Bite - Dark Publications

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Editorial Reviews:

Product Description
A never-before-published Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter story from New York Times bestselling author Laurell K. Hamilton. A brand-new story from New York Times bestselling author Charlaine Harris, featuring the much-loved Sookie Stackhouse.

A hot new novella from USA Today bestselling author MaryJanice Davidson, set in the world of Undead and Unwed's Betsy Taylor, the newly, and reluctantly,crowned Vampire Queen.

Introduced in the collection Hot Blooded, and on the heels of the wildly successful Master of the Night, Angela Knight has created a fascinating universe of Arthurian Lore and erotic vampirsim. And a sexy original story from Vickie Taylor, a new addition to Berkley Sensation.

Customer Reviews: Read 48 more reviews...

5 out of 5 stars

Five views of of the vampire life December 29, 2004
124 out of 129 found this review helpful

The five short stories/novellas in this book are all well done. Each represents a different set of expectations concerning vampire lore, and all are entertaining. The only author I was unfamiliar with was Vickie Taylor, whose story "Blood Lust" is a romance set to vampire music. This is a boy loses wrong girl to bad guy, finds right girl, gets right girl, i.e. romance. The only thing I found disconcerting was when the characters uttered typical oaths like "good god" they clearly got a negative physical reaction which implied that they were dammed creatures. The story moved quickly and was funny.

Angela Knight, who writes erotic romances for Red Sage Publishing, has written a cute story set in Arthurian times, with interesting relationships between witches and vampires. Another romance, "Galahad" has a right male vampire and right female witch team, at odds with each other, defeat the bad vampires and unite in spite of mischevious witches and dragons. Cute, fast reading, and lots of graphic sex.

MaryJanice Davidson"s "Biting in Plain Sight" stars a vampire vetrinarian who lives in a small town with a don't ask, don't tell policy. After the death of her long-time human companion, she falls into a relationship with Liam, another mortal who has loved her from a distance for a number of years. She seeks out assistance in stoppping a rogue vampire and Liam goes along with her. We also get another opportunity to see the Vampire Majesties, Betsy Taylor and Eric Sinclair, who first came to our attention in Davidson's 2002 novel Undead and Unwed. This novella is a worth addition to Davidson's vampire writings.

Charlaine Harris gives us another visit with Sookie Stackhouse in "One Word Answer." First brought to us in "Dead Until Dark" and staring in the Southern Vampire Mysteries series, Sookie has the mystery of a dead vampire cousin's death to explain. With snappy dialogue and a few puns, the story moves quickly, and ends well. A well written story.

Finally, Laurell K. Hamilton's "The Girl Who Was Infatuated with Death" is from an earlier period in the Anita Blake series. This strong story, which helps bridge the period between Blue Moon and Obsidian Butterfly, helps us understand the fascination that Anita has for Jean Claude, her vampire lover. The story is about a girl with a fatal illness who wants to become a vampire rather than suffer amputation, and the mother who doesn't want this to happen. Mother hires Anita to find the daughter and stop the process. What the story helps us see is the growing moral ambivalence that Anita has over having a vampire lover, and serves as a good lead to Obsidian Butterfly. A marvelous story, well developed, too short.

Over all, this is an excellent collection of stories, worth every spare reading moment.

4 out of 5 stars

Awesome anthology! December 29, 2004
46 out of 50 found this review helpful

I was excited about reading this anthology. After all, it features stories by Laurell K. Hamilton, Charlaine Harris and MaryJanice Davidson. Those are three of my very favorite sci-fi/fantasy authors. I look forward to reading the next installment of their respective vampire books and I figured Bite would be a nice appetizer before the main course. Even though I was disappointed with the fact that Hamilton and Harris's offerings are short stories instead of novellas, I enjoyed this book to the max. Hamilton's "The Girl Who Was Infatuated with Death" is an Anita Blake story that takes place some time around Blue Moon and Obsidian Butterfly. In other words, it takes place right before the series goes haywire. Anita wants to stop a teenage girl with bone cancer from turning into a vampire. But when Anita asks Jean-Claude to help find the vampire who will do the transition, old feelings and intense sexual tension ensue between them. In Charlaine Harris's "One Word Answer," Sookie Stackhouse discovers that a wayward cousin of hers had turned into a vampire and was recently murdered. In an attempt to offer her condolences, the Vampire Queen of Louisiana bestows a rather interesting favor upon Sookie. Davidson's "Biting in Plain Sight" is a fun novella about a vampire veterinarian who discovers she has a long-time admirer. When she finds out that a rogue vampire is responsible for the deaths of various teenage girls, she asks the Vampire Queen (Undead's Betsy Taylor) for help. Angela Knight's "Galahad" is about a young witch who travels to the world of King Arthur -- only that the people there are vampires. And Vickie Taylor's "Blood Lust" is about a fight over a stolen formula for synthetic blood for vampires.

I loved the stories of Laurell K. Hamilton and Charlaine Harris the most. With Hamilton, it was like going back to the time when the Anita Blake novels were still riveting. This story took place before the ardeur and metaphysical contacts began to monopolize the plot and before Micah and other expendable characters came along. The story, albeit short, was a real treat. And Harris's Sookie Stackhouse story is my favorite one in the book. It tells the reader in various levels that Bill is now just a trusted and reliable friend of Sookie's. There is still some tension there though. After all, he still cares for Sookie and tries to protect her at all cost. MaryJanice Davidson's novella is told in third person and it centers on two new characters, but it was fun to read about Betsy Taylor and friends from other characters' points of view. I am not a big follower of Angela Knight, and Vickie Taylor is unknown to me, but their stories were entertaining. The last three stories center more on romance than anything else. As a whole, Bite is an excellent anthology. Read this if you're a fan of any of the big authors in this offering.

5 out of 5 stars

Great vampire anthology November 30, 2004
21 out of 25 found this review helpful

"The Girl who was Infatuated with Death" by Laurell K. Hamilton. Ms. Rhonda Mackenzie wants vampire executioner Anita Blake to find the vampire that has bitten her daughter two times and kill. If she is bitten three times she will become a vampire which is what she wants because she will lose one leg, perhaps two if she doedn't changes over. Anita asks the master of the city, Jean-Claude if he will help her find the vampire. After not seeing him for a long time because she was learning to control her powers, Anita realizes her feelings for him have not changed.

"One Word Answer" by Charlaine Harris. Telepath Sookie Stackhouse of Bon Temps Louisiana is visited by Mr. Cataliades and Waldo the vampire to inform Sookie that her cousin, a vampire who was staked, left her estate to her cousin. Mr. Cataliades informs Sookie that Waldo killed her because she was the favorite of the queen of New Orleans and he wants Sookie to stake the vampire Sookie doesn't want to but Waldo makes sure that he will not be returned to his queen to be tortured.

"Biting in Plain Sight" by Mary Janice Davidson: In the town of Embarrass, everyone knows that the vet Dr. Sophie Tourneau is a vampire but they ignore that fact because she takes great care of their animals. Liam is in love with her and when she goes out hunting a serial vampire killer, he insists on accompanying her. He tells her how he feels and she takes him to bed and drinks his blood. She cares about him but she's not sure if she is better off without any emotional ties to a mortal. When they go after the vampire killer, Liam impresses Sophie with his actions and his commitment to her.

"Galahad" by Angela Knight. Caroline was turned by a vampire into a witch with magical powers and immortality. She lives in Avalon in the mageverse where vampires and witches form a symbiotic relationship. Witches need their blood drained every few days to lower their blood pressure and vampires have a willing blood source. Caroline has a vision about humans drinking from a cup and turning into vampires who are the antithesis of the undead in the mageverse. Galahad, pure of heart and a vampire is assigned by Morgana Le Fey to work with Caroline to find the threecups and destroy the evil vampires. Along the way fall in love but Galahad fears Caroline won't want him once she learns all the ugly things he had to do to defeat the bad guys.

"Blood lust" by Vickie Taylor. Garth funded Daniel Hart's research into making synthetic blood but stole the formula, Daniel's girlfriend and his house before revealing himself as a vampire. Daniel asks vampire Deadre Blue to turn him a vampire so he can kill Garth, his girlfriend who is now a vampire and then himself. Deadre doesn't want to do it but when he is accidentally killed, she feeds him her blood and he turns into a vampire. Deadre has fallen in love with Daniel and goes with him to fight Garth the enforcer to the High Matron. The synthetic blood make Daniel Garth's equal and their upcoming battle will leave one of them dead.

All five authors have a different take on the vampire mythos but that doesn't mean one story is better than another. This is one of the best vampire romance anthologies ever produced bringing back cult favorites like Anita Blake and Sookie. The stories by the other authors would make a great series..

Harriet Klausner

4 out of 5 stars

GREAT READ, BUT!!! January 3, 2005
15 out of 15 found this review helpful

For the most part I really enjoyed this book. But I have to warn those not familiar with these authors that if you have not read the previous related novels - Hamilton's Anita Blake series, Harris's Sookie Stackhouse vampire novels, Knight's - Knights of the Roundtable series - you are not going to truly understand what is going on. Since I have read them all it is difficult for me to know whether they could possbily stand on their own, but I think not. Hamilton's story was much too short to even be included as part of the anthology and it added nothing to the series. I feel Harris's story was similar in that it didn't add much to Sookie Stackhouse's adventures. On the other hand Knight's Galahad was a new adventure in her Round Table series that I liked very much and the Taylor story was new to me and worked quite well. I don't think it was part of a series, but if it was it certainly stood on its own. I recommend this anthology especially to those readers who know the authors' series. Even those stories that don't add much contain the characters we know and love, so are therefore still fun reads.

1 out of 5 stars

Disappointing Overpriced Sampler Bites January 5, 2005
9 out of 13 found this review helpful

Writers marketing guides will tell you that there is demand for short stories to be packaged as anthologies. I like anthologies where all of the contributions are strong, and varied within the genre. However this anthology doesn't make the grade. Quite frankly I picked up this book on the strength of two of my favorite writers, neither of whom deliver a strong, quality story in this offering. Anita Blake anthology contributions that were not stand alone stories but snippets of the next book to come out have disappointed in the past. Now I'll have to add Sookie Stackhouse to my "beware list." The other stories were either not compelling or different enough to overcome my dismay at the incredibly short, short stories by Laurell K. Hamilton and Charlaine Harris. I can only wonder at the motivation. I recommend that you get this one used at the discount book store or borrow it from your local public library. Trust me, you won't regret NOT having this in your collection.

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