When a powerful centuries-old vampire hits Anita Blake's town, a battle of the undead ensues.

Magician Gilbert Blake has spent his entire life conning drunkards in the seediest pubs in the darkest towns, careful to hide the true depths of his power. But when he spends a little too much time in Shadowsea and the infamous slumlord Count Reuben gets wind of his abilities, hiding within the Circus of the Damned may be Gilbert's only chance at survival. But there's more to the Circus than meets the eye. Every time a performer dies, a new one must take his place, or the entire circus suffers the consequences. And while the handsome ringmaster Jesse isn't one to coerce unwilling performers into giving up their souls to the devil, a recent death in their ranks makes Gilbert exactly what they need. Yet the longer Gilbert stays with the Circus, the more danger he seems to bring them. Being with Jesse is more than Gilbert could have hoped for, but as Count Reuben's men continue to search for Gilbert and the Circus loses another performer, they all face running out of time long before the Devil claims his due.

Meet Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter, in the first novel in the #1 New York Times bestselling series that “blends the genres of romance, horror and adventure with stunning panache”(Diana Gabaldon). Laurell K. Hamilton’s bestselling series has captured readers’ wildest imaginations and addicted them to a seductive world where supernatural hungers collide with the desires of the human heart, starring a heroine like no other... Anita Blake is small, dark, and dangerous. Her turf is the city of St. Louis. Her job: re-animating the dead and killing the undead who take things too far. But when the city’s most powerful vampire asks her to solve a series of vicious slayings, Anita must confront her greatest fear—her undeniable attraction to master vampire Jean-Claude, one of the creatures she is sworn to destroy... “What The Da Vinci Code did for the religious thriller, the Anita Blake series has done for the vampire novel.”—USA Today

BEST-SELLING AUTHOR LAURELL K. HAMILTON'S FAN-FAVORITE VAMPIRE HUNTER RETURNS! Anita Blake walked away from her last case with more than a few bruises - but those wounds are nothing compared to the scrapes that lie ahead in this blood-soaked adaptation of Hamilton's third erotic thriller. To find a killer targeting the undead, Anita must descend into the dangerous, supernatural demimonde operated by the master vampire Jean-Claude. It will take all of Anita's wits to survive THE CIRCUS OF THE DAMNED!

As Fran travels around Europe with the GothFaire, she has to deal with hundred-year-old ghosts, a paranoid mother, and the rules of dating one of the undead.

Anita Blake is worried that her careers as a Federal Marshal who raises the dead and as a vampire executioner may be jeopardized when she realizes that she may be pregnant--and the father could be a vampire, a werewolf, or someone else entirely. 300,000 first printing.

Anita Blake is a vampire hunter. But when someone else sets his sights on her prey, she must save them both from the inferno.