Micah (2006)

Synopsis: 'Micah apparently takes place approximately one month after the events of Incubus Dreams. (Tammy Reynolds, one of the characters in the series, is four months pregnant in Incubus Dreams and five months pregnant in Micah).
First, in her role as an animator, Anita must travel to Philadelphia on short notice to substitute for Larry Kirkland, who must remain in St. Louis because of complications in his wife Tammy's pregnancy. Although the assignment—reanimating a recently deceased federal witness in order to testify in an organized crime investigation—initially seems routine, Anita quickly begins to suspect that there is more to the case than she and Larry have been told.
Second, Anita continues to deal with her various personal problems, in this case her relationship with Micah, who accompanies her on the trip. Anita must come to terms with Micah's decision to reserve a nice hotel room for the two of them without telling her, and must help Micah get over two of the defining problems in his life: first, the trauma narrowly surviving a wereleopard attack that left several members of his family dead; and second, the trauma of accidentally harming a previous girlfriend during sex, due to his unusually large penis.
Third, Anita continues wrestle with her recent increase in power, first attempting to deal with the ardeur, a metaphysical effect that causes Anita to need to have sex every few hours, and second, wrestling with the vast increase in her own powers as a necromancer, which are now so powerful that her attempt to raise a single person threatens to raise every corpse in the cemetery. As usual, Anita is able largely to resolve each of these problems by the end of the novella.
The initial plot point—the animation—is not resolved until the very end of the novella. Although Anita initially wrestles with her increase in power, she is ultimately able to confine her power to a single corpse, raising only the witness, Emmett Leroy Rose. However, Anita then learns that although Rose technically died of a heart attack, the heart attack itself occurred after the defense lawyer in the investigation, Arthur Salvia, framed Rose for murder. Rose therefore considers Salvia his murderer and will not rest until he has killed Salvia. In the ensuing fracas, Anita is knocked unconscious, and Salvia is killed.
With regard to Anita's personal problems, she and Micah make some progress. Anita decides to accept that Micah surprised her with the romantic hotel, and listens to him share the traumas of almost being eaten alive by a wereleopard and of being rejected by various women. Anita sympathizes with Micah's survivor's guilt, and, in a conversation very similar to her conversation with Richard in Incubus Dreams, explains to Micah that some women do not like well-endowed men, but other women, such as Anita, do.'
Review: I continue to really like Micah. He's one of the few characters who seems sane and well balanced. ( )

Anita gets one of her infamous early morning calls from her friend and fellow animator, Larry. His pregnant wife is in the hospital so he's unable to complete a contract with the FBI. He needs Anita to do him a solid and cover for him with the feds. It's a pretty simple job, raising a zombie to give testimony in an important trial. The intended zombie hasn't been dead long so it won't be much of a struggle. Micah will go with Anita to make sure she can keep the ardeur fed while on the trip.

The whole thing should be a piece of cake, except, this is the first time she and Micah have gone away together. They've been on dates before, but they haven't been together along for more than a few hours before. Anita is nervous, even scared. Will this trip reveal a weakness in their relationship? Will Micah realize that they don't have much in common and dump her? Oh, and of course things will go wrong in the graveyard as well. Turns out the zombie she raises believes he was murdered and will go berserk trying to attack his killer.

This book is barely a novella. It's essentially a mediocre sex scene and an excuse to give Micah some back story. None of it is particularly unique or illuminating. More trauma. More male insecurities that sound extremely familiar. A lot of these books is starting to feel recycled. ( )

I really loved Laurell K. Hamilton's early Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter series books but I did feel like she lost the thread a bit in the middle of the series. I am glad to say that it seems like she is focusing more on the story line and less on the sex of late which makes the books better in my opinion. I think Anita is a great character and Laurell K. Hamilton can write a great plot but her overly complicated sex scenes can somewhat take away from the book. ( )

I bought a used copy in good shape and it's signed by the author!

I purchased the book sight-unseen. This book was very short, more like a novella. The page count is misleading because the font was rather large and the spacing was wide. Really a cheap shot to those buying the book. Glad I didn't pay full price, but wish I had paid less.

I did enjoy the book. It was more concise. No long rambling passages with Anita boohooing about her powers and her conflicted feelings about the ardeur that she has to feed with sex. Or Richard boohooing about hating being a "monster" and being jealous of Anita's lovers.

This book told us more about Micah's past--what is it with Anita that she's so attracted to broken people. Or Maybe people who were broken and are making the best of things.

This had the supernatural crime that I enjoy. A fairly decent mix of plot and sex. I'm just sorry it was so short and sold as a stand-alone book. ( )

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