Burnt Offerings is the seventh in Laurell K. Hamilton's genre-straddling Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter series. Anita carries a gun and an attitude: "Questions are great, but only if you know the answers. If you ask questions and the answers surprise you, you look silly. Hard to be threatening when you look ill-informed."

As Burnt Offerings unfolds, Anita agrees to help track down a possible psychic firestarter. She's also policing the local werewolf pack, though she's split up with their alpha, Richard. Then Jean-Claude, the vampire Master of the City and her lover, needs her help to confront a visiting delegation of the vampires' ruling council. They wonder how he got the power to destroy a council member and believe him dangerous to the hierarchy.

This fast-paced, urban fantasy includes gore, hardboiled mystery and a romantic triangle. The vampires and werewolves are as three-dimensional as the human characters, allowing us to join Anita in wondering who the real monsters are and to understand how her increased personal involvement with them is alienating her from her human colleagues. --Nona Vero

From Library Journal
While a pyrokinetic arsonist targets the havens of St. Louis's legal vampire population, Anita BlakeAthe local expert on supernatural creaturesAfinds herself embroiled in a dangerous and deadly game of undead politics in defense of her lover, the city's Master Vampire. The sixth installment of Hamilton's popular "Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter" series exposes the more vulnerable side of its tough-talking, hard-as-nails heroine. Filled with nonstop action, witty dialog, and steamy sex, this title will appeal to fans of Anne Rice and Tanya Huff.Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

When an arsonist's fires begin licking at St. Louis's undead, it's up to Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter to save the very monsters she's sworn to destroy.

Filled with nonstop action, witty dialog, and steamy sex...will appeal to fans of Anne Rice and Tanya Huff. (Library Journal)

FROM THE CRITICS

VOYA - Anne Liebst

Anita Blake is the woman that the vampires call the "Executioner." She is part policewoman, part protector, and part monster. Can she be everything to everybody in a city where vampires, werewolves, and wereleopards roam freely about? Once again, Anita Blake's adventures take her into a world with strange characters, ancient spells, vampires, and the supernatural. Anita is her same old feisty self, ever determined to not let anyone-dead or alive-get the best of her. Sixth in the popular Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter series, this title is missing the wonderful blend of romance, horror, and mystery that is present in the other novels. Burnt Offerings' mixture of genres does not congeal well. Horror abounds in this fast-paced novel; as the city burns around her, Anita must try to stop the torture and rape the Vampire Council inflicts upon her and her friends. Too much happens, making the novel hard to follow, and too many characters seeking revenge on what seems to be everyone makes the novel preternatural. A little less violence and revenge and more romance involving Anita, Jean-Claude, and ex-boyfriend Richard would have made this a much better read. VOYA Codes: 2Q 2P S (Better editing or work by the author might have warranted a 3Q, For the YA with a special interest in the subject, Senior High-defined as grades 10 to 12).

Library Journal