Narcissus was a legendary young man who fell in love with his own reflection, and starved to death while adoring himself. It seems somehow appropriate that Laurell K. Hamilton's worst Anita Blake novel to date is called "Narcissus in Chains" -- a tepid, kinky exercise in literary self-worship, chained by adoration of the author's lookalike lead. 
 Anita Blake returns from a six-month sojourn, but her love life is no simpler than it was before. And that her pal Nathaniel has been snared into a dangerous S&M club. To save him, she calls on her sort-of-lovers Richard the werewolf and Jean-Claude the vampire. And they "marry the marks," making Anita more powerful than she ever dreamed. 
 But a fight in the club leads to Anita being in danger of becoming a wereleopard, and Jean Claude is arrested. Richard captures the wereleopard. So when Anita wakes, she not only finds that her friends are in (or causing) trouble, but that she now has the intense craving for constant sex called the "ardeur" from Jean Claude. 
 Of all literary devices in fantasy, "ardeur" may be the absolute worst. After a relatively solid fantasy/horror series, Hamilton delves into a device that porn writers would be embarrassed to use. But unfortunately, long pages of clinical sex scenes are only a few of the problems that "Narcissus in Chains" has. It's simply a poorly written book. 
 Hamilton appears to have thrown her writing ability out the window, in favor of constant Anita-worship. (This seems even weirder when you see that Anita strongly resembles the author) The dialogue loses its sting in favor of descriptions of Anita's clothes, weapons, the genitalia of her assorted sex partners, and the passionless pages of coitus that she bounces through. The prose is turgid and slow-paced, as if Hamilton didn't bother having it edited. 
 Anita herself fast becomes an annoyance -- not only is she endowed with powers as big as Micah's member, but she has a newfound arrogance that grates on the reader. Not to mention an apparent willingness to be quasi-raped by her apparent soulmate. Jean-Claude and Richard start off strong, but as the ardeur strikes they begin acting oddly. Leopard king Micah is basically a gigolo for Anita's personal pleasure. 
 "Narcissus in Chains" lacks the qualities of good fiction -- even of good romance. Hamilton stumbles through a silly, turgid plot, leaving tatters of the characters' personalities in her wake. A ghastly mess.