A Caress of Twilight
Second in the Meredith Gentry series
Laurell K Hamilton
Random House
Paperback, 440 pages, R115.00
Reviewed by Al du Pisani, 2003
A Caress of Twilight take place three months
after A Kiss of Shadows, which introduced the
faerie princess Meredith NicEssus, who had been on the run from her family
for three years.
Merry has now come out of hiding, with a newly acquired entourage of men,
most of whom is trying to get her pregnant, while protecting her life.
Still working at the detective agency where she hide out, she can no longer
go undercover, due to massive press interest in what she does.
It is here that she is approached in her capacity as heir to a line of
fertility goddesses: She has to assist an aging Hollywood goddess, and
ex-member of the Seelie Court, to get pregnant before her husband of many
years dies. The price she is willing to pay: Some information that would cost
the life of the ruler of the Seelie Court.
And so Merry is drawn deeper into the very glamorous, and very, very
dangerous world of faerie politics. A world that she had fled when she
realized that she is in risk of loosing her life. A world in which she has
now become a major player, as the crown princess, ready to take over as soon
as she bears a child. A world in which she is a mortal and all too human,
while her enemies are neither.
Part detective story, in which more is revealed about why the courts of
faerie left Europe for the United States of America, and what price they
though worthwhile paying for that privilege. Part political intrigue, in which
Merry acquires allies. And overlaying all, a brooding sensuous eroticism
derived from the subject matter.
Hamilton is better known for her Anita Blake novels, featuring a Vampire
Hunter that have come too close for too long to the monsters she hunts.
The Meredith Gentry novels are much more sensuous and somewhat less violent.
Her heroine had suffered much: Contemplating at one time the efforts her
aunt's torturer had to make to see that she survives the tortures, and
could continue life at the Unseelie Court. Which was to some extent better
than life in the Seelie Court.
Somebody who is to some extent seriously messed up about pleasure, pain,
and the difference between them, so that she does not seem to think that sex
was worth it, unless she and her partner or partners all end up bleeding from
bites and nail scratches. (It is not that Merry is indiscriminate
in her sexual partners. She is perfectly willing to draw the line, usually a
kilometer or to further out than most people, and that she does not quite
find the idea of a partner with claws, talons, fangs, wings, tentacles or a
combination of the above to be a reason to rule him out.)
And somebody who is able to use her knowledge of the different groups and
cultures of the Faerie to build up a coalition for survival.
I have been a fan of Hamilton's work since I started reading Anita Blake.
These novels have proved to be of equal standard, with enough
differences from her other universe to make life interesting. I have to admit
that her recent books tend to go overboard a bit regarding sex. Still, I
recommend this one. I do recommend that you read this after the previous book,
but this universe have not yet got as convoluted as have the Anita
Blake universe, where I do not believe it is at all possible now to read a new
book, and understand what the hell is going on, without the background
of the previous books.
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