URBAN FANTASY REVIEW: Merry Gentry 9: A Shiver of Light - Laurell K Hamilton

Release Date: 03/06/14
Publisher:  Bantam

SYNOPSIS:

I am Princess Meredith NicEssus. Legal name Meredith Gentry, because “Princess” looks so pretentious on a driver’s license. I was the first faerie princess born on American soil, but I wouldn't be the only one for much longer...

Merry Gentry, ex–private detective, now full-time princess, knew she was descended from fertility goddesses, but when she learned she was about to have triplets, she began to understand what that might mean. Infertility has plagued the high ranks of faerie for centuries. Now nobles of both courts of faerie are coming to court Merry and her men, at their home in exile in the Western Lands of Los Angeles, because they will do anything to have babies of their own.

Taranis, King of Light and Illusion, is a more dangerous problem. He tried to seduce Merry and, failing that, raped her. He’s using the human courts to sue for visitation rights, claiming that one of the babies is his. And though Merry knows she was already pregnant when he took her, she can’t prove it.

To save herself and her babies from Taranis she will use the most dangerous powers in all of faerie: a god of death, a warrior known as the Darkness, the Killing Frost, and a king of nightmares. They are her lovers, and her dearest loves, and they will face down the might of the high courts of faerie—while trying to keep the war from spreading to innocent humans in Los Angeles, who are in danger of becoming collateral damage.


REVIEW:

After a hell of a wait for this, the latest outing in the Merry Gentry series, I was more than looking forward to getting back to the series to see how the tale would pan out, although to be honest I expected just another day and a half of the pregnant Merry’s story within.

What occurs within is set a good few years later and to be honest that’s the best thing that can be said about it. The characters are blurry (I often forgot who was who within), the plot line none existent and when added to a “story” that just seems to go from one bonk scene to another with no plot use other than to fill pages, all round left me not only cold but totally cheated. It’s going to be a long time before I pick up another LKH book.