≫ Download A Kiss of Shadows Meredith Gentry Book 1 Laurell K Hamilton 9780553813838 Books

A Kiss of Shadows Meredith Gentry Book 1 Laurell K Hamilton 9780553813838 Books

Download As PDF : A Kiss of Shadows Meredith Gentry Book 1 Laurell K Hamilton 9780553813838 Books

A Kiss of Shadows Meredith Gentry Book 1 Laurell K Hamilton 9780553813838 Books

LKH has two series: Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter, and now Merry Gentry, Princess of Faerie.This is Book #1, on sale as a Kindle edition. I own all of LKH's books in book form, and I often re-read the Merry Gentry series. There is a much better development of characters in the MG series, in comparison to the AB series.

Note that not all of the MG books involve a murder mystery in the plot; much of the series revolves around the dangerous and uncertain politics of the Faerie courts that Merry must maneuver through. This book lays out her reasons for fleeing Faerie, but her position as a Royal means there is no permanent escape. She is dragged back into that dangerous world of intrigue, even as she tries to balance it with her human-world job as a private agency detective.

The MG series shows off Ms. Hamilton's writing at her best. You really feel Merry's fear and anxieties as she tries to be part of two worlds: the human world she knows well, having actually attended college and graduated with a degree, versus the beautiful but deadly courts of immortal Faerie, the place Merry almost died, growing up as a despised half-human but who could not be ignored because of her Royal blood. This tension of being between two worlds is gripping, and how Merry matures through the series is realistically handled.

There are multiple sex partners - a given with Ms. Hamilton - but the number is much more manageable in the MG books. Readers will find it easier to not only remember the names of her lovers, but their personalities and appearances. This is in sharp contrast to the Anita Blake series, which has gone on much too long and become overly complex, with so many sex partners for Anita it's almost impossible to keep them all straight, let alone care much about the last two dozen or so.

No so with the Merry Gentry series. Ms. Hamilton introduces the main characters and they will remain the focus through all the books, giving this series a much stronger storyline. Come along for the ride, it's an exciting and addictive read!


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A Kiss of Shadows Meredith Gentry Book 1 Laurell K Hamilton 9780553813838 Books Reviews

Merry Gentry, the first Faerie Princess born on American soil, has been working in L.A. as a private investigator for the Grey Detective Agency, hiding her identity from all of the fey for the past three years. Third in line to be ruler of the Unseelie Court, fifth in line for the Seelie Court, she's also an oddity because she never came into her powers, and she's the only sidhe born with some mortal blood.

Aunt Andais, Queen of the Unseelie Court, sends her assassin to fetch Merry as she's got a proposition for her. One that puts her life in danger all over again as she's up against her cousin in a race to have a child. The winner will be the heir to the Unseelie throne and most sidhe don't want to see Merry win.

What the author does really well with both this book and the series is politics. Everything Merry does or says has to be weighed for both the short term and long term, and she's good at it without spending a lot of time over-thinking it. We also get a rather wide variety of fey, both the beautiful as well as terrifying. But unlike all other fey in a position of power, Merry had been raised to accept and respect all, and goddess knows she'll need allies. Her attitude and compassion mark her as vastly different from the rulers of both the light and dark sidhe courts.

This book was first published at a time before Anita Blake was accepting of having multiple partners. With this world, the fey have absolutely no hang ups with sex; who, what or how often. It's something to be enjoyed.

Mystery, action, politics, along with an interesting world and characters. You never know what's going to happen next.
Reviewed by Rabid Reads

Laurell K. Hamilton is consistently a woman ahead of her time.

It started with her Anita Blake series back in 1993. Yes, that’s right—1993. I was . . . well, I’m not going to tell you how old I was in 1993, but suffice it to say, I was young enough that my mother wouldn’t want me reading an adult UF series, and that was BEFORE the Big Shift from straight-up UF to UF/erotica that took place in 2001 with book 10.

So first Hamilton was one of the pioneers in the Urban Fantasy genre (if you could even call it a genre at that time), then she began shifting her writing into the largely unexplored territory of erotica.

That shift displeased many of Hamilton’s fans, and she was criticized for lowering the standards of popular fiction in general. She was attacked, and called all manner of nasty things, her writing referred to as “smut” and the so-called decline of her series the result of laziness.

Pfft.

I’m not going to undermine the outcry of the readers who genuinely have zero interest in the sexuality-driven series that Anita Blake became. If I hadn’t adapted (like multitudes of others), I would have also been hugely disappointed that a previously beloved series transformed into something I found utterly distasteful.

But I did adapt, and Hamilton’s Merry Gentry series has never been anything other than what it started as—Fae (YAY!) focused UF chock full of sexy times.

If that’s not your thing, then it’s not your thing. To each their own, and all that.

But do not try to convince me that Hamilton traded well-written, plot-driven books for sex, sex, and MORE sex, THE END, b/c it simply isn’t true

"I leaned my back against the windows and the thick, hanging smog. The day was as grey as my boss, but his color was a cool, crisp grey, like clouds before a spring rain. What lay outside the window felt heavy and thick like something you would try to swallow, but you’d never get it down. It was a day to choke on, or maybe it was just my mood."

Say what you want about LKH, but girl can write.

So by now, most of you know that I love A-L-I-E-N-S. But there is one thing that I love even more than A-L-I-E-N-S and that is . . .

FAE.

And LKH’s Merry Gentry series embodies precisely what I love about Fae—DELICIOUS ambiguity.

Are they good, or are they bad?

It has never been, nor will ever be that simple. At best you’ll find mostly good or bad Fae, but even then, the basic nature of the Fae is so capricious that you can never know what they’re going to do.

I LOVE that.

Another common theme in Fae-based books is difficulty with procreation, and this is certainly the case in A Kiss of Shadows.

The Fae, though practically immortal, have been dwindling for centuries. The Unseelie Queen has but one heir, her son Cel, who is becoming more and more unignorably unstable. Enter Merry, the Queen’s part-human niece, who is brought back into the fold and offered a bargain

She can pick as many of the Queen’s personal guard as she wants as lovers, and if she becomes pregnant within the next three years, the Queen will abdicate, making Merry the new Queen, and the father of the child the Consort and King.

Guess how much Cel likes that proposition—abouthismuch<——no spaces = notalot.

Yes, there’s sex, and LOTS of it. But there’s also a good plot and lots o’ action as well . . . the other kind of action, get your mind out of the gutter. *snorts*

Also, the Fae folklore is spot-on. The Seelie, though not much of a presence yet, are believably depicted as the “shining ones” that are not nearly the creatures of goodness and light that humans perceive them to be, and the Unseelie are a multitude of hideous creatures, as well as the Seelie-like (in appearance anyway) royal sidhe.

Basically, I loved it.

I would recommend A Kiss of Shadows to anyone who doesn’t mind a healthy dose of sex in their UF, but especially to those who have read and liked (loved?) Karen Marie Moning’s Fever series, or the independently published Fae Chronicles by Amelia Hutchins. I won’t absolutely guarantee that if you like either of those, you’ll like this, but it’s a near thing, and given that this series predates Fever by 5 or 6 years, I think it’s safe to say that Merry Gentry paved the way for other books like this, Fever and Fae Chronicles included.
LKH has two series Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter, and now Merry Gentry, Princess of Faerie.This is Book #1, on sale as a edition. I own all of LKH's books in book form, and I often re-read the Merry Gentry series. There is a much better development of characters in the MG series, in comparison to the AB series.

Note that not all of the MG books involve a murder mystery in the plot; much of the series revolves around the dangerous and uncertain politics of the Faerie courts that Merry must maneuver through. This book lays out her reasons for fleeing Faerie, but her position as a Royal means there is no permanent escape. She is dragged back into that dangerous world of intrigue, even as she tries to balance it with her human-world job as a private agency detective.

The MG series shows off Ms. Hamilton's writing at her best. You really feel Merry's fear and anxieties as she tries to be part of two worlds the human world she knows well, having actually attended college and graduated with a degree, versus the beautiful but deadly courts of immortal Faerie, the place Merry almost died, growing up as a despised half-human but who could not be ignored because of her Royal blood. This tension of being between two worlds is gripping, and how Merry matures through the series is realistically handled.

There are multiple sex partners - a given with Ms. Hamilton - but the number is much more manageable in the MG books. Readers will find it easier to not only remember the names of her lovers, but their personalities and appearances. This is in sharp contrast to the Anita Blake series, which has gone on much too long and become overly complex, with so many sex partners for Anita it's almost impossible to keep them all straight, let alone care much about the last two dozen or so.

No so with the Merry Gentry series. Ms. Hamilton introduces the main characters and they will remain the focus through all the books, giving this series a much stronger storyline. Come along for the ride, it's an exciting and addictive read!