That really doesn't work either, Harry still burned Lara's lips in White Night five years after his split with Susan.  True, she was still alive, but he had had no contact with her at all in all those years.  To my mind, the love you feel lingers more after one loses a loved one to death than a split up, because you are still loving the memory and there is no distraction from it. 

Personally, I agree with you about the love lingering more after a loved one dies, especially if one is summoning the shade and playing boardgames with it every night. But narrative necessity triumphs over all.

They might not have had contact, but Harry still felt love for Susan after 5 years and hadn't been with someone else. Susan still felt love for Harry after 5 years and hadn't been with anyone else. Ergo, lack of contact alone doesn't break the protection.

The problem Jim created was that Harry burned Lara while Murphy was alive, but not 4 months later. He needed  Lara to rock Harry's world with a superkiss on Halloween which should have burned her lips off if the protection held. His excuse of "I just fed" from the first date won't hold if she is indeed feeding on him.

Second alternative, Jim could have said it was Odin's scooping her up that broke the connection.

This is about the only thing I dislike about the Dresden files books.  After the first 6 books explained the "Blue Beetle" to us over and over and over I was like "Yeah Jim, I already freakin know this....."   If someone starts reading a book series at the end they deserve to be lost and not clued into the small details..

It's funny. In the first book of a series the author is enjoined not to make a lot of digressions to explain characters and situations as distracting from the action and anyway the mystery builds engagement and suspense. In later books you get the main character asked a question on page 2 which causes him/her to consider the appearance and previous interactions with multiple people for four pages (to inform new readers what longtime readers already know) and then a reply of "no" when the reader has forgotten what the question was.

I have a feeling a few key beta readers have left in the last few years the ones who really pick up on tiny things.

I remember the good old days of these old forums and Jim and prescille and so many close to Jim were active here. There was a trust in Jim’s writing, everything felt so deliberate and thorough. And while the story is still very strong (12M is a favourite) I can’t help but think the tightness of the writing since PT is gone. It’s small things but then again Justine being on the island in cold days but it being the entire plot point for battle ground and the Jim claiming in an interview actually she wants nfected then.. it could get really plot holish and messy if they don’t tighten things up and pronto. More is at stake.

I think this is a problem generally with series that a) have more than a dozen books and/or b) have large gaps between publication dates. Then there's the fatal flaw of doing a "untold story from earlier" book, which Jim has avoided doing ... so far.

  ... ??!? ...   

I was gonna say, "not possible, Blampires cannot."

But Harry does still know the secrets of the Word of Kemmler.

And we know from the more "conversational" passages Harry had (with Cowl & Kumori) that that ilk has some sort of "end death" and "death in service of life" agenda.

(and of course Jim writes the rules, so "possible" is anything Jim writes)

Soooo....

I guess it's Mavra?

How about a freshly turned Yoshimo? Jim might think that more believable than that a centuries old Mavra is suddenly having kids.

Or, maybe Mirror Harry and Mirror Mavra are married with children and that covers that one.

Just pre-ordered the Paranormal Payback anthology (edited by Jim Butcher and Kerrie Hughes) to be released the mid-April containing a new Goodman Grey story "Mister Petty".

After waiting so long for the book. We've discussed pretty much everything under the sun. But I don't know if this had been asked so I will. Will he or won't he?

Harry will go to the bathroom right before heading to the altar and ... transfer to Mirror Mirror land, leaving Lara at the altar and Mab seething.

Am I a bad person for feeling a greater longing for a new Cinder Spires book which is not even in progress yet, than the release of Twelve Months (and Mirror Mirror if I'm honest)?

The unwritten subtitle of Twelve Months seems like it will be "Wallowing in Angst" and Mirror Mirror's action seems like it will be mainly outside Harry's reality though it will inform Harry's understanding of his own reality through the juxtaposition of alternate events.

Meanwhile, Cinder Spires is still in the straightforward phase of the series.