Incubus Dreams
This is an odd book. The plot is ok, the emotional investment is extremely well written but all in all, not much happens. There are strippers showing up dead left right and centre and St Louis is not the first city this has happened in. It turns out to have been caused by a Master vampire and his 'kiss' (The term for a collection of vampires in this series is a kiss of vampires) called Vittorio who lost his ability to function fully sexually due to being injured with holy water in the wrong places. This has caused him to become quite insane and choose strippers as his targets because he believes they taunt him. In this book he is portrayed as simply a master Vampire gone slightly insane who's become a serial killer. In later books he is much MUCH more than that.
Anita finally admits to herself that Nathaniel is more important to her than just a member of her were-leopard Pard and food for the ardeur (an ability that feeds off of lust and sex and is a double edged knife). Anita finally admits to herself that she loves Nathaniel and that herself, Nathaniel and Micah are a functioning ménage à trois with Nathaniel as the loving housewife. Almost literally. He keeps the house clean, kitchen stocked, tea set, sugar cubes, baking cookies, and in the end a frilly apron and chain of pearls and everything.
You end up adoring Nathaniel and his pride at being a good hostess (yes hostess not host. Host serves wine and h'ordeuvres. Hostess does freshly baked cookies and tea with a tea set, sugar cubes and cream and jam.)
Anita becomes the master of her own triumvirate, with Nathaniel as her leopard to call and Damian as her vampire servant. It turns out that accidentally doing this has some serious pros and cons.
Cons: If Anita is harmed, becomes unconscious, forgets to eat, forgets to feed the ardeur then she becomes a tired emotional wreck and syphons energy from Damien and Nathaniel, causing Nathaniel to become weak and damn near permanently killing Damian (Nathaniel provides and powers his own heartbeat. Damien does not).
So as we know, Anita is a workaholic who gets confused by questions like "what are your hobbies?". Whilst on a case she is prone to treating her basic bodily needs like food and sleep as being about as far down the list of important things to do to become on par with things like 'take out the trash' and 'mow the lawn'. This means that her nearly killing Damian through negligence becomes a semi-regular occurrence.
Thoughts
The above is pretty much the entirety of the book and I went into more detail than i needed to. Despite the fact that there's not much of anything happening the plot line is good and it is well written in the way that the plot line is well pieced together and you become emotionally invested in Anitas love life (I really did mean it when I said you learn to adore Nathaniel).
I give this book 6.6/10. Outside of forming the triumvirate with Damian and Nathaniel, this book is skippable but it is an enjoyable read.
With this series I apologise for the lack of cat photos, I only own e-book versions of this so screen shots and stuff on pixabay will have to suffice. Due to this series being quite long I apologise but there WILL be spoilers.
To better understand the world of Anita Blake, read my world synopsis here