Those familiar with Hamilton's work often know her best for her Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter series - a good series that moves from really great vampire butt-kicking evil undead into more and more goth eroticism as the series progresses. With the Meredith Gentry series, she skips all the butt-kicking and gets right to the erotic.
Well, that's not fair. There is plenty of butt-kicking. Meredith (or Merry, as she prefers to be called in the human world) is an Unseelie Sidhe Princess. At the start of the series, she has been exiled by her aunt, the Queen of Air and Darkness, and lives in LA as a private detective, specializing in the supernatural. (Hamilton sets her books in an alternate reality where the supernatural have been integrated into human society... in this case, faerie came to the US under a treaty with Thomas Jefferson). As the series progresses, Merry is tasked with earning the throne before her cousin Cel, because he is evil and insane... but he IS the queen's son, and therefore she wants to give him a fighting chance. However, the way to the faerie throne is through fertility. Merry must get pregnant before Cel impregnates someone (something he is not likely to do in the first six months of the race since he is imprisoned and forbidden from seeing anyone... well... in that way. )
So, to this end, Merry gets to pick several members of the Queen's guard and they all get to do their best to become king. This leads to many scenes involving lots of faerie magic and glamour and well... you know. But, like any REALLY good bodice-ripper, the plot is REALLY fun and the world is very real. I read the first book a while ago (A Kiss of Shadows) and decided since the latest book in the series just came out (A Stroke of Midnight) that I would read the rest of the series over my trip to San Francisco. I got through 2 and 3 (A Caress of Twilight and Seduced By Moonlight) on the trip, and had to get in bits of the last one over the next few weeks. But they are quick reads, and really quite entertaining. The sex is not your average run-of-the-mill sex (multiple partners and magic are involved, to name a few differences) but the language is not too harsh or too blatent. The book is definitely not the last in the series and I look forward to the next. She seem to be alternating between Merry and Anita in her book releases, so I'm off to read the Anita Blake series now.
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Hi!
Happy Birthday, Elizabeth!
I used to love LKH, but her plots are suffering, possibly because the sex scenes keep getting longer and more frequent. The last book I enjoyed from her was "Obsidian Butterfly", an Anita Blake story. Anita got out of St. Louis and away from all usual politics and (bed)partners. It also highlighted Edward the Assassin (whose nickname is "Death".) He is my absolute favorite LKH character, possibly because he's the only male in the series who isn't interested in sleeping with Anita. (I admit to a SLIGHT exaggeration there.) Anyway, Edward should get his own book.
I read the first Meredith Gentry book. Lots of sex, but at least M. isn't as angsty about it. I might try the next book.
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