Anita Blake, vampire hunter, has dealt with - and destroyed - a lot of monsters, but her old mentor, Edward, may be worse than any of them. Edward's got problems and he needs Anita's help.

Returning to St. Louis after a tough case in New Mexico, work is the last thing that Anita Blake, vampire hunter, wants to think about. But when a wereleopard is abducted from a seedy club, Anita is once more plunged into the dark world of crime.

When the police draft in Anita Blake to help solve a particularly grisly case, she will need to call on all her famous toughness. However, with clients clamouring for her to raise more dead and the partly human clamouring for her affections it seems unlikely she will get time to dwell on it.

Anita Blake, preternatural expert and feared executioner, is less interested in vampire politics than in the ancient, ordinary dread that women down the ages have experienced: am I pregnant? And, if so, is the father a vampire, a werewolf or someone else entirely?

The first warning is unexpected and calculated. Malcolm, head of the vampire Church of Eternal Life, is no friend to Anita Blake. So when he asks for her help against creatures so feared that no vampire will willingly speak their name, Anita is surprised. But the Harlequin require different rules.

Jason is a werewolf. He's also one of Anita Blake's best friends and sometimes her lover. And right now he needs her - not to be a vampire hunter, or a federal marshal, or a necromancer. Because his father is dying he wants Anita to make him look like an everyday guy, helping him say good-bye to the abusive father he never loved.

When Anita Blake meets with prospective client Tony Bennington, who is desperate for her to reanimate his deceased wife, she is full of sympathy for his loss. Anita knows something about love, and knows everything there is to know about loss. But she also knows that the thing she can do as a necromancer isn't the miracle he thinks he needs.

When a 15-year-old girl is abducted by vampires, it's up to Anita Blake to find her. And when she does, she is faced with something she's never seen before: a terrifyingly ordinary group of people, all recently turned and willing to die to avoid serving their vampire master.

The sensational new novel from the New York Times bestselling author featuring her vampire-hunting heroine Anita Blake.

JASON is an all-new novella in the Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter, series by Sunday Times top ten and No. 1 New York Times bestseller Laurell K. Hamilton, author of GUILTY PLEASURES and AFFLICTION. Also included is an exclusive excerpt from the new Anita Blake adventure, DEAD ICE, which is published next year. "Enjoying pain with your pleasure is something you either get, or you don't. If you get it, then you don't really need it explained, because you know how good it feels, and if you don't get it then no amount of talking is going to convince you it makes sense." But sometimes you have to...