Kiss of Shadows
Laurell K. Hamilton

After 9 books in her Anita Blake universe, Hamilton has started a new universe. As with Blake, this is the current United States with a twist. Blake's world assumes that vampires and other supernatural creatures are real, and have legal rights. Meredith Gentry's world assumes President Jefferson invited the High Faerie Court to the United States, and they settled in Cahokia, Illinois. This gives an exotic flavour to what is essentially a novel of intrigue.

Gentry is on the run from her aunt, the Queen of Air and Darkness. As Faerie royalty Gentry was well known to the tabloids. Now that she is undercover, sightings of Princess Meredith are more popular than Elvis. Gentry believes that her aunt wants to kill her, and several members of the court have tried.

However, nothing is as it seems. Gentry needs to sort out conflicting messages from various emissaries, and stay alive in spite of continuing unusual assassination attempts. Perhaps the oddest attempt starts as a love spell inside a limo that is alive, sort of.

Hamilton has a very distinctive writing voice. The two series are alike enough that if you like one, you'll probably like the other. However, even if you are really interested in Faerie and their mythology, you probably won't like it if you didn't like the Blake series. Nobody would ever confuse the two universes, but you'd never doubt they were by the same author.

What annoys me about Hamilton's characters is that they will be in a crashing hurry, yet they will stand around and argue about something. I'd often be satisfied about the motivations of a particular character to go do something, and wish they'd simply get on with it, while they go around the mulberry bush once again.

But don't get the idea Hamilton's characters are wimps. There's no shortage of action in any of the books. Both Blake and Gentry are strong, believable people coping with a complex situation. Hamilton has started with a thought provoking "what if", for each universe, and remains true to it while surprising the reader. She is like Lois McMaster Bujold in that she seems to be asking herself, "whats the worst that could happen to this character?"

None of the books are exactly erotic, though there's lots of sex. Unconventional sex most of the time, but sex none the less. And blood, don't forget that. Squeamish people may find some parts of Shadows hard to read, as a couple characters have particularly gruesome deaths.

I read Shadows as a library book, and would buy it in softcover. All of Hamilton's books are a buy in softcover for me.

Kiss of Shadows by Laurell K. Hamilton
Ballantine Books ISBN 0-345-42339-9