When I didn’t do it, he took over my series and took it in a different direction. No matter how pretty they are, they’re monsters … I actually planned to kill Jean-Claude at the end of book 3, and when the point came, Anita and I couldn’t do it. I believed what Anita believed at the beginning – they’re monsters. When I first started, I would not contribute to what I saw as a problem - romantic vampires. The fact that Jean-Claude and she actually ended up dating. Is there something about her that really surprised you over the years (or a reaction from readers)? I loved horror and monster movies since I was a little girl, so I thought What if I put in a world where all the monsters are real and you just wake up tomorrow and you have to deal with it? Apparently I did give myself enough toys to play with. I hoped the series would have legs, and so I wanted to give myself enough toys. (laughs) I thought I would get bored if it was just straight mystery. I may have overcompensated just a little. If they killed anybody, they had to feel very guilty about it, and there was no sex or it was sanitized and offstage. Though they were strong characters, the female detectives in their series very rarely cussed. The male detectives in their books could cuss and kill people if they were defending themselves and have sex and nobody thought anything of it.

HAMILTON: I found hardboiled detective fiction for the first time. ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: How and when did the idea for Anita first come to you?

Anita blake