Laurell K. Hamilton books in order

Laurell K. Hamilton (born 19 February 1963) is an American fantasy and romance writer, creator of the Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter and Merry Gentry series.

Born Laurell Kaye Klein in Heber Springs, Arkansas, she grew up in Sims, Indiana, and took degrees in English and biology at Marion College (now Indiana Wesleyan University). Her fantasy novel Nightseer appeared in 1992, followed in 1993 by Guilty Pleasures (Ace Books), the first Anita Blake book, in which an animator and licensed vampire executioner is pressed by a vampire client to investigate a series of vampire killings. The Laughing Corpse (1994), Circus of the Damned (1995) and The Lunatic Cafe (1996) followed, and the series has since run to many volumes. In 2000 she began a second series with A Kiss of Shadows, about the faerie princess and detective Meredith Gentry. Open Library notes six million Anita Blake novels in print, and she won a Romantic Times Career Achievement award for urban fantasy in 2015. She lives in St. Louis County, Missouri.

For collectors

Guilty Pleasures was first issued by Ace in 1993 (ISBN 0-441-30483-4, cover art by Steve Gardner), and that first printing is the key Hamilton book. The first British edition came from New English Library.