A Kiss of Shadows (Meredith Gentry, Book 1)
by Laurell K. Hamilton
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Book Summary Information
Author: Laurell K. HamiltonEdition: Mass Market Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2002-02
ISBN: 0345423402
Number of pages: 480
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Book Reviews of A Kiss of Shadows (Meredith Gentry, Book 1)
Book Review: Bit More than a "Kiss."
Summary: 2 Stars
In the Long Ago Far Away, I remember reading some of the Anita Blake series, but being no fan of mysteries or detectives I let the series fall by the wayside. If a writer is truly great, then I can stay rivited even if the subject isn't one of my favorites.
I adore Faeries, to the point of practicing a post-modern version of Faerie Faith with no rules and no boundaries (and hence no obsessive traditionalism).
Ms. Hamilton now has fairies with no rules and no boundaries. None. Zip. Nada. Yet somehow, this is the inverse of liberating.
Oh, I am not surprised. I have something of a fetish for well-written negative reviews, and reading some of the erudite, articulate attacks on Ms. Hamilton's writing have been illuminating. I am fully aware of the direction taken by Anita Blake and I knew to expect it with Meredith Gentry.
So essentially, mixed blood fairy girl (1/2 Unseelie, 1/4 Seelie Brownie, 1/4 mortal - or some approximation of that mess) without the immortality gene runs away to escape torture at the hands of the Queen of the Unseelie Court, her Aunt Andais. She becomes a private investigator in Los Angeles. Auntie sends a few of her bodyguards to retrieve the wayward Princess Meredith and bring her back to the Court, where the Queen will make Merry an Offer She Can't Refuse. Part and parcel with this offer comes the requirement to have sex with the Queen's Guards until she conceives, because a child will guarantee Merry the Throne. Merry's competing with her cousin, Cel, who is under the same orders to produce a child.
And that's about it.
From some of the reviews here, I expected a lot more sex. There are a few near misses and a few actual sex scenes, but they're nothing special. The kink quotient is quite mild, comparatively speaking. Even the scene that involves tentacles peters out to nothing. It seems that, if the character is unattractive or undersirable in any way, Meredith will be spared sex with this fiend at the last minute, in the most contrived way possible. Merry, apparently, doesn't take any for the team.
The most diffecult thing about reading Laurell Hamilton is the way she writes. Her vocabulary seems very limited and the writing is quite repetitious. Whenever someone bites/something stabs Meredith, the pain is described as "sharp and immediate."
"Burning and instantaneous"
"Terrible and abrupt"
"Stinging and urgent"
I'm not even trying.
Along with this limited vocabulary, Ms. Hamilton writes very much in passive voice. Is, was, were, has, had, be, been, etc. Dialogue is also stilted and awkward, with normal diction sometimes ignored to give a character an opportunity to say something "witty."
Characterization isn't a strong suit either. Meredith is a little dull, but most heroines are. Her sex partners all have nearly identical personalities, and I wish there had been some variety in the way Ms. Hamilton chose to describe them, rather than a run-down of features and attributes.
So why did I read it? If I knew all this in advance, why did I even drop a dime on it?
I enjoy erotica, and, as previously mentioned, I'm a faerie fan. I expected the writing to be terrible, but bearable enough for a few moments of shallow enjoyment. Then I expected to come here, slap down a single star, and go on my merry way.
If at all possible, I am even more offended by the fact the most of Ms. Hamilton's ideas were good, but she blew it by not following through, or by failing to explore character emotion, or by making the plot secondary to the sex. To have ideas that are actually interesting and then to drop the ball is even worse than having no good ideas at all (Anne Rice's "Beauty" series, *cough*cough).
But I can't give Ms. Hamilton one star, because the ideas were there, shining just below the surface. The idea of fairies as celebrities in the mortal world . . . the concept of a fairie exodus to the United States . . . old gods becoming fairies . . . etc, etc . . .
So the book gets two stars, and it could have garnered more if Ms. Hamilton had her priorities straight.
1. Ms. Hamilton, you are a grown woman. Mention the business parts of the male chracters by name please. Obscuring gential terms with "him" and "himself" makes you look sqeamish and unsure of yourself. If you want to write something with a little heat and intensity, clarify the act, please.
2. Thesaurus.
3. If you want all the sex, make the non-sexual parts longer so that they represent a plot.
4. Why is everyone so rampantly heterosexual, and horrified at the idea of homosexuality? These are fairies, not humans. Why would they possess our prejudices?
5. Let Meredith sleep with unattractive characters now and again. Refusing to do so makes her seem like an elitist snob.
Enough complaining. Look at the reviews and see if this is a mess you want to wade into. I've started the second book, but after the first "sharp and immediate" there, I've set it aside until my annoyance ends.
If you want a modern fairy tale, try "Tithe." It's considered YA, but it's far more satisfying than Merry Gentry's world.
Summary of A Kiss of Shadows (Meredith Gentry, Book 1)
?My name is Meredith Gentry, but of course it?s not my real name. I dare not even whisper my true name after dark for fear that one hushed word will travel over the night winds to the soft ear of my aunt, the Queen of the Air and Darkness. She wants me dead. I don?t even know why.?Meredith Gentry, Princess of the high court of Faerie, is posing as a human in Los Angeles, living as a P.I. specializing in supernatural crime. But now the Queen?s assassin has been dispatched to fetch her back?whether she likes it or not. Suddenly Meredith finds herself a pawn in her dreaded aunt?s plans. The job that awaits her: enjoy the constant company of the most beautiful immortal men in the world. The reward: the crown?and the opportunity to continue to live. The penalty for failure: death.
Laurell K. Hamilton revitalized vampires, werewolves, and zombies in the popular Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter books. In this new series, she updates faeries. A Kiss of Shadows introduces Merry Gentry, a.k.a. Meredith NicEssus, a faerie princess of the Unseelie Court, where politics is a blood sport. Merry, who's part sidhe (elvish), part brownie, and part human, never really fit in. She's short, not skilled in offensive magic, and mortal because of her human blood. These are real liabilities when your family, especially aunt Andais, Queen of Air and Darkness, is out to kill you. Merry has been in hiding for three years, living in Los Angeles and working for the Grey Detective Agency, which specializes in "supernatural problems, magical solutions." A new case sets her against a man who uses forbidden magic to seduce fey women and drain their power. A plan to trap him goes awry and Merry's cover is blown. Now Andais knows where she is. But things have changed in Andais's court, and Merry is changing too.
Despite the selkies, brownies, goblins, and ogres in this book, it's not for children. The fey are "creatures of the senses"--and in the Unseelie court, sex and pain go together. Merry is sexually adventurous and surrounded by gorgeous, powerful males, most of whom want her badly. She's politically savvy and no coward, though she's not the warrior Anita is. Hamilton fans and readers of adult fairy tales like Anne Bishop's Black Jewels trilogy will want to give Merry a look. --Nona Vero
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