Fancy Faeries: A Kiss of Shadows

I'm practically vibrating I'm so excited to start talking about one of my favorite authors, Laurell K. Hamilton.  I originally got into her via her first extended series, Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter, which I will speak about in due time in more depth but she was the first to break me out of my rather strict vampire outlook and move into the world of the Fae.
A Kiss of Shadows is a great first book, luring me in to the alternate reality of her world.  Her fae are different than many books' takes on the topic, as she posits that the Fae have been kicked out of every nation on Earth except for America and Thomas Jefferson let her people arrive and take the hills in Illinois as their home.  Her main character, Meredith Gentry, is a real life faerie princess, the first to be born on American soil.  The problem Meredith has is that she is not a pure blood Sidhe, but rather mixed heritage, including human, which has made her paternal Aunt, Andias, Queen of Air & Darkness of the Unseelie court try to drown her like a pure bred puppy, and her maternal Uncle, Taranis, King of Light & Illusion of the Seelie court nearly beat her to death.

Meredith's father took her out to grow up among the humans, and most of the Sidhe have not forgiven that.  This first book, A Kiss of Shadows, has Meredith hiding undercover as a private detective in LA and is found by the Slaugh the most un-human of the Fae and their sexy weird king, Sholto, King of the Slaugh and Lord of that which passes between.

I truly enjoy the research Laurell has put into her series, both keeping true to the mythology of the Fae and specifically the Sidhe, but she also weaves in subtleties that make this a most engaging faerie series.  That and it's also a gothic romantic element which I find always a great way to have some paranormal sex.

Meredith, who is hiding in LA as a private detective starts her return to faerie via her under cover work capturing a human who was using the Tears of Branwyn to enslave and capture energy from human descendants of the fae.  After she breaks the man's hold on the spell (and accidentally gets him killed) she is taken to the police where they reveal her as Princes Meredith NicEssus.

After her first hand of power blossoms, Meredith returns to the faerie sithen, and returns to her people's side.  But someone is always out to get her..... can Meredith survive returning home, and further be allowed to be crowned Queen?

Get into it!












A Kiss of Shadows (Meredith Gentry, Book 1)
Laurell K. Hamilton
October, 2000
Publisher: Ballantine Books
ISBN: 0345-42340-2