Pregnant with twins, Princess Meredith NicEssus embarks on her biggest battle yet in Laurell K. Hamilton’s Swallowing Darkness.

With impending motherhood, Merry knows the safest thing for her unborn children, her lovers/guards and she is to escape faerie to Los Angeles. After all, her cousin Prince Cel desperately wants her – and her nearest and dearest – dead. Or maybe just maimed.

But escaping safely to the Western Lands means working with humans, who may not be fully aware of the deadly task they face of protecting Merry and her posse. Old wounds will bleed again…

In this hardcover edition of Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter: The First Death, fans will get both issues in the series, as well as the Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter: Guilty Pleasures Handbook. Published by Marvel with a retail price of $19.99, the book is a prequel to Laurell K Hamilton’s best-selling novel Guilty Pleasures, which is the first in the Anita Blake series.

Adapting a comic book from a novel series isn’t an easy thing to do, because of the novel’s rich format, rife with details and setting descriptions. Additionally, the Anita Blake series is told from the first person point-of-view, which can be challenging to display visually in a graphic novel. Stray too far from the point-of-view, and you may encounter oddities–things that the main character (Anita Blake) may be describing but hasn’t seen yet. A nod to the writing team of Laurell K Hamilton and Jonathon Green, each scene was pointed and specific to Anita’s character.

You can outline a story beforehand or write it by the seat of your pants. It’s clear the author wrote Blood Noir the latter way, and not just because I know the backstory. Like Micah, this was originally going to be a novella, until something more developed. And it shows. Not only that, but I would’ve really enjoyed this had it been a novella and not this.

Jason Schuyler has never got along with his father, who is now dying of cancer. But now he has to go home to Asheville and say goodbye. And he’s traumatised enough that he’s bringing Anita Blake with him.

Review by Tez Miller

Since we’ve started posting some teasers for the Hunter: the Vigil RPG this week I figured I would keep up with the theme and post about a few of the other monster hunter items that have caught my eye recently…

Comics, games supplements and fiction make up the mix this week…

Round three of the Flames Rising Flash Fire Mini-Reviews series is here!

This week we’ve got a vampire theme going on with a mix of fiction, comics and games. Some vampire hunters might even make an appearance as well. You can’t have the monsters without giving the heroes a little screen-time too. So, grab your garlic, watch your neck and enjoy!

In this interview we talk to the author about Anita Blake, her Ravenloft novel and the upcoming Dabel Brothers comic book.