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A Kiss of Shadows

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Overview

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.

Editorial Reviews

Erotica is fantasy, but it rarely gets as fantastic as this. After nine novels featuring Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter (Obsidian Butterfly, etc.), Hamilton launches a sizzling new series that blends supernatural fantasy with detective adventure and hot sex. Here, the world is populated with various magical faerie races along with humans. The most supreme of the fey are the immortal sidhe, so beautiful and powerful they were once worshiped as gods. The fey are not only lusty but incredibly accomplished lovers; those of the royal sidhe bloodline are literally addictively sexy. Full-blooded fey are, for the most part, intolerant of cities, metal and technology. They seldom live for long among humans. Mixed-blood Princess Meredith NicEssus, however, has fled the faerie world to pass for three years as Merry Gentry, a human with some fey blood who works in Los Angeles with a detective agency that specializes in supernatural problems and magical solutions. Suddenly outed as the missing princess and fearing that her aunt, the Queen of Air and Darkness, will kill her, she makes a desperate run aided by her detective pals. The queen does want her, but not in the way Merry expects. Ultimately, Meredith must fulfill the queen's designs for the future of her court, even if it means having to bed the most beautiful studs in the universe. Through constant danger and adventure, Meredith finds herself in a variety of sexual encounters that make it easy to see why her ancestors were so worthy of worship. As wild as the novel's premise is, memorable characters and wicked wit make it all delicious, ribald fun. 8-city author tour. (Oct.) Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information. -- PUBLISHERS WEEKLY.

Author Information

Bio of Laurell K. Hamilton

Author Laurell K. Hamilton was born in Heber Springs, Arkansas on February 19, 1963. After her mother died in a car crash in 1969, she was raised by her grandmother in Sims, Indiana. She writes the Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter series and the Merry Gentry series. She currently lives in St. Louis, Missouri with her family.

Customer Reviews

  • 2 stars out of 5Too sexually graphic

    Posted November 05, 2009 by susan, greenville

    Loved her earlier books but she has taken a dark side towards the sexual content and I just can't read them anymore.

  • 3 stars out of 5OK read but very heavy on the sex

    Posted November 13, 2009 by A, Elgin

    I have never read this author before and I did like her gift for description and creating a world of magic that coexists with humans. I also really enjoy reading romance novels and do not consider myself a prude but their was quite a bit of sex in this book, seemed like it was on every page. I do believe that this amount of sex does relate to the main character in describing who she is and her lineage, etc. but a warning - there is a lot of it!

  • 5 stars out of 5A great book! A great series!

    Posted November 15, 2009 by TriciaM, Central Florida

    I love this series! Great characters!. As you read through the series you'll pick your favorites and root for them. Ms. Hamilton has a great talent for telling stories that are fun, exciting and engaging.

Additional Info

Imprint

Ballantine Books

Filesize

673.6 KB

Number of Pages

480

eBook ISBN

9780345446886

Excerpt from: A Kiss of Shadows by Laurell K. Hamilton

Twenty-three stories up and all I could see out the window was grey smog. They could call it the City of Angels if they wanted to, but if there were angels out there, they had to be flying blind.

Los Angeles is a place where people, those with wings and without, come to hide. Hide from others, hide from themselves. I'd come to hide and I'd succeeded, but staring out at the thick, dirty air, I wanted to go home. Home where the air was blue most of the time and you didn't have to water the ground to get grass to grow. Home was Cahokia, Illinois, but I couldn't go back because they'd kill me if I did, my relatives and their allies. Everyone wants to grow up to be a faerie princess. Trust me. It's overrated.

There was a knock on the office door. It opened before I could say anything. My boss, Jeremy Grey, stood framed in the doorway. He was a short, grey man, four feet eleven inches, an inch shorter than me. He was grey from his dark Armani suit to his button-up shirt and silk tie. Only his shoes were black and shiny. Even his skin was a pale uniform grey. Not from illness or age. No, he was a trow in the prime of life, just a little over four hundred. There were some lines around his eyes, along the thin mouth, that made him appear mature, but he'd never be old. Without the aid of mortal blood and a pretty serious spell, Jeremy might live forever. Theoretically. Scientists say that in about five billion years the sun will expand and engulf the Earth. The fey won't survive that. They will die. Does five billion years count as forever? I don't think so. Though it's close enough to make the rest of us envious.

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.

"You look gloomy, Merry," Jeremy said. "What's wrong?" He closed the door behind him, making sure it shut. Privacy, he was giving us privacy. Maybe it was for my benefit, but somehow I didn't think so. There was a tightness around his eyes, a set to his thin, well-tailored shoulders that said I wasn't the only one in a bad mood today. Maybe it was the weather or the lack of it. A good rain shower or even a good wind would have cleared out the smog and let the city breathe again.