Guilty Pleasures to be a TV Movie

I have been hoping for a long time that the Anita Blake books would either be made into movies or a tv series, and now my wish has come true.

IFC and Laurell K Hamilton have announced that Guilty Pleasures will be adapted for a TV movie. Production will start this summer. And if the movie is successful, the network plans to adapt more of the books into movies as well.

How exciting! I just hope they do it right and capture what we love from the series. I am very curious to see which actors they choose to play the parts, especially Anita and Jean-Claude. Will they use well known actors or newcomers?

What do you think?

Announcing a Guilty Pleasure

Article by: Colleen Mondor - www.chasingray.com

So in the midst of all my reading and writing about Sylvia Plath and after reviewing Seth Kantner's impressive Ordinary Wolves for Bookslut, along with the very political photojournalism book Unembedded and the very literary collection Writers on the Air, I took a break for a delicious guilty pleasure: A Stroke of Midnight.

That's right, I've been reading Laurell K. Hamilton.

Here's the thing about Laurell K. - she has been writing her Anita Blake Vampire Executioner books for over a decade now and started the Meredith Gentry dark fairy tale series several years ago as well. She gets a ton of flack because a lot of the stuff that goes on in these books is either really really violent or really really sexy. I think I need to emphasize that sexy part - we're talking full on erotica type sexy here. When I worked in a bookstore the employees always had their little jokes about the folks who bought Hamilton's books (or any book with any kind of romance in it that wasn't literary enough to impress them) but I was buying her stuff even then. I think it's great that people in dark leather pants with guns and swords are whacking people's heads off and then getting it on - I can't help it, Laurell K. Hamilon is officially my guilty pleasure!

(Why do I feel like I just stepped out of some sort of closet or something?)

For the record, A Stroke of Midnight has a lot of very interesting fairy politics going on - I think it's one of the stronger entries in the Gentry series and I was probably more hooked on who was plotting to kill who then I was on the sex (shocking - I know!). But there's a good story here, good characters, cool folklore and imaginary world development. It's all very well done. I've been disappointed by the last few Anita Blake books but Hamilton has me back with this one, and hopefully she will get the Anita books back on track (at least to me) as well. Regardless how I feel about them though, she has a ton of fans and the one thing that always bugged me in the bookstore was that somehow these fans are not considered as respectable - or impressive maybe - as, say Michael Ondaatje's or Julian Barnes's. It bothered me then, but weirdly I still feel like I have to justify a Hamilton purchase. It's almost like I feel compelled to tell the clerk (or all of you now) that I also own (and have read) The Seven Pillars of Wisdom or Samantha Powers's A Problem From Hell. I want the world to know that I read Hemingway, and Zora Neale Hurston and I just got Rachel Carson for my birthday. I read books that matter, I swear! I just like the occasional fun, smart, sexy and violent book as well (not that T.E. Lawrence's book wasn't violent as hell - or Powers's as well).

Why do I feel like I have to explain myself? Why can't I just take my reading pleasure where I find it and to hell with everyone else?

You'd think I'd be over the need to impress anyone about books by now but still I can't seem to help it. Here's something funny - all my Hamilton books are behind a framed picture on my bookshelves, and the war books are facing out front and center. I didn't even realize I was doing that when I put everything a way 6 months ago. It's bizarre and embarrassing that I still don't feel grown up enough to "own" my reading choices.

So - it's official - I love Laurell K. Hamilton! I like vampire books! I like fairy books! I like sex!

gulp....I might need to take a break now. I think I have blogged too much........

Colleen Mondor is a reviewer for Booklist, Bookslut, Eclectica Magazine and the Voices of New Orleans. I also write fiction and listen to great music. This site is all about the literary world and my place within it.

Guilty Pleasures

Book 1 of the Anita Blake Vampire Hunter Series

"I don't date vampires. I kill them"

My name is Anita Blake. Vampires call me The Executioner. What I call them isn't repeatable. Ever since the Supreme Court granted the undead equal rights, most people think vampires are just ordinary folks with fangs. I know better. I've seen their victims. I carry the scars.

But now a serial killer is murdering vampires -- and the most powerful bloodsucker in town wants me to find the killer.

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Anita Blake may be small and young, but vampires call her the Executioner. Anita is a necromancer and vampire hunter in a time when vampires are protected by law--as long as they don't get too nasty. Now someone's killing innocent vampires and Anita agrees - with a bit of vampiric arm-twisting - to help figure out who and why.

Trust is a luxury Anita can't afford when her allies aren't human. The city's most powerful vampire, Nikolaos, is 1,000 years old and looks like a 10 year old girl. The second most powerful vampire, Jean-Claude, is interested in more than just Anita's professional talents, but the feisty necromancer isn't playing along - yet. This popular series has a wild energy and humor, and some very appealing characters - both dead and alive.