Laurell Kaye Hamilton is an American horror and fantasy writer. She was born in 1963 in Heber Springs, Arkansas, but grew up in Sims, Indiana . Her mother was killed in a car crash in 1969. Today Laurell resides in St. Louis County, Missouri.
Her principal work is the Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter series, published by Penguin Group (USA), originally under their Ace Books imprint and now under Berkley Books. In 2000, she branched out and started the new Merry Gentry series about a fairy princess turned private investigator.
Hamilton's writing is characterized by vivid prose, erotic sensuality, and complex world building. She has gained a certain notoriety for the amount of explicit sex and violence in her novels.
Her writing style is unique enough (and successful enough) that some publishers have begun asking for 'hamilton-esque' writers, something Hamilton herself laments in the hardcover re-release of The Laughing Corpse.
Sex in the Anita Blake Novels
The Anita Blake novels have an explicit sexual content, many of them sadomasochistic in nature. Since vampires and lycanthropes are largely invulnerable and heal very quickly, it leaves them open to explore the more extreme aspects of BDSM. Concepts of slavery are present in the various vampire relationships (servants, renfields, sires, and the like). Anita herself is very dominant and is attracted to other dominants, which complicate things, needless to say. The few submissives in her life confuse her, though she is slowly coming to understand their needs and viewpoint.
Published works
Anita Blake series
- Guilty Pleasures
- Laughing Corpse
- Circus of the Damned
- The Lunatic Cafe
- Bloody Bones
- The Killing Dance
- Burnt Offerings
- Blue Moon
- Obsidian Butterfly
- Narcissus in Chains
- Cerulean Sins
- Incubus Dreams
Meredith Gentry Series
- A Kiss of Shadows
- A Caress of Twilight
- Seduced by Moonlight
- A Stroke Of Midnight
Others
- Nightseer
- Night Shade (ST:TNG No. 24)
- Death of a Darklord (TSR's Ravenloft series)
- Club Vampyre (Science Fiction Book Club Collection from Anita Blake)
- Midnight Cafe (Science Fiction Book Club Collection from Anita Blake, Book 2)
- Black Moon Inn (Science Fiction Book Club Collection from Anita Blake, Book 3)
- Out Of This World (1st 100 pages of Narcissus In Chains)
- Cravings - Anthology 2004
- Bite - anthology 2004
- Dungeons and Dragons 30th Anniversary Book (includes interview with Laurell)
External links
