A Kiss of Shadows

Laurell K Hamilton’s A Kiss of Shadows begins her rollicking and fun take on the Faerie Courts, the Meredith Gentry series, with several bangs. This universe finds the Faerie in the public eye, but with waning power. Also the Faerie have, for reasons not wholly explained in this novel, been driven out of their historical home in Europe and now hold court in the Midwest region of the United States.

Meredith, or Merry, the titular character of the series is a princess of the Unseelie (or dark side) Court. She is looked down upon because she has mixed blood (full sidhe, brownie, and human (that last bit being the real downer)). Due to her human ancestry she is mortal, which makes the immortals feel she is weak. At the start of A Kiss of Shadows Merry has been in hiding from her aunt, the Queen of Air and Darkness, for three years. During this time Merry has been living in Los Angeles working for a supernatural detective agency.

As events at the start of A Kiss of Shadows unfold Merry is forced to come out of hiding. She is in fear for her life, for very good reasons, but must re-embrace her past. What follows is much political intrigue, numerous assassination attempts, and lots of sex. It seems that the faerie culture pretty much embraces and uses sex and lust as power, status, and fun.

The amount of fairly graphic sex scenes right from the start of the book was at first somewhat off-putting. I know this is a fairly standard part of Urban Fantasy or Romantasy as I like to think of it, but sometimes it can be a bit over the top. However, once I got into the storyline and Hamilton had time to build the world, the sex scenes became a necessary part of the backdrop, even having increasing political and social importance as the novel progresses.

I thoroughly enjoy Merry as a character. Her blend of power, both magical and political, is interesting. This is especially true as she grows during the novel, and as her status changes. Merry is used to seeing herself as other, because of how she was treated historically. During the novel she is required to not only embrace her otherness, but also learn to use it as a tool.

Hamilton is very skillful at both crafting a world that could very easily be our own, if magic were real and faeries existed, and doling out tidbits of mythology at just the right times to keep the reader hooked. Little bits of information are woven in throughout the novel, and even more is hinted at. This is a world that has lots of promise for future entries. Indeed at this time there are 8 novels in the Merry Gentry series.

After resolving my initial feelings about the graphic sex scenes in this novel I came to enjoy it a lot. Hamilton has a pleasant writing style and keeps the plot moving at a good pace. There is plenty of intrigue and danger involved, and most plot twists are not telegraphed or easily guessed at. I recommend this for anyone looking for a bit of light, fun reading. I give it a 3.5/5.