Tag Archives: Anita Blake

WoW: Laurell K. Hamilton

World of Perfume October 22, 2009 Leave a comment

If you’re a fan of kick-ass heroines from vampire/werewolf stories, Anita Blake series is definitely not to be missed. It’s how I got started and hooked. 🙂 The series has progressed to some 17 books or something (I don’t really bother remembering the number, I just check periodically to see if something new is coming out).

As you can probably guess that many books usually mean the quality might be questionable at some point. Well, that guess would be true. The good thing though is that it seems with this last book, Mrs Hamilton is on her way to what we came to expect from Anita Blake. The last book in the series “Skin trade” is finally back on track with some serious problems and typical Anita. Strong in her convictions, constantly questioning the rightness of her choices (which are usually one of lesser evils) and standing firm in the face of danger. But, there are many heroines which come with a sense of humor, if that’s what you are looking for, forget it. Anita is not a light, humorous being. She’s dark (on the outside as well) and ironic as hell. She is also constantly conflicted, due to her strong convictions and Catholic upbringing.

It’s actually interesting to follow the books from the beginning and see how they progresses. If I got it right, Mrs Hamilton wasn’t married at the time she started writing and several books in the beginning have no sex in them. Just some physical attraction, and that’s it. At some point though, sex started appearing in all manner of situations and it almost went into porn category (the quantity and explicitness). It just deteriorated with each following book. Now, there’s still sex but the book is much more story oriented. Thank God. 🙂 And I got the feeling that the original Anita is back. With all her lovers. 😉

It’s funny, there’s one more series written by LKH, the Merry Gentry which revolves around Fae. And again you have there the heroine who without any wish or inclination ends up having a whole bunch of lovers. 🙂

Oh, I almost forgot to say, Anita is not a simple human. She’s a federal marshal hunting vampires, called the Executioner by the vampires, and the strongest Necromancer in the last couple of centuries. 🙂 I’ll keep the rest of what she is to myself, if it sounds interesting give it a try. You’re bound to be frustrated and angry at several points but it’s still dark and interesting.

P.S. It’s evident from what I wrote that I have all the books from both series, right? 🙂

Picture by: http://www.amazon.com/

Stress, books and Etat libre

Uncategorized June 3, 2009 Comments: 3

This has not been a good period for me. I’m not going to go into details, I don’t want to bother you with the bad news I keep getting and the stress I’ve managed to accumulate, but instead I’ll talk a bit about what I do to relieve it.

I already thanked my colleague profusely for giving me the Sookie Stackhouse series to read. I’m already on book 3 and I’m enjoying it terribly much. 🙂 It’s a somewhat lighter and more humoruous version of Anita Blake and something that came at the right moment. Anita Blake is a bit hard to go through because she’s always doubting herself, people around her (mostly boyfriends), her choices, her religion… And meanwhile, she just has a lot of sex. Sookie on the other hand takes what life throws at her with, well, what I suppose is a Southern view of the world. Tries to look at the bright side of life most of the time, when necessary gives in to grief and just enjoys life as much as she can and deals with trouble with a big smile. It’s easy and fun to read and you go through the books quite fast.

Reading is what de-stresses me most. 🙂

Being so deconcentrated these days and very much tired, I don’t feel my nose and brain are up to the task of sniffing efficiently. So, I’m slowly going through my Etat Libre d’Orange samples and finding them nice, fun to read the stories and mostly easy on the nose, although I managed to take out several with the strawberry note and generally of sweet disposition.

Today I tried Jasmine and cigarette and I got a lot of jasmine and it smelled to me like it was mixed with lilly of the valey but that note doesn’t appear on the list (jasmine absolute, tobacco, hay, apricot, tonka bean, curcuma, cedre, ambre, musc). I didn’t get any tobacco or the smell of cigarette and after a while some hay. It smells nice though, I like it – I’ll try and swap for this.

I also tried Delicious closet queen and not reading the story first thought it was feminine so I got a bit surprised with the opening that smelled totally masculine. Well, it all got clear after I read the story for this one. The notes are: violet leaf, iris butter brut, atlas cedre, patchouli, vetiver,, dynamone, rose absolut, irisy strawberry (that’s my translation of original), santal, cuir, tonka bean, opoponax. I don’t know what violet leaf smells like (probably not like violets since I didn’t find any) and I’m not sure what of the listed notes might smell citrusy but I got something of the sort at the beginning and thought there might be some lavender in it but I was wrong. I liked the opening more than the drydown, although it isn’t bad. It’s just, well, sweetish. I don’t know how many of their perfumes feature a strawberry note but to me that smells more like strawberry candy than a real strawberry.

I managed to go through Nombril Intense which starts as a salty-sweaty oriental but quickly loses the belly button opening note. It strikes me as having an old perfume feel to it.

Notes are: patchouli, Peru balm, vetiver, poivre noir absolu, opoponax, bergamote, carrot seed, ambrette grain absolut.

The Vrai blonde made me wonder what exactly do they mean by fine de champagne because I didn’t get anything champagny from it – it smelled sort of florally sweet, slightly powdery and creamy. Nothing spectacular.

Notes: aldehydes, fine de champagne, rose, peach, poivre blanc, myrhhe, patchouli, suede.

Rossy de palma was ok, I thought I didn’t like roses in my perfumes but that is slowly changing. This was a nice green, fresh version of the rose (in my opinion) with a smoky undertone later and some patchouli. It’s actually a wearable rose for me.

Notes: benzoin, patchouli, encens, cacao, rose de Bulgaria.

And the last one for today, Encens and bubblegum is totally true to its name. Although I got less bubblegum than in Charogne (can’t say that’s bad). I’d say it’s a fruity bubblegum.

Notes: peach, strawberry, vanilla, lilly of the valey, fleur d’oranger, musc, essence and resinoide d’encens. It’s totally girlish, as in 12 year old girlish. Fun though. 🙂

So you see, not much from my nose and brain. I do hope that will change soon. Until then, back to Sookie. 🙂