A Kiss of Shadows - Laurell K. Hamilton

A Kiss of Shadows by Laurell K. Hamilton
Paranormal Romance
Form: Paperback

Meredith Gentry, princess of the high court of Faerie, is posing as a human in Los Angeles, working as a P.I. specializing in supernatural crime. But now the queen's assassin has been dispatched to fetch her back - whether she likes it or not. Suddenly Meredith finds herself a pawn in her dreaded aunt's plans. The job that awaits her: enjoy the constant companty of the most beautiful immortal men in the world. The reward: the crown - and the opportunity to continue to live. The penalty for failure: death.

Before I started this book I sort of knew that Laurell was an...imaginative writer. I had borrowed one of the Anita Blake audiobooks from the library. I was oblivious that the book was one of many, and that I was jumping way in the middle of something, so I wasn't really understanding a lot. About the time her and her vampire lover started "feeding" on another vampire by having 3-way sex with him - I was done. Weird. Anyhow, I decided to give this book a chance anyway. It was another Christmas gift and, well, I like books about faeries.

Laurell did not disappoint in the creativity of the story. Actually, for the most part the story line was semi-okay. But it was a weird book none-the-less. Meredith (just like many of her other female leads I'm assuming) is something of a slut. She has sex with, or at least seductive mostly bare kisses with pratically every male in the book. Yes. I know I got a romance novel. Well, I don't think "romance" is a good catagory. It's an erotic novel. And it wasn't even that entertaining in that aspect. I don't like so much - putting out - with so many people. Crazy. The book was filled with all sort of different creatures (mostly varieties of Fae) that look anywhere from human to monster. And Meredith is NOT PICKY AT ALL what you look like. She has a very compassionate heart.

The parts of the book that I did like was basically the politics. The scenes in the Fae court. Figuring out what her Aunt wanted from her (which wasn't all that surprising really considering the type of book..she wanted her to have lots of sex..go figure). I need to be somewhat nice. There is a lot of insinuated sex, but only actually a few sex scenes. Lots of fooling around. Lots of weirdness. I liked the evil cousin, and I wanted to see Meredith kick some cousin butt.

Parts I didn't understand, the ending was so sudden. It was like, 'OH I'm over my alloted 450 pages, time to wrap things up,' and she did. Another part I didn't get was her weird healing by sex power. I understood the power itself, but the fact that she could do it, did it twice, but did NOT do it with my favorite male character, Galen, who had his male parts picked apart by some other vulture-like character. Dag-nabit, heal the cool green guy, Meredith!!!

I had a real hard time keeping up with all the characters. More than once I had to go back and re-read parts so that I could remember which guy was the rhino-guy, and which one had tentacles under his shirt. That was annoying.

I'm sure there are sequels to this book. And unlike the Highlander books, where I said I didn't know if I would read more and did anyway, I will not be picking up the sequals to this book. And I doubt I'll read anymore Laurell K. Hamilton either. I know she's really popular with some, but she's just not my type.