Laurell K. Hamilton is an American writer. Her writing genre has always been a bit difficult to pin down. Over the years, it has been classed as: horror, fantasy, mystery, erotica. She is often credited as being the originator of the Paranormal genre. She was born was born in 1963 in Heber Springs, Arkansas but grew up in Sims, Indiana, a very small community. Her mother was killed in a car accident in 1969 when Laurell was six. She was raised by her grandmother, to whom Laurell attributes her lifelong love of horror. Laurell attended Marion, a Christian college in Indiana, and received degrees in both English and Biology. She met her first husband there.
Today, Hamilton lives in St. Louis County, Missouri with her second husband, Jonathon Green, and daughter, Trinity, and their dogs. Her principal work that she is known for is the Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter series. The first book of the series, Guilty Pleasures, was published in 1993. Book 17 in the series, Skin Trade, was released in June 2009. She has a second series about a Fae Princess, Meredith Gentry. To read more about Laurell, check out the More on LKH section on the links page.

Hamilton writes with a lot of physical detail and paints the reader a very vivid picture of what characters and locations look like. "I'm very visually and character oriented," said Hamilton. "It really bugs me in books if I don't know what a character looks like. I start with a name, I'm very name oriented. Once I have the physical description and the name, I can tell a lot about them. A good main character attracts good secondary characters and attracts good plot. I'm a character-oriented writer. Everything comes from characters," she said. 2

"Ms. Hamilton is an excellent writer who mixes fantasy, mystery, romance and dark humor with lots of flair. Her take on this derivative genre is a most unusual one. The mystery is at the fore of her novels and the supernatural takes second place - it's almost taken for granted as part of Anita Blake's natural world. And Ms. Blake is a delight - witty, savvy and hard-boiled, as in tough." - Jane L. Perskie on The Laughing Corpse

"Laurell Hamilton is one of the best storytellers around. I have now read eleven Anita books, and I rarely read series novels. The plots are spectacular. The labyrinthine vampire and lycanthrope politics makes US election brouhahas look like child's play. The characters are some of the most fascinating and complex that I have encountered in fantasy fiction. They have all grown and changed tremendously since book #1. The author's humor is often dark, but hilarious." - Jane L. Perskie on Cerulean Sins

"Ms. Hamilton is an excellent writer who, with much flair amd pizzazz, mixes fantasy with mystery, romance and dark humor. Her take on this derivative genre is a most unusual one. The mystery is at the fore of her novels and the supernatural takes second place, almost taken for granted as part of Anita Blake's natural world. And Ms. Blake is a delight - witty, savvy and hard-boiled, as in tough. I am really looking forward to reading more of this series. These novels are a real find! " - Jane L. Perskie on Guilty Pleasures

Back to the About the Author and Cover Artists Section
Back to the About the AnitaWiki Section
Back to the opening page of the Wiki