting monsters, which I really enjoyed.

I liked that Hamilton threw you so many plausible suspects but then threw you for a loop on who had done it. It was interesting to see a different side of Olaf and I am eagerly waiting to see how that relationship (loosely using this term) pans out and if it will actually involve murder.

Overall a very thrilling and enjoyable read

I have loved this series for years and I am sad to say I am losing my love for this, I hoped this book may improve and Laurell reduced/took away mist the sex but it just wasn’t enough to save this series sadly. It disappoints me that a once great series has come to a book when I’m reading I just want to put down and I’m not interested in anymore, sadly I think I need to retire Anita in my memory and remember the good old days.

Thanks to netgalley and the publisher for a free copy for an honest opinion

Warning : strong language 😅🙈

Anita can't say No to anybody who wants to have sex with her.
The more i think about it, the more i realise that so many of her relationships have started because she simply wouldn't say no even tho she wanted to. Which makes me consider how many of her relationships are truly consensual.

For example, the only reason she got with Jean-Claude is because he was like: "if you're dating Richard, you can date me as well, ma petite, I'm your master... Ish" and so, she did even tho she didnt want to in the beginning. Jean-Claude was persuing her from the very first book, before she even saw vamps as beings with feelings or cretaures worthy of love, especially hers bc she's holier than thou and not like other girls.

Actually, I'll sidetrack for a bit and say that her not having any girl friends always bothered me and the one she did have in the earlier books got jealous of all the pretty men around anita.

The first time she met Micah they had sex and I've read on LKH's blog that many people have actually raised the issue of how questionably consensual that relationship was, to the point where she had to edit the next printing to include a "yes" line but she's also said that not all the copies have it. So, depending on the copy you have, you either have a consensual sex scene or a rapey one.

Anita didn't want to have sex with Nathaniel for a long time because of their age gap. I think that the only reason they actually ended up having sex in the first place was because they conveniently had to feed the ardeur.

Actually, i believe LKH uses the ardeur as an excuse. I know she's written about consent and who wants to be "food" and who doesn't but the fact is that we've had a lot of dubious scenes before and it would always be Anita's fault for not feeding herself properly (normal food i mean) or resting.

I don't even remember most of her other guy's names to give examples with them but the most recent one is Damien who is straight and that scene with him, Nathaniel and Anita when Nathaniel basically mind-fucked and literally fucked them both without consent. And suddenly Damien became bi.

And now we have Olaf who Anita either considers killing or fucking. LKH has always said that she feels uncomfortable when readers shil olaf and anita and yet... That's what she writes. Idk of she's doing fan-service or what anymore.
And anita and olaf have conversations about consent, which is good but whenever he does something good... Ish, she feels obliged to try dating him even tho she doesn't want to and while i understand this kind of feeling, if you don't wanna do it, don't. She is usually surrounded by a bunch of guards, so you can't tell me that all of them buff teriantropes (or whatever the new terminology is) can't protect her and her loved ones from Olaf if he came after them

Also, something that got me very annoyed in the beginning was how she complained that Nathaniel's reminder to call him was him nagging her... When she's known to forget that when she's deep into work. She said it felt like a chore. Well, i think that when your relationship feels like a chore, it's a sign that you have to end it and Nathaniel has been a way bigger drama queen than usual so I'd get it, but that text message wasn't nagging but a kind reminder from the person who loves her 🤷🏻‍♀️

I can't really talk much about the plot bc i skimmed the majority of it and compared to other times it was so so boring. To me it looks like in this book LKH tried to do everything that fans have been asking her to for years all at once - less sex, so there's none, more olaf, so there's a lot from him and more edward, so more of that. But i think that in her effort to satisfy everybody she kimd of failed...

There are also other problematic things I've noticed in the books as of late but i simply don't want to get into them. It saddens me that after loving this series for such a long time, I've finally started to see all its flaws.

I'd also leave this review unrated bc I more or less dnfed this but i have to give it a rating for NetGalley.

I'm grateful for the eARC provided by NetGalley.
and the publisher.