Book Blurb:

All it would take was my true name being mentioned after dark, and it would float back to my aunt.

She was the Queen of Air and Darkness, and that meant that anything said in the dark was hers to hear, eventually. The fact that spotting the missing Elven American Princess had become more popular than spotting Elvis helped. Her magic was always chasing blind leads. Princess Meredith skiing in Utah. Princess Meredith dancing in Paris. Princess Meredith gambling in Vegas. After three years I was still a front-page story for the tabloids, though the latest headlines had been speculating that I was dead as the King of Rock and Roll . . .

Three years ago, Princess Meredith fled the court of her cruel Aunt Andais, the Queen of Air and Darkness, leaving that garden of decadent delights and backstabbing intrigues for the comparative calm of Los Angeles. Using her magic to pass for human, Meredith began a new life as a private investigator specializing in supernatural crime. But now Doyle, the Queen’s chief bodyguard and assassin, has been dispatched to fetch her back–whether she likes it or not. The product of a marriage designed to cement peace between the rival Seelie and Unseelie courts, Meredith has always been scorned by both factions in spite of her royal blood. But that blood is behind the Unseelie Queen’s surprisingly urgent summons. For ever since the fey’s exile from Europe to America, their power and purity have been fading. Desperate to renew her race, Queen Andais now pins her hopes on a contest between Meredith and her own son, the sadistic Prince Cel. The first to produce a child will win the throne. The loser’s reward will be death . . .

My Thoughts:

This applies to the entire Meredith gentry series so far, Book Two is ‘Caress Of Twilight’ and book three ‘Seduced By Moonlight’. Book four isn’t out yet. Book one ‘A Kiss of Shadows’ sets the characters and world up, book two is a filler, book three expands a little on the world created in book one. The end, almost.
If you have read the thirteen Laurell K Hamilton Anita Blake novels, which I have, then you already know what to expect from these books. Supernatural monsters, blood, gore and lots of sex.
The Meredith Gentry series is better than the Anita Blake series, as that has degenerated into a parody of itself. This is an interesting world with politics playing an important part in it, a nice take on the fey and celtic myths, but be warned, it’s slow. Really slow. You read book two and by the time you reach the end you realise that you have gone through a lot of pages and nothing has happened. These three books could be edited down into one tightly written book.
Too many needless details, sex scenes and guys randomly lusting after Meredith mask this fun series, the world is great, the setup of the seelie and unseelie courts, the fey creatures and there powers, and the political machinations between them all. To get to the good stuff you have to wade through so so many pages of mediocre writing in which little happens; is it worth it? Yes, just, and only because of the clever plot world Laurell has created.

A Kiss of Shadows

Caress of Twilight

Seduced by Moonlight

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