While I've heard about the Anita Blake series I've never read any of it before, so thought I'd give it a go, see what all the fuss was about. "Guilty Pleasures" is a quick, easy read. What did impress me was the sense of pre-existing life, as it were - I had to check at several points that GP really was the first book in the series because of all the references to past events. So often characters read like blank slates, as if they only pop into existence at the beginning of the story. I like that there's such a sense of background to the characters, even if it's not yet (if ever?) fully explored.

That being said, though a quick and relatively enjoyable read, this doesn't rise above average for two reasons. First, I figured out whodunnit before Anita did - long before, so she struck me as a trifle thick, to be frank. Secondly, the Big Bad. Interesting character, got taken out far too easily for the threat she appeared to be. That got side-eyed a bit from my side of the page, I can tell you.

Upshot is, I'm interested enough to read the second book, but I hope the heroine is allowed to be more intelligent and her enemies more consistently dangerous.