Musette, the representative of Belle Morte, her vessel,
is in town as an ambassador. And she’s three months early.
Normally such an unexpected, uninvited visit would be met
with hostility and a quick boot outside the territory. But Belle Morte is their
Soudre de Sang the head of
Jean-Claude’s line, he owes her fealty and loyalty. It’s a tricky maze of
vampire politics to navigate, especially since Belle is bitter about
Jean-Claude and Asher leaving her and her embassy is determined to be as
difficult and provocative as possible.
Anita also has a police case, a brutal serial killer is
stalking St. Louis. But investigation is stymied by Dolph who is increasingly
losing himself in his hatred of vampires – and anything not entirely human,
including Anita herself.
The international terrorists looking to recruit Anita don’t
exactly simplify matters.
And behind them all is something bigger and darker. The
Mother of All Darkness, the founder of the vampires, their council, their laws,
the oldest and greatest of them is waking up. And she has noticed Anita.
There is quite simply too much going on in this book. Too
many threads, too many fragments of storylines that don’t go anywhere, don’t do
anything which leave the actual 3 storylines: the serial killer, Belle Morte’s
visit and the Mother of All Darkness raising her ugly head.
And they were completely lost by the endless mini-storylines, exposition, excessively long descriptions, unnecessary elements and navel gazing.
Take the plot fragments – I’m actually going to cheat
here since this is a catch up review and I’ve already read all the books to
Book 21 so I’m also going to say which plot fragments never become relevant.
Stephen and Gregory’s abusive father is in town. Relevance?
None. As far as I know he’s still
hanging around in book 21, kicking his heels. It doesn’t even develop
characters because these 2 increasingly fall off the radar.
International terrorists want to recruit Anita for
nefarious schemes. Relevance? None. No, really. Set up this massively juicy
plot point, bring in her FBI guy and all and it’s used in a short story later.
That’s it. There are entire chapters devoted to tracking these guys!
Valentina and Bartolomé have their back stories explained
(at length) and are then hang around forever more. Role the play in future
books? A brief, irrelevant guest appearance by Valentina!
Another major distraction was people losing their shit,
then everyone having to shovel it afterwards. Anita goes to the crime scenes?
ARRGLE RAARGLE! Dolph loses his shit! RAAAWWWRR!!!
Anita having sex?
AARGLE RAARGLE! Asher loses his shit! RAAAWWWRR!!!
Confronting the big bad guys in a scene that could mean
the difference between Belle taking over the city and crushing them under her
thumb?
AARGLE RAARGLE! Richard loses his shit! RAAAWWWRR!!!
Guys, triage. Seriously. If you can’t deal with your
ridiculous shit at least learn to put your shit on hold until after the big bad
has left town. This isn’t even comic. Richard actually confronted the big bad
and asked her to wait until he’d finished his relationship drama. They had a whole damn argument while
Musette/Belle stood and watched.
