Slay by Laurell K. Hamilton (Review by Danielle Urban)

Rating: 3/5 

Laurell K. Hamilton is known for her fabulous writing in the romance fantasy genre. I enjoy her complex characters that do not fit in any one box. The book blurb for this particular novel sounded so amazing that I was like, I have to read this book! Initially, I thought I was getting a spectacular romance with drama, action, and danger. Yet, this book, Slay, is so full of the relationship status quo for the heroine that everything else was just a side piece. The side pieces like danger, building up of the romance, or emotional feelings were dismissed. Instead, we get who is involved in Anita’s life and how they cause her a big headache. Blah, blah, blah…it is all the book was about. Her father and grandmother were the worst headaches to Anita. I like parts of Anita’s character. She was bold in some ways and not so sure of herself the next. Those moments made her relatable and easy to like. However, Anita was involved with too many lovers aka polyamorous. Plus, she had too many family issues with her own kind to deal with that the real dangers were just a forethought. I did not get the imminent peril danger or the buildup of doom nor what is going to happen next feeling. I felt bored with the drama that got old really quick. 

The pros to the novel were the fantasy elements such as vampires and necromancer bits. Holy water can do some major damage. There were scenes that had the potential of making the danger escalate fast and bigger. I liked Nicky more than I did the vampire king, Jean-Claude. The story is about the heroine getting hitched to the vampire king but with threats made, they were stalling until it was safe for Jean-Calude and her family. There are plenty of characters that could have their own stories. Some of them made this book more interesting while most of them just bogged the pacing of the story. Too many characters made it a slower read and less interesting than it could have been. I liked how there were threats that were a lot closer to the characters than they expected. That was well-done. 

Overall, this book has the potential to be amazing! The issues are small-too many characters, too many lovers, and the small danger scenes were treated as if they were not a danger at all. Fix those issues and this book would be way better in my opinion.