Book 3), Seduced by Moonlight (Meredith Gentry

SBM is amazing, if low on action. There are scenes that are a bit bloody or graphic, if that offends you, don't read this novel. There is growth and development in the male characters, which seemed very important to me, most notably Rhys and Frost. New characters are introduced and there is a lot of setup for the following novels.
No it was not action packed like the first two, but all the action that occured was very intense. If the scene in Andais' room didn't do it for you...you have issues. It was worthy of rivaling the best action movies, not to mention the ball...
However, if you have not read the previous two books, don't read this one, it will leave you confused as Ms. Hamilton does not spend half the book recounting the previous two(very much appreciated!)
I got the book tuesday and today is Saturday and I've already read the book back to back three times. Probably also due to the fact that I'm having Merry and Anita withdrawl symptoms...

I am always impatient for the next LK Hamilton book and there was a long wait for this one. This novel is less a mystery and more an in depth look at the alternate reality that Hamilton created in her first book. Although it is not my favorite of the series, I wouldn't have missed this one for anything. Merry and her Ravens' characters are further developed, and Merry is sent back to the Unseelie court, where we get a more in depth look at life there. I was a little uncomfortable with the lesbian overtones in two of the scenes, and the violence is much more explicit in this novel than the previous two, but the book was a very enjoyable read none the less. The next one should be very interesting.

the best part of the book was character developement... sure it mostly happened in a bed or turning merry on... there was only one sex scene that I had to flip through to get to the point... but since the sex part was predictable it didn't bother me at all. I can't wait for the next book that wont be out till late 2005 :(

Laureel K. Hamilton definately did a great job on this book! I loved it and the ending left me suspended in the air. I can't wait to get the next one!!!!! As for the other people who wrote bad reviews.. I think that Hamilton did a great job with the sex scenes. Maybe it's just a chick book? But then.. I don't know one of my guy friends can't put the books down. Everyone that i've recommended these books to loves them. And if you don't like books that talk about sex, don't read them!

Ms. Hamilton has again crossed genres to create an very interesting book that combines Celtic folklore and modern fanstasies. I wish she'd concentrate on this series because I can't wait to see what happens next!!

I love everything written by Laurell K. Hamilton, but the Merry Gentry series has som e great new twists and turns with a story line I have not heard. It is definitely worth the purchase and the read, as are all 3 in the series. Great plot, great character and great sex! What could be better?

Initially I received a different product, but Mark was really helpful in getting the correct item to me and I received a full credit for the original purchase. He is a really customer focused person and I would definitely recommend purchasing items through him. Thanks again Mark!

In “Seduced By Moonlight” we follow Merry as she continues her quest to get pregnant and gain the crown of the Unseelie Sidhe over her horrible cousin Cel. Her guards grow ever closer to her heart as her enemies gather in number against her. Hamilton spends a considerable amount of the book recapping previous events but since this is pretty typical of her books it’s both a nice reminder and a bit annoying.

Sage was a character that caught my attention. Imagine being able to change size! To be small and easily overlooked or mistaken as a moth or butterfly to being a full grown man. I always seem to find shapeshifters or I guess in this case size-shifters very interesting. The mechanics of such a transformation would be miraculous. If only fantasy were fact. I felt for Sage though. To be denied the one whom you care for most….it’s sad.

I like that Danu has chosen Merry as her “vessel”. Merry is similar to Anita Blake (another series by Hamilton) in her ruthlessness and kindness. For those familiar with both series, the similarities are apparent. While the characters lives are very different, the personalities are similar enough to throw you off now and then. It’s not really that big of a deal but a few of the phrases or comparisons are present in both books and you may need to give yourself a head shake now and then.

A good number of the main group of characters gain old powers lost or new powers never owned by them. Sholto is added to the list of of those Merry must bed and I’m looking forward to learning more about that most mysterious dark court he governs. The Slaugh parts of the story are some of my favorites as Hamilton lets her powers of imagination loose. The creatures she creates are varied in their complexities as well as appearance. I hope to see a lot more of that dark court in further novels.

There is a very disturbing scene with the Queen of Air and Darkness and her guards. The scene is extremely well written and I think a major turning point for Merry. It’s a key time when Merry chooses who she wants to be and what she is willing to allow or fight for.

Looking for more reviews? Take a look at my blog, AlliesOpinions on Wordpress!

I’ll admit I found these books late, very late – purchased a discounted copy of the ninth one, “A Shiver of Light” (proving you can’t tell a book by its cover, but you can buy it for its cover) and I was operating under a visual enchantment, while remaining very suspicious. Of what? Of the distinct possibility of yet another insubstantive poorly written attempt at urban faery. Oh, I’m a stickler alright. If you’re going to fish in the creative cauldron of my Celtic ancestors, then by the Goddess do it to their credit. Few do. But, being curious, I went back and began at the beginning of these and oh what delights awaited me. Laurell K. Hamilton has done her home work and then some. I was overjoyed to get a bibliography at the end of this book, “Seduced by Moonlight” and found myself grinning: Katherine Briggs, check. Peter Beresford Ellis, check. W.Y. Evans-Wentz, check. Lewis Spence, check. And on and on, the heart of thorough research here, and more to explore I’ve not yet read. So she and/or her research assistant are to be commended. They dove to the depths and explored the breadth of the Celtic Faery tradition. Good on ‘em, but now comes the brilliant part: Hamilton takes all this and creates and gives us not just a possible faery culture (and that transplanted to the U.S.A.!) but individuals, with histories and court politics that make the Imperial Romans look like slackers! Wrap all this up in unfettered faery fecundity and sensuality and sexuality untainted by guilt, and well, what took me so long? I’m making up for lost time, and hope to comment every three books, since I have nine (oh potency of nine!) to read. Really, now that I’ve found them I’ll trumpet to all: do not miss these; they are original and well done. Thank you Laurell K. Hamilton, for getting it done so well.

Using her sexual powers Meredith bring live to the unseelie court. Her cousin is free and wants to bed Meredith so that if she gets pregnant he can be king the unseelie court. Merry have proven she can bring life in the former of offspringsome back to the unseelie court. The Kong of the seeley court also wants her in his bed so that life can return to his court. Neither her cousin or her uncle care about her. All they want is to be king. Her royal guards try to keep her safe and get her pregnant. They have gotten her pregnant but for Merry the cost is to high.

Third in the Meredith Gentry urban fantasy series revolving around an American faerie princess juggling a harem of men against the evil machinations of the vicious Unseelie queen.

My Take
This story takes half the fun out of being a faerie princess, although that harem of hers puts a lot of fun back in! Still, very little of it is fun and games. It’s mostly all games. Games of politics and manipulation as Merry and her Merry Men attempt to placate paparazzi, Queen Andais, the goblins, the demi-fey, and even her hostess as they hunt for the traitors amongst them.

They’re all still living in Maeve Reed’s home, and although Gordon has died, he will live on as a result of events in A Caress of Twilight , 2.

There’s a great deal more on the weirdings and their effects on fae power, and why some fae chose to come to America instead of buy a house in a European suburb.

The Story
It’s all a show: for the paparazzi, for Kurag, and for the Unseelie Court.

Merry and her men need peace from the paparazzi while Merry needs a longer alliance with Kurag. The real test, however, will be the Yule season, and Merry must attend the Unseelie queen and counter the Seelie king.

It’s too bad that so few are feeling the joy of this holiday season with one assassin after another. Nor are they all directed at Merry.

The Characters
Princess Meredith NicEssus, Princess of flesh and blood, is coheir to the throne of the Unseelie Court—heir if she becomes pregnant before her insane cousin. She’s also part human and part brownie, a mix the pure fae despise. Her father, an Unseelie brother to Andais, Prince Essus, was murdered years ago; her mother, Besaba, is Seelie Court; you’ll understand how she hates her daughter when you realize that Seelie fae refer to Merry as Besaba’s Bane.

Merry’s Merry Men include:
Doyle is/was the Queen’s Darkness, her assassin for the past 1,000 years. Now he belongs to Merry, the captain of her guards, and he carries Báinidhe Dub, Black Madness, along with the daggers, Snick and Snack. The one-eyed Rhys was a major death god, the Lord of Death, as well as the gwynfor, the white lord, before he lost so much in that last great weirding magic and was tossed out of the Seelie Court. Frost, the Killing Frost, is cold in manner, defrosting only in bed. Kitto is a snake goblin---full sidhe now---and a symbol of the alliance Merry has with Kurag. Galen, the politically naive Green Man, is the fae Merry grew up with, her first love. Nicca is so gentle with his butterfly tattoo.

Maeve Reed, a major film star, is a fae exiled from the Seelie Court for daring to tell Taranis the truth. Only her tremendous desire for a child brought her out of hiding to contact Merry.

Queen Andais, the Queen of Air and Darkness, the dark goddess of battle, is Merry’s aunt, reigning monarch of the Unseelie Court with its reputation for bad. She wields Mortal Dread, a sword that can bring true death to any sidhe. Owain was the queen’s one true love. Eamon is her current consort. The Hall of Mortality is where Ezekiel the torturer works. Mistral is her new captain of the guard; Whisper is his second. Prince Cel is her insanely psychopathic son currently enduring a six-month prison sentence for his deeds in A Kiss of Shadows , 1. Madeline Phelps is the publicist for the Court. Fflur is the queen’s healer. Tyler is the queen’s current human toy.

Barinthus is a former sea god and had been Prince Essus’ best friend and chief adviser. He’s cared about Merry since her birth and is her friend.

Guards whom Andais sends to Merry include plant or vegetable deities:
Abeloec, a drunken addict, was once the greatest libertine of the Seelie Court. Carrow was one of the great hunters, and he taught Merry the ways of bird and beast. Amatheon’s presence makes Merry truly unhappy as he was one of those who tortured Merry as a child. He still hates her mongrel blood, but was tortured into accepting. Onilwyn is another of Cel’s bootlicking toadies. Usna is grace personified thanks to his cat heritage. Ivi, Hawthorne, Adair who resisted longest, and Briac are also sent.

Nuline was one of Cel’s royal guards. Afagdu; Nerys; Miniver; Maelgwyn is the wolf lord, able to change shape into a wolf; and, Ruarc are the heads of their own houses.

King Taranis is the King of Light and Illusion of the Seelie Court. The humans don’t realize how very bad it is.

Kurag is king of the Goblins; Creeda is his nasty Goblin Queen. What a piece of work she is! Holly and Ash are half-breed Goblin-sidhe twins; feared among the Goblins. Ash wants more power while Holly wants nothing to do with it. Siun is another sidhe-fae, truly disgusting in appearance and mind. She was Kitto’s “protector” for centuries. Nor does Rhys have fond memories. Jonty leads the Red Caps, shock troops for the goblins; Kongar is one of the Red Caps who loses control.

Queen Niceven rules the demi-fey, Queen Andais’ spies. Now she is also allied with Merry through Sage.

Sholto is King of the Sluagh, Lord of That Which Passes Between, Lord of Shadows, and merits a throne of his own in the Unseelie Court. He’s half-sidhe and half-nightflyer and desperately wants to make love with a sidhe.

Major Walters is the fae liaison between the Courts and the police. Barry Jenkins is the journalist who has hounded Merry from the time of her father’s death.

Trullups are goblin half-breeds who cannot protect themselves and have no other skills to offer. The sithen is the faerie mounds, the hollow hills where the fae live.

The Cover
The cover is tinted in green as Merry clasps the shoulder of one of her guards, his shirt open and exposing his chest, a quarter moon charm piercing his nipple.

The title is all about the glow of Merry’s body during sex, and her men are Seduced by Moonlight.

In the third installment of the Merry Gentry series, the steamy factor increases exponentially. The men and Merry are finding a good groove with each other and as the magic of the goddess returns to them more and more, the stakes increase.

In this book, we also see some of the side effects of what happened at the end of the last tale and what happens after someone unleashes the worst thing the modern faerie courts know. We see characters like Rhys grow in power and others, like Kitto, come into power they never knew possible.

There are also a lot of politics amidst the steamy scenes in this book. We get a lot more insight into goblin culture especially, and it is interesting to see how the factions are playing out there even as drama unfolds at the Unseelie court.

As our fond group returns to the sithen, more chaos plays out as the Queen's ring makes magic come alive and the Queen herself isn't always pleased. Along with the Goddess' magic, comes the magic of betrayal from others inside Andais's court.

The book adds to the depth of the series and we learn more about politics both inside the Unseelie court and elsewhere, and we also see hints of how strong Merry could become. Overall, it's a great addition to the series.

The Good: The chalice appears and boosts the series into overdrive. The power the chalice can give or return to a Sidhe significantly raises the stakes for Merry and is the stat of a long-running subplot in the series. Seduced by Moonlight is when things change in the series, when the pace of the books increases greatly. Now, not only does Merry have to get pregnant to gain the throne and protect herself from Cel, she also has to act as the vessel of the goddess to bring all of faerie back into their rightful power. As more and more danger is thrown in Merry's path, the sexy times ramp up to secure her rise to power. These books are almost impossible to put down.

The Bad: Not a thing.

I was enjoying this book until about page 130, when Merry had the great transformation. I simply do not get it. Does Laurell not like Merry's character? Why on earth would she make Merry THE PRINCESS, soon to be queen a huge sperm bank? At one point, Merry is so upset of being deprived the opportunity of swallowing seed, instead of all the men's seed always being used to try and get her pregnant. For goddess sake, it was almost like Merry was swishing it around in her mouth like fine wine.

If Merry is the one to be worshiped, especially now that she is a goddess; then why aren't the men worshiping her? The guards are not kings, why aren't they on their knees and putting out to Merry? Why is the princess doing all the menial labor with such shameless eagerness, like the men are doing her a favor by letting her taste? Perhaps if Merry were at least on equal footing between her and her men sexually, I wouldn't be this disgusted. Don't get me wrong, I love reading demented books as much as the next gal but having Merry anxious to please everyone like a love starved puppy is demeaning.

Relationships are give and take. Just because someone is eager to be used as a Hoover vacuum doesn't make it right. I've never been so conflicted with a series. The fantasy in this series is phenomenal and like no other. The last 100 pages of this book were so good; I was riveted to each word. However, the sex is just goddess awful and they last for pages upon pages; it's not easy to just skip them. I'm so disgusted with Merry's sex life but I love Merry's character when she isn't draped or drowning in men (and women).

I hate myself for saying this but I will read the next book in this series, Stroke of Midnight because sadly enough, I can't wait to see what happens next with the fantasy portion of this series.

I also recommend:
Succubus Blues (Georgina Kincaid, Book 1)
Personal Demons
Full Moon Rising (Riley Jensen, Guardian, Book 1)
Seduced by Magic (Magic Series, Book 2)
Night Huntress (Sisters of the Moon, Book 5)

****Addendum 12/28/09- After giving it much thought, I don't think I can continue reading this series. In fact, I don't think I'll be reading anything from Laurell again in the future. I can no longer respect Merry's character; I feel she is being humiliated by having her sleep with anyone and everyone who crosses her path. I read books mostly for entertainment purposes and seeing the demeaned and abused treatment of Merry's character, the story stops being enjoyable and fun to me.

Meredith Gentry #3: Seduced by Moonlight, by Laurell K. Hamilton

I'm having a difficult time writing something about this book, and I read it only two days ago. To me, "Seduced by Moonlight" is just kinda there. The book seems like a bridge between the previous two in the series and the upcoming installments - it doesn't really feel like a whole lot happens.

However, some important events did happen. Merry extended her alliance with the goblins through some unique (and long) negotiating. An important artifact of the sidhe, a legendary chalice that could feed thousands without going empty and raise dead warriors to fight again; an artifact that had been lost to faerie for hundreds of years, appeared in Merry's bed. And Merry herself gained a new ability - through sex and help from the Goddess (the main religious deity of the sidhe), she can bring power back to the sidhe, and to faerie. Then there's a very gruesome scene near the end that shows why most of the Unseelie fear Queen Andais; it's also an excellent growth opportunity for Merry.

But I think it's mainly the slow pacing of the book that didn't work for me. Normally I enjoy a lot of detail, but sometimes too much is just too much, and things need to move along a little faster. I think the majority of the novel covers a period of a day. If my day were that full I'd need a month to recover...but then again, Merry does live in a mostly fantastical world.

3/5.

Unlike most reviewers I picked this book at random without knowing anything except the blurb that she is a private eye and fairie princess trying to become pregnant.

The book does not stand alone very well. There is enough back-story described to introduce the basic concepts but I never did get much of a "why" for some of the goofy aspect, like real-live fairies living in St. Louis, the U.S. being the "last country on Earth" that would take them, why a mortal princess with a lifespan of a hundred years at best would be considered a "successor" to an imortal queen who has lived for thousands.

At its best the book is really good. Interestingly, I thought the sex scenes are remarkably un-graphic, most of the time is spent in description of the magical look and feel of things. I found that they would go to bed and an entire hour of narration later they were still there, but it didn't drag - in fact the new things that kept happening really held my interest.

Also the scene where she finally meets the Queen of Air and Darkness was incredibly well written, a gripping scene that had me glued to the speaker to find out what would happen.

On the flip side, I was amazed at how little actually happened. There were a few sex scenes, people got amazing powers but didn't do anything with them, incredible artifacts that had not appeared for thousands of years popped up but nobody did anything with them. Alligiances were carefully crafted but nobody did anything with them..it was wierd, so much happened and it was all taken in stride..especially by mid-book where new people were getting incredible things happen to them without any warning (the guard of Merry at least knew that wierd things were happening) but didn't even comment on them.

I mean, if you had suddenly regained incredible powers that you had lost a thousand years ago - wouldn't you want to practice, or talk about it or something! Instead its "oh well" and on to the next person or scene. Fantastic things come and go pretty much without comment.

I was also dissapointed by Merry's reaction to things. If she was truely a private detective in previous books she was supposed to know how to use a brain but she never thought logically about anything, never tried to solve any of the puzzles so freely handed out in the book. Atempts on her life are met with "what should I do?" attitude, not something I would expect from a Private Eye.

Following the first 2/3 of the book, which is mostly light sex and glowing descriptions of magic and power, the book turns dark and suddenly there is blood everywhere. People are killing and fighting and hating and Merry changes into a bloody character herself..definately not "cute little fairy".

The book has no real ending. Its as if the publisher just picked a chapter in the middle of a larger story and stopped printing there. Peoples fates are unknown, major plot lines are still "going to happen tomorrow", it simply stops in the middle.

The audio cd was good, the narrator did a good job with the descriptions, adding a wonderous emphasis to the right places to really convey the mood. She didn't do as well with the voices, all the men coming out very wooden-sounding. The biggest problem with the audio was the "he said" problem. it seemed that during long passages of dialog every single sentence ended with "he said" or "Frost said" or "Dole said", etc. Probably if you were reading the print it would not matter but since the "narrator voice" was different than the character voice, when spoken, every single line changed voices and the "he said" became so intrusive it overshadowed the dialog itself.

To summarize: a good book, nothing to do with a private detective. Lots of interesting very descriptive magical effects and magical power wielding, but not much happens and no ending.. only read this if you immediately proceed to the next one.

I read “Seduced By Moonlight,” with great anticipation, over a two day period, and, while I thought it was pretty good, I would have to agree with another reviewer, that it was just too short. I think the entire story line took place over a day or so in the life of our heroine, Merry Gentry, and it really didn’t go far enough in tying up loose ends, nor bring any sort of conclusion to anything. It was more like a very long teaser, than a true stand-alone story, in my opinion. Merry is, unfortunately or otherwise, like Anita Blake, in Ms. Hamilton’s other well-known series, gaining new abilities, but the story isn’t being advanced very much, at all.
The scene with Queen Andais, while graphic, does not really add anything to the story, other than to emphasize how much of a sadist the Queen is; and the relationships with the other Ravens, now made a part of Merry’s entourage, are not fleshed out, really, in any way, and we need a lot more fleshing out, in my opinion. For example, Sholto is supposed to be allowed into Merry’s bed, as payment for the sluagh going after Merry’s (and the Queen’s) enemies. Where was this even agreed to in the book? Yet, its mentioned as a fait accompli, in the banquet scene, without any prior mention being made.
I think it’s an okay book; not the greatest in the series, by far, and I would seriously recommend waiting until it comes out in paperback, if you just must have it in your collection (that’s what I’m going to do).
I will certainly be waiting for the next one in the series, with hopes that it will be more substantial, and will fill in a lot of empty blanks left by this volume.
Keep up the writing, please, Ms. Hamilton, just give us more to chew on next time.

Hamilton needs to work on being consistant. I fell in love with the first book in this Meredith series, the first ever of any Hamilton book I had read. Second book was pretty good too. Then I went back and started on her Anita Blake books- upon which I was horrified at the trash that she had produced and succeeded with numerous sequals. In fact, I kept buying the ridiculously priced($8 for 200something pages)in the hopes that somewhere I would find the Hamilton that I enjoyed. I finally quit realizing the series wasn't going anywhere. AND UNFORTUNATELY, the latest installment in the fairy series smacks of just that. The book doesn't go anywhere. Towards the end of the book you realize that only two days have passed in the last couple hundred pages. It's not even the gratuitous sex. I don't mind that. This was just pages on pages of junk, and I had to keep reading back because instantaneously, with POOR EXPLANATION, someone would get new powers, or something strange would happen. About 50 pages before the end of the book, things start to get good. My recommendation for readers is to pick it up only if you're a loyal Hamilton fan, and my recommendation for the writer would be that(although I love some of her work very much) she should be less concerned on quantity and pace and more on quality. I've been waiting 4 years for the latest book in one of my author' series. I don't mind a bit, because I know in that space of time, something great is happening. And my $20+ will go toward a novel that can't be confused with the writing quality of a POORLY written romance novel.

I really liked the powerful magic in this book. I read people calling it porn, I don't think they know what porn is. The author in no moment use words to describe the human genitalia that are not polite. The love making are most about magic, beauty and the coming of power of the faerie that have being losing their powers since they mingled with the humans.

Some reviewers are saying that she is too powerful, too beautiful, too perfect to be a good heroine. Well, She is to become the Faerie Queen and those are the characteristics that describe the faerie queens of both courts in any literature you can find.

I think the author has done a nice research on faerie lore. She uses loads of love making healing and coming to power. But, well, this a power of Celtic Goddesses and even of Faerie Queens of the Seelie Court.

It doesn't add much to the plot if you are searching for spying and intrigue, but it add to the story of each of the characters. It gives depth and the idea of all their powers come from, who were they and what powers they had.

Faeries are the broken souls of dead Gods, what else do you expect besides a lot of power and magic?

I really enjoyed this book. Even though it lags in part and sometimes descriptions of beauty are just too detailed. But, nonetheless, the faerie love that brought the wings to the two faeries was very pretty in my opinion.

Laurell Hamilton has written some fine books. This does not number among them.

She's got some fine world-building here. She's obviously done research into the faerie legends, and the politicking is nearly interesting (if only everything didn't involve blood and sex)

The sex scenes and the endless description turned me off. Scenes between Anita and Jean-Claude (in the other series) were steamy because we felt the tension. Here, there's no tension because Merry will do just about anyone.

Also, there are too many characters for a book of this length, and none of them have any personality. So Frost pouts. That's it? He's an ancient demi-god and the only thing he does besides pose and fight is pout? All her men are gorgeous, all are obedient, and most are submissive with long hair. Hmmm...I'm seeing a trend.

Hamilton needs to concentrate on a handful of characters, develop them, make them have conflicts and lives of their own, and find a way for Merry to NOT want to have sex, otherwise the sex scenes will continue to lack sizzle. For example, why hasn't Merry visited an infertility counsellor? The first thing they would tell her is that having sex every day (and sometimes twice) is a good way to NOT get pregnant?

The first seven books I read by L.K.Hamilton were excellent. The last few I've read sucked. I'm just about at the point where my love for her characters is not worth the disappointment of a poorly written story.

Meredith NicEssus is still trying to get pregnant in order to win the Unseelie crown. A half-mortal faerie princess, Merry has been copulating with six gorgeous guards for several months, and has even helped impregnate another member of the Sidhe with a fertility ritual, but she still hasn't conceived. Which is a really bad thing because if her co-heir cousin Cel gets out of prison and produces a child first, he becomes the monarch of the dark fey.
To complicate matters, a creature Merry recently killed left a deposit of magic inside of her. Now she has the ability to grant powers, and even return deity status to former gods. She's also brokered a deal to continue her alliance with the goblin king. He'll remain her ally if she has sex or shares blood with all of his kingdom's Sidhe half-breeds and awakens their faerie powers. Such an alliance could prove crucial when Cel is released, but it also means Merry will be a busy girl in the bedroom.
Doyle, Frost, Galen, Rhys, Nicca and Kitto have all returned to be the king of Princess Merry's world. The first half of this book revolves around having sex, thinking about sex, talking about sex and then having some more sex. When her aunt, the wicked Queen of Air and Darkness, demands Merry's return to the Unseelie Court, violence and debauchery ensue.
In the first two books of this series, Merry was an intriguing character, a multifaceted woman trying to balance her mortal life as a private investigator with her royal faerie ties. Now she's an unemployed vessel of power and a political prostitute. For someone whose only occupation is having sex, Merry is entirely devoid of passion.
Laurell K. Hamilton's writing continues to be evocative, and her world-building skills are top-notch. But she fails to give the reader a story worthy of her characters. Nonexistent plotting, dull dialogue, repetitive body part descriptions and disappointing "power" plays transformed "Seduced by Moonlight" from a highly anticipated novel into barely readable soft porn.
--Previously appeared in The Science Fiction Romance Newsletter

I have enjoyed the Merry Gentry series since A Kiss of Shadows. I hadn't read Seduced by Moonlight because I was waiting for the mass market copy to be released, but I finally caved in and borrowed the hardback from a friend. I am glad I didn't have to purchase the book because this third installment was disappointing to the max. Merry is still trying to conceive a child and beat Prince Cel to the throne of the Unseelie Court and she continues to deal with her sadistic aunt, the Queen of Air and Darkness. So she sets out to sleep with every willing goblin, elf, demi-fey and raven she encounters. And they are all gorgeous of course. And in typical Laurell K. Hamilton fashion, Merry faces other challenges, like the fact that someone wants to kill her. Will Merry finally get closer to the throne or will she face more obstacles? There are many twists throughout the novel.

I'd like to say first and foremost that this sort of fantasy fiction fascinates me. The dark storyline about a world where kinky sex is considered the norm and violence is a necessary evil is a welcome change from all the fairytale-like fantasy fiction out there. I also like Hamilton's unique sort of faerie. The startup plot in A Kiss of Shadows was what drew me to this series. But what I found disappointing about this novel was the rather tedious first half in which centers on a mating frenzy between Merry and her men. I am an avid erotica reader. Sex in books, including stories centered solely on sex, isn't a problem for me, but even sex scenes can get boring when there is no plot to back it up. You see, my point of view would be different if I expected this to be an erotic novel and nothing else, like an Emma Holly or M.S. Valentine erotica, but LKH has made it clear more than once that erotica is one of many elements in her novels. Well, the aforementioned statement is not apparent with this book. Also, I thought that the dream sequences and sex with elements of magic (especially the magic mirror encounter between Merry and the king of goblins) were major snoozers for me. They reminded me of Anita Blake's metaphysical mumbo jumbo in that it takes too much unnecessary space in the story. The story improves toward the end where there is nonstop action (though over the top at times) and even some touching and intimate scenes between Merry and the men in her harem... and then the book is over just when it starts to get interesting. In other words, repetitive sex scenes, dream and magic sequences, and mindless dialogue monopolize a large portion of the book. A riveting, interesting series with an eye-catching premise, smoldering erotic scenes and several of the most gorgeous male characters ever written (Doyle, Frost and Rhys are especially delicious) is going downhill fast. I hope that A Stroke of Midnight will be better than this one because I am seriously considering throwing in the towel on both the Anita Blake and Merry Gentry series. At least I still have Charlaine Harris, Kelley Armstrong and Kim Harrison, three great authors in the sci-fi/fantasy genre, to entertain me.

Seduced by Moonlight by Laurell K. Hamilton is the third book in the Merry Gentry series. While this book is the weakest in this series, a Hamilton fan will enjoy it.
Seduced by Moonlight begins a few weeks after the end of Caress of Twilight. Merry and her guards have moved onto the estate of the fey actress Maeve Reed, who is pregnant due to fertility rites preformed by Merry and Galen. Public interest and political intrigue seem to be weighing down all her guards and Merry herself is frustrated. King Kurag figures prominently as he attempts to thwart his alliance with Merry. Assassination attempts affect Merry and her guards in ways never imagined.
Seduced by Moonlight does have some problems. It does not appear to further the storyline arc started in Kiss of Shadows and continued in Caress of Twilight. Merry seems to have discontinued her PI work and no mystery plot was worked into the story line. I was disappointed to find the early plot development to be of little or no importance to the ending.
While Seduced by Moonlight does have some problems, many things are done extremely well by Hamilton. The characters do develop deeper emotionally and it was very refreshing to read about strong male leads that are also eye candy. Hamilton has an amazing imagination that is thoroughly explored in Seduced by Moonlight. While I found the ending to be a let down, I did enjoy Merry�s triumph of power. It was very moving to experience Merry�s emotions as she faced some of her worst fears. Queen Andais also experiences an emotional change not hinted in the previous two books.
Laurell K. Hamilton is the author of two other books in the Merry Gentry series, Kiss of Shadows and Caress of Twilight. She is also the author of the highly successful Anita Blake series. The twelfth book in the series, Incubus Dreams is due to be released in October 2004. Be sure the visit the author�s website at [...]

Meredith Gentry, princess of the Unseelie court, has a problem. Her cousin will do anything to kill her--and anything for an immortal is quite a bit. If Meredith can get pregnant, however, she'll become heir and be largely out of danger. With a male harem of willing bodyguards and a huge sex drive that doesn't sound like it should be much of a problem for Merry. Except fertility is terribly low amongst the sedhe and she seems to be no exception. In the meantime, court politics continue and Merry has more enemies than just her cousin--including perhaps, her aunt, the Queen of the Unseelie court.
When she's invited to the Seelie court for a ball in her honor, Merry has no choice but to go--to refuse would show weakness, something no one of faerie can afford. But first, she needs to make a trip to the Unseelie Court and shore up her rough relationship with her aunt. Strange things are happening, however and Merry seems involved in awakening magic that had been lost for generations or more. The long-lost caldron/grail shows up in Merry's dream and then materializes and she is able to restart a long-dead magical spring in the Unseelie Court itself. But she is still mortal--and a few good tricks don't seem likely to stop her aunt who is on a murderous rage.
Author Laurell K. Hamilton cooks up a fascinating world of sex, violence, perversion, and power in her Meredith Gentry series. All of these, sex, politics and blood are connected and Merry finds herself torn between the lessons of her father--assassinated for his weakness--and those of her aunt who kills without compunction. Since she awakens magical powers through sex or blood, there is plenty of opportunity for both--especially when her blood-covered appearance in the Unseelie Court causes magical challenges against her--and her aunt.
SEDUCED BY MOONLIGHT moves a bit slowly. Merry has ample time to sample her males, negotiate with the goblins and fey, and generally go about her business of awakening magic. Lack of a ticiking clock generally weakens a story but in this case, the story is the characters--how Merry and her guard/harem deal with her powerful aunt and with one another as they vie to become the male who impregnates her and becomes consort to the heir. I find Hamilton's writing to be strangely fascinating and her best-selling status proves that I'm not alone. But SEDUCED BY MOONLIGHT is not for the faint of heart--it's graphic, often grotesque, and darkly compelling. Give it a try--but you may want to read the books in order.

This third book in the Meredith Gentry series continues with massive political intrigue, strange, erotic and complicated sexual situations and an overall fast pace. Meredith is preparing to meet with Both the Unseelie and Seelie Sidhe courts, along with a stop in between to the Goblin King to work out a longer protection scheme (I'll let you guess what she is bartering with...).
But Merry begins to change to something more powerful. She appears to be favored by the gods, who are granting her the power to heal, to increase strenghts in others, and are giving her long lost Seelie artifacts. Now, as a consequence to killing the Nameless in the second book, when Meredith has initimate contact with her consorts and bodygaurds, she returns them their godheads - their powers from long ago re-emerge. This book is transitional in nature but has an AWESOME ending. Meredith's "consort total" continues to rise, with potentially absurd numbers coming in the next volume of the series.
Although the entire book takes place over a few days, Hamilton's creative writing style keeps things interesting enough that you will find it hard to put this book down. Because of the continued influx of new characters and continued story development, I would not recommend starting off with this book - this series is important to read in order. It's also clear that Hamilton uses these books to act out her fantasies. I along with many others are gladly going along for the ride.

If reading this book was almost enjoyable, reviewing it is rather frustrating. I find it quite difficult to explain the particular love-hate feeling I had for this much awaited third installment. I do love the concept of the series and the main characters. Magic, beautiful sidhe, court intrigues, sex - what more to get me going?... Actually, I really felt there should have been a bit more in this latest book to really get me going, and I don't mean pages.

The first book set up the big questions: Will Merry get a child? Who's her consort going to be? What will happen when Cel gets released? The second book was, inevitably, a transition to future books: Merry got more power, her personal relationships got more complicated ... All the while the reader hoped the third book would eventually return to the main questions. The third book doesn't. If at all possible, it conveys even more the "transition" feeling of the second book. We are still at the stage when the chess pieces are deployed on the board, with two more months to go until Cel becomes a major player again. Merry gets even more power and her personal relationships get even more complicated. (I really wonder how many more potential consorts could be piled up on her bed). She doesn't even make it to Taranis' ball - that's still 2 days away, I mean, one book away. Sorry, readers, this time we don't get even the customary detective mystery.

There are some nice things in the book. I am happy with how Merry develops, quite pleased that her personality and demeanor are a lot lighter than Anita's latest. Rhys and Nicca get more attention (nice), Kitto more power, Frost's past more explanation (bizarre, but interesting). The whole history of the chalice and what it portends for Merry in terms of her magical power is an intriguing addition - although, like many other details in LKH's latest books, it sort of stays "on hold", making the reader hope the (yet) next book will actually explain it all (judging from the latest trend, I am assuming it won't). The not-very-nice thing is that the manner in which the story unfolds is terribly unfocused. Gone are the times when Ms. Hamilton's books were action-packed and self-contained. Whatever "action" there is in here, it only happens towards the end and is quite anticlimactic. Many new characters are squeezed in the last third part of the book, all of them potentially major, all of them potentially a future consort, as if to warn us that the next book will tease the reader even more and still nothing will happen.

If this book actually had a plot, I would have gotten quite interested in it. Since the plot was mainly non-existent, I just relaxed, enjoyed whatever I could enjoy of the book, and hated that I really couldn't love it.

I read Sunny's Monere series (Mona Lisa Awakening and Mona Lisa Blossoming) and many of the reviewers compared those books to Laurell K. Hamilton's Meredith Gentry series, so I thought I'd give them a shot while waiting for the third Monere book to come out. I recently read the first two Merry Gentry books, A Kiss of Shadows and A Caress of Twilight. The first book in the series was interesting enough that I wanted to know more. The second was pretty much a run-down of info that should have been included in the first book, and reading it was like watching paint dry, but I was still interested in Merry and I'd already committed by reading the first two books in the series. I am a person who finishes what she starts. That being said, I feel duty-bound to finish these books off. But, I have to wonder... is this series going anywhere?

Merry just seems to be falling deeper and deeper into nothing at all. We keep hearing how great she is at court politics and I get the impression that we're supposed to want her to be the next Queen of the Unseelie court, but then she's all of a sudden bespelled by magic since she can't think when she's having sex (and she's ALWAYS having sex), or she's getting some new power she doesn't understand and everyone around her has to explain what it means (so much for all your father's knowledge), or even making promises to share her body and blood with goblins, demi-fey, and anything else that wants a taste. And she expects these people to respect her on the throne? Please! These books keep getting more and more outrageous and hard to follow, but like a fool I keep coming back for more. Take my advice and stick to Sunny's Monere series rather than coming to the Merry Gentry side of things. I wish I had, but now I'm stuck in a series that seems to be going nowhere.

I never took to Laurell Hamilton's popular Anita Blake series, but I enjoy the Merry Gentry series a lot more. It's probably the sex - Merry Gentry is on a mission to have lots of it. She is a Faerie Princess - her aunt is Queen of the Unseelie Court of Faerie - and her newfound powers are triggered by sexual energy. In the earlier volumes, Merry enjoyed relations with a variety of inhumanly handsome men with gorgeous hair. Now her mission takes her further afield to partners differing in size, shape, species, and gender. Hamilton makes each encounter quite erotic. My tastes are conventional, but I saw the appeal through Merry's eyes.

The context for all this bed-wrestling is politics in the Faerie Court. Merry has an opportunity to become her aunt's successor, but of course is opposed by other factions within the court. Her aunt also becomes more insecure as she sees Merry's powers grow. Political intrigue plots can be snoozers, but Hamilton makes it be about the immediate threat to Merry, which drew me in.

Readers should start from the beginning of this series. There are quite a few characters by this point in the story who have been gradually introduced over the previous two books. Also, becoming acquainted with Merry before her powers came to her makes her a more sympathetic character. At this point in the story, she's a gorgeous woman with profound magical powers, and more magic coming to her almost every day. It's harder to relate to such a perfect being.

I'm starting to be disappointed in Laurell Hamilton's work. Not necessarily because she's putting so much sex into her books, but because a) it's at the expense of plot, dialogue, and character and b) it's bad sex. If this were a book filled with nothing but hot, kinky sex, I'd be just fine with that. But the sex isn't even that great! The second half is taken up with Meredith touching a bunch of guys with a magical ring that gets her off each time. Nice, but after the fifth guy in line, it gets a little old, and very unsatisfying for the rest of us.

The plot, if anyone cares, involves Meredith coming into some serious and mysterious new power that could restore the Unseelie Court to its former glory - if she can stay alive and keep it out of the hands of her enemies. Typically, however, she's less concerned with resurrecting Faerie than with picking out outfits and cuddling with her bodyguards. And talking. My God, do these people talk a lot. They will literally drop whatever they're doing and go on for pages at a time, about the most inconsequential detail imaginable - yet, when something really, really important happens, it barely even rates a mention. Nicca's wings burst out of his back in the middle of having sex with Meredith - and she wipes the blood off her face and hauls someone else into her bed. Focus, girl!

The end is left somewhat dangling - the whole book takes place over the course of a few days, so a lot of issues are raised that don't get resolved. I can hope, I guess, that they'll be addressed in the 4th book, "Stroke of Midnight", but something tells me I shouldn't hold my breath. On the other hand, Meredith adds a few more men to her queue, so at least the hot sex should be back soon.

Merry Gentry comes into new powers and returns her fellow fey to their god/dess status in Laurell K. Hamilton's "Seduced by Moonlight." Merry and her gang of guards also prepare for and make a trip to the Unseelie court, where we are left at the end of the novel.

I am a huge fan of Hamilton's, but I must say that I am growing weary of novels that lack a plot. The only thing that happened in this novel was a trip back to St. Louis and a ton of sex. Now, I am all for gratuitous sex, but this is just over-kill. In addition, I have noticed that Hamilton has turned both of her main characters (Anita and Merry) into these larger than life, everything to everyone, kind of people and it is really annoying. Merry is fey, and a princess, and she has the hand of flesh, and the hand of blood, plus she is the earthly vessel of the goddess Danu...please. I know it is in the fantasy genre, that is why I read it, but let's exercise some constraint please. Even I have a believability limit, and Hamilton has pushed passed it.

I certainly hope Stroke of Midnight is better.

I will admit that I thought that Seduced by Moonlight was the second book of the series, and I did not realize it until about 50 pages in with talk about fighting the Nameless, conflict with the Lord of Light and Illusion and Maeve Reed. I decided to continue on and absorb the book. I can always pick up the previous book later and read through it.

Seduced has less of a story than Kiss. Kiss is about Merry's return to the Unseelie court and how she survives it. Seduced is about how Merry is being used as a focal point of the Goddess and Consort to revive the old power of the faerie. Sorry to say, I saw this is an underlying plot of Kiss; it is just amplified in scale. Merry is able to return sidhe to their former godhood, transform other fae into sidhe and heal the fae of their mortal wounds. The plot is not compelling enough to hold the story together.

There are other plots. The negotiations with the Demi-fey and the Goblins. The assassination attempt on Meredith and the Queen's Ravens. The plots are disjointed and do not hold the story together. Pieces of the assassination attempt could have been introduced earlier in the book, and it might have held it together. It is sad you have no idea who the perpetrators were until you meet them. The promise of Merry's visit to the Seelie Court to the banquet being thrown by the Lord of Light and Illusion in her honor never materializes. This was my greatest disappointment.

A lot more characters are introduced in this story. In the end, Merry has 16 guards. It can see difficulties in holding them altogether as a part of the story in future books. The names will begin to blur. Though LKH does make an effort to make them all unique. However, if you have a mob of unique people, you still have a mob.

I know I am tearing into the story. I do have some positive things to say. Her prose is well done. Her scenes are vivid and articulate. The development of the core characters as well as the setting is interesting, and I cannot wait to see more.

I would recommend this book to someone who has read the previous books and is interested in the development of the characters and setting. I would never recommend this book on its own. I hope the next book is better.

This here story takes place only in three rooms, as far as I can remember -
A bedroom
Another bedroom
A throne room
Oh, yeah, there was a pause at an airport along the way.
Ms. Hamilton's writing is of course beautiful, drawing beautiful people the way artists do in fantasy comics, but the plot was really slow.
Merry, princess of faerie, spends a good portion of the book in one extended love scene, and then hies off to her aunt's court *finally* so that the reader can say the entire novel didn't just take place in one spot.
Things do get exciting at the Unseelie court, but if you want to find out when she finally gets to meet the Seelie king (this was announced in book 2) you'll have to wait probably till book 5, because book 4 will be taken up by another couple of bedrooms and part two of Merry's journey- the Goblin court.
Halfway through the book, I was wishing Merry's admirers had only one eye-colour instead of three, making physical descriptions thrice as long. Most of the fairie men have long flowing hair, too. It would be nice if one or two of the men had a different hairstyle (to be fair, Doyle has a braid, which makes him doubly interesting to me for that reason).
Despite all this, the book is worth skimming through, if only to see how Merry is slowly growing more and more queen-like, learning what she has to do, how she can bend the rules, where she can surpass them. I loved the changes her character went through.
I'd suggest reading the last 50 pages of this book right before the next one comes out. Together, they should have enough action to keep a Laurell K. Hamilton fan going for a while.

�Seduced By Moonlight� by Laurell K. Hamilton is an excellent and typically chaotic addition to the Merry Gentry series. Hamilton is the Robert Altman of Romantic/Horror fiction � she likes her cast big, unruly, and eccentric. This can make for fun but confusing stories (at the end of the book Merry has 16 guard/studs in her entourage and its not easy keeping them all straight) that rely less on plot and more on character.
Merry is in a race to get pregnant before her cousin in order to claim the Unseelie crown and bring fertility back to the Fey, and she�s not having an easy time of it. Whoever is the first to get pregnant gets the crown, and since Sidhe haven�t been fertile for a long time Merry has to have sex as often and with as many different hot immortal men as possible.
Merry�s mortal � and because of that more vulnerable to assassination attempts than the average fey. her Human, Brownie, and Sidhe bloodlines make her less than an ideal choice of ruler for the many of the Unseelie court; Merry is a target who's lucky to still be alive.
Merry is one of the most interesting female characters out there � and not just because it's her duty to have sex with as many different hot fey men as possible. She has emotional depth and is flawed enough (despite her extraordinary life) for the reader to like.

Laurell K. Hamilton first gained fame as the author of the Anita Blake, Vampire-Hunter series, the first few of which were tightly plotted fantasy/mysteries, seething with repressed sexuality, highly charged and erotic. Her last few books in the Anita Blake series, and all three in the Merry Gentry series, are pornography. This is an observation, not a criticism. I have nothing against pornography. I do wonder, however, if all this was deliberate. Did Laurell Hamilton consciously decide to build an audience before she could be pigeonholed as merely a purveyor of erotica? Is she only now writing what she had wanted to write all along?

No matter, a purveyor of erotica she is, and a good one, too. Seduced by Moonlight is the third book in the adventures of Merry Gentry, the only native born Elven American Princess. The heroine has fled the home of faerie, which lies somewhere in the vicinity of St. Louis, Missouri, in order to escape an unending series of assassination attempts by the followers of Merry's very unloving cousin, Prince Cel, who is the only child of the Queen of Air and Darkness.

Faerie is dying. The Sidhe have few children, and their magic has faded over the years. Through a combination of luck and pluck, Merry has rubbed her Aunt's face in the facts of her son's iniquity. Queen Andais has decreed that whoever first begets a child, Merry or Prince Cel, will inherit the throne of the Unseelie Court. Since Prince Cel is in prison, Merry would seem to have the inside track, but despite constant and imaginative sex with a horde of guardian lovers, she is not yet pregnant.

As Seduced by Moonlight opens, Merry and her men are temporarily living on the estate of Maeve Reed, a Sidhe exiled from faerie because of her dangerous knowledge regarding Merry's uncle, Taranis, the King of the Seelie Court. Merry has a dream of power, and when she awakens, an ancient chalice that had been thought lost from faerie is lying next to her in bed. Merry proceeds to have sex with a number of people, one of them Maeve Reed, all of whom regain godlike powers they had lost many ages before, or gain godlike powers that they had never had. Merry, as if we had ever doubted it, is special.

The action of Seduced by Moonlight takes place over a very few days, and the overall arc of the series advances little. Merry has been invited, first to a feast in her honor at the Unseelie Court, and then to a similar event at the Seelie Court. The current books ends at the Unseelie Court, with many volumes, presumably, to follow.

Seduced by Moonlight certainly has its weak points. For one thing, the Sidhe, both the Seelie and Unseelie, are depicted as beautiful, powerful, racist, violent and untrustworthy. Their problems are, to a large extent, of their own making, and it is difficult to feel much sympathy for their society as a whole. Europe had exiled the Sidhe generations before, tired of the internecine warfare that they had caused, and President Thomas Jefferson had offered them sanctuary in America. One cannot help but feel that Jefferson made a mistake.

Merry, alone among the Sidhe, is "mortal." At one point, a Sidhe noble protests against Merry's possible ascension to the throne, since a mortal Sidhe would, presumably, hasten the demise of their magic. It is stated that all the Sidhe with whom Merry has "shared blood" have become mortal. Doubt is cast upon this point, but it is not refuted. Merry and her accuser fight a duel, in the course of which they share blood. The accuser does not become mortal, and Queen Andais offers this, not as proof that Merry's mortality will not contaminate the Sidhe's powers, but rather as proof that Merry is now immortal. Merry wonders if this is so. How does it feel to be immortal? Would she know? Well, I certainly don't. How did she know she was mortal in the first place, if she can't tell the difference now?

Do not think from the above that I do not like Seduced by Moonlight. I like it just fine. Laurell K. Hamilton's books move along at a breakneck pace, even when they don't go very far. It's one thing after another and the reader is taken for a wild ride. Merry is an attractive, sympathetic and very sexy heroine. The dialogue is hip and snappy, the characterizations, well done. The overall dilemma is compelling. Laurell Hamilton has gotten into a nasty habit of having her heroines escape from (and usually kill) the bad guys by suddenly developing a brand new power, just in the nick of time. This book, thankfully, does not succumb to such an obvious device. Seduced by Moonlight is a creampuff. It's light and delicious and mostly air. It's certainly not "high art," but it's never boring and the reader looking for escapist fiction of the more outrageous variety, and who chooses to overlook its obvious flaws, will find it, I think, quite filling enough.

I enjoyed this book for the background in Celtic folklore and myth. I think the background story, characterization and main storyline are doing just fine. This book is obviously a bridge between the first two and the next however many. Hamilton gives you little clues in each book as to the origin of each of the characters. For Doyle, it was the second book. For Rhys and Frost and a few others, it was this book. She really plays on the fertility gods, of which the Celts were famous for worshipping so it is no surprise that many of them are showing up and enjoying the fruits of their labor, so to speak. Of course there is a lot of sex, it's about fertility and the gods and fairies who were proponets of sex. If you don't want to read about sex and fertility don't read this series. If you want a bloodthirsty, psychopathic, sexless sociopath you'll have to find it elsewhere. I can recommend Carol O'Connor's series featuring just such a heroine. Hamilton has done some bang up research and brought the Celtic gods and goddesses into the 21st century. I for one found this book enjoyable, other than Merry has way too much happen to her in a two day period. I get the same feeling from the Anita Blake series.

I just finished Seduced By Moonlight. I don't think this volume was her best work. She seemed to give herself over to phsyical descriptions a little too much. The pace was too slow as there was entirely too much emphasis on hair and eye color..tri color such as this.....long shining waves of hair color that. Then there were her descriptions on the mystical events that were drenched in color and very little actual action. I like that Merry is gaining power and confidence (some).....however it almost seems that it is at the expense of the guards characters. They felt a little flat in this book. Sure, Frost pouted, Doyle scowled and Rys teased as per usual but they didn't have their usual power to pull me in. I confess to actually skimming some paragraphs rather than reading them completely just so I could get to a part of the story that had a little more meat in it.....so to speak. I wish she would bring Doyle a little more into the forefront and flesh his character out a bit more. He is my favorite of the guards. However, I remain a steadfast Laurell Hamilton fan and look forward to the next installment of the Merry Gentry series.

Laurell K. Hamilton has amazing imagination and I am glad to be allowed into it through this series of Meredith Gentry books. This is the third book and you must read them in order. If you are into to action, blood, gore, and incredible faeries, goblins and other creatures, plus a huge dose of open sexual action, this is the series for you. In this third book the story only moves forward two days, but what two days! Merry Gentry, Princess of the Unseelie goes to visit her aunt Andais, the very violent Queen of the Air and Darkness. What a visit! It is none stop information and action, the reader meets so many new characters and we get so much new information, I am looking forward to book four. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.

I simply loved the first book in this series, but this one was a huge disappointment. The whole book takes place in a 48hr period, and Merry sleeps with so many people I'd have to use spread sheets to keep track of them all. To top it all off, all that sex isn't even interesting to read! I like a hot love scene as much as the next girl, but these orgy scenes are just plain boring. How can that be, you ask? I don't know. I just know that they are stultifyingly bland, and completely unsatisfying. I skimmed/flipped past them, just wanting to find out what was going to happen to the characters, but was irritated that only about a third of the book is devoted to STORY, and the other two-thirds is nothing but really gratuitous sex scenes. Don't get me wrong, I'm not opposed to any of the stuff the characters are doing, and I'm certainly not offended, but when there's that much "action" going on, I shouldn't be yawning. I feel vaguely ripped off. This wasn't even really a whole book. It was more a transitional few chapters that lead from book two to book four, padded out with a lot of bad sex so that the publisher could justify charging us all twenty-something dollars for Hamilton's new "book" and keep her publishing schedule. I'd already given up on the Anita Blake books before I bought this latest entry in the Faire series, and now I think I'm done with these folks' story too. It's sad really, cause these could be really great books, but instead they're turning into bland Goth-porn.