AFFLICTION is the 22nd book in the Anita Blake series. As with many long-running series, certain things can be expected of any new book. Anita will have issues juggling all the men she is sleeping with and handling her powers. both of these are true in this story. All the men - It is lucky that Hamilton has the writing quirk of physically describing each man each time he is part of a scene. Otherwise, they seem to be pretty interchangeable. Most of the men she is juggling in this episode are weres since she is away from St. Louis at Micah's home town and had to bring a number of guards with her.Micah's father has been bitten by some sort of a zombie and has an infection that is going to kill him. The doctors have found a way to slow it down but not stop it. Coming home raises all sorts of issues for Micah. He had alienated his family to protect them from the being that controlled him. His return means he as to deal with the anger issues that created. It also doesn't help that some of his family are religious fanatics who believe that weres are abominations. He also has some anger issues himself about his parents' divorce and his mother's remarriage. He is also unsure how to tell his family that he, Anita, and Nathaniel are romantic partners. Anita quickly gets involved in the problem of the flesh-eating zombies and the infections. This story had an overabundance of zombies! Add rotting vampires into the mix and you have a really creepy plot. Anita and crew, including Edward, have to track down the vampire making the new vampires and zombies before he manages to overwhelm Boulder, Colorado. It seems that he is necromancer like Anita and, like Anita, got some extra powers when the Mother of All Darkness was defeated. The story was exciting, especially for fans of zombies. The sex scenes were frequent and graphic. One in particular really made me uncomfortable. Anita seems to have better control of the Ardeur now but still needs to feed it frequently. I did start to find the sex scenes a little boring and skimmed to get back to the zombie part of the plot. Fans of the series won't want to miss this one but I don't think this would be a good entry point for newcomers.
