Crimson Death, the 25th installment of the Anita Blake series, came out in December. I’m usually one of the faithful when I read a series. I have a hard time putting a book down, even if it’s horrible. Any one of my friends can tell you this about me. This part of my personality drives Ross CRAZY. He’s taken books away from me (and hidden them) when I complained but refused to stop reading them. Somewhere in the back of my head, I always think the book can get better.If I just read another chapter, maybe that’s where it gets good. I’ve been disappointed every time, but there’s always hope.

This brings me back to my point. I’ve read all the previous 24 Anita Blake novels. All of them. Within the first week of the release date. I’ve been disappointed A LOT over the last many. There has been so…much…sex. I mean like so much sex in so short a time period that I’m not sure how Anita gets up and walks around. There are only so many orifices and for fuck’s sake, you can’t hit all of them, at one time, four or five times in a 24 hour period and still function or walk properly. Ya just can’t.

Plus, there’s been so much expansion of the “relationships” between Anita and about 15 other people. I don’t care about those other people. I just want some Jean Claude. That’s it. We started the series in Guilty Pleasures with Jean Claude. I’d like to go back to Jean Claude. The glimpses I get of JC are not enough. I miss him.

Below is the blurb from Amazon for Crimson Death:

“Anita has never seen Damian, her vampire servant, in such a state. The rising sun doesn’t usher in the peaceful death that he desperately needs. Instead, he’s being bombarded with violent nightmares and blood sweats.

And now, with Damian at his most vulnerable, Anita needs him the most. The vampire who created him, who subjected him to centuries of torture, might be losing control, allowing rogue vampires to run wild and break one of their kind’s few strict taboos.

Some say love is a great motivator, but hatred gets the job done, too. And when Anita joins forces with her friend Edward to stop the carnage, Damian will be at their side, even if it means traveling back to the land where all his nightmares spring from…a place that couldn’t be less welcoming to a vampire, an assassin, and a necromancer: Ireland.”

The blurb doesn’t sound like there’s any Jean Claude. At. All.

This brings me to my dilemma. I haven’t purchased Crimson Death. However, it is available at the library on audio book. With no wait, I might add. That thing is 24 hours and 12 minutes long which equates to 720 pages. I’m teetering on listening to it, because I have a sickness. But I know:

A) there will be minimal JC, if any.

B) there isn’t that much character development left after 24 books that could justify 720 pages.

C) I don’t want to be sad again after finishing it.

But maybe I won’t be sad, or angry, or let down at the end. Maybe this will be the best of them all.

Help!