A Kiss of Shadows

Written by Laurell K Hamilton

Narrated by Stella Hunter

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
 
Meet Merry Gentry, paranormal P.I., and enter a thrilling, sensual world as dangerous as it is beautiful, full of earthly pleasures and dazzling magic, and ruled by the all-consuming passions of immortal beings once worshipped as gods . . . or demons.
 
Merry Gentry, princess of the high court of Faerie, is posing as a human in Los Angeles, working as a private investigator specializing in supernatural crime. But now the queen’s assassin has been dispatched to fetch her—whether she likes it or not. Suddenly Merry finds herself a pawn in her dreaded aunt’s plans. The job that awaits her: enjoy the constant company of the most beautiful immortal men in the world. The reward: the crown—and the opportunity to continue to live. The penalty for failure: death.
 
Praise for Laurell K. Hamilton and A Kiss of Shadows
 
“One of the most inventive and exciting writers in the paranormal field.”—Charlaine Harris
 
“Sexy . . . Merry’s adventures are engaging and keep the reader turning the pages.”—St. Louis Post-Dispatch
 
“Stunning . . . steamy . . . an exciting and original world.”—San Jose Mercury News
 
“I’ve never read a writer with a more fertile imagination.”—Diana Gabaldon

• Language: English
• Publisher: Penguin Random House Audio Publishing Group
• Release date: Dec 3, 2024
• ISBN: 9798217072057

Laurell K Hamilton

Laurell K. Hamilton is the bestselling author of the acclaimed Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter, Novels. She lives near St Louis with her husband, her daughter, two dogs and an ever-fluctuating number of fish. She invites you to visit her website at www.laurellkhamilton.org.

Reviews for A Kiss of Shadows

[artemisa-191823 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Sex and Fairies. My kind of book...

[phyllis2779 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Read a long time ago. Loved the series. this the first book.

[jazzbird61 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Loved this start to the series. It didn't start to go downhill until 7 or 8 books in so I consider #8 the ending. Really a shame as it's such a great premise. After reading the reviews, I didn't even bother with #9.

If you're disappointed with this series, try the October Daye series by Seanan McGuire to cleanse your palate. THat said, I can recommend the series thru #8 even though that was the weakest IMO.

[nemerith · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Merry Gentry, detective for the Grey Detective Agency and sidhe princess in hiding from the Unseelie Court for the last 3 years. Well.. until an undercover mission goes wrong and she ends up being revealed as the lost princess.
Forces gather, many trying to kill Merry but some unlikely allies are helping her stay alive to reach the Court and the Queen of Air and Darkness. Her aunt has a purpose for the seemingly weak princess...

My take on the book:

I loved the world the author created, so alive. I can’t actually believe its 468 pages long, I couldn’t put it down and pretty much finished it in one go.

While the story only contains happenings of a few days, the pacing is excellent and while we have a lot going on, it doesn’t feel rushed and you have plenty of time in between to catch your breath without it getting boring (and before you're off again).

Character development is good. While of course the emphasis is on Merry, the author sheds a light on all characters, even those we only see fleetingly. It makes for a very immersive read, being able to connect to the characters and have a bit of insight in who they are and why they behave as they do. Doyle’s inner conflict for example or Galen’s naiveté.

The book in itself was very well written and I found no errors.
This series does contain sex, although I must say that this book is still pretty normal contrary to the following books.

While this was a reread for me I thoroughly enjoyed it once again and will absolutely read the rest of the series when ermm.. I have some time?

[aythn · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I've read this book before and decided to reread the series while waiting for the new Anita Blake book to come out. I adore the Merry Gentry series. It's just as great second time around as it was the first. It's slow going but picks up fairly quickly. A tough redhead princess with a ton of potential, gorgeous fae men and a wickedly sadistic Aunt. What's not to love?

[pamv-1 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Not much to say about this one, really. It wwaas fast and slightly entertaining without any deep thinking required.

[kmajort · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

different......

[carol420 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Merry can't run forever though, and soon she finds herself back in the middle of the things she once tried to escape. Once looked down upon at the court for her weak powers and mortality, Merry now surprises even herself with her strength both in combat and in magic. The question is: will this be enough to keep her safe once the Queen finds her? The book is worth a read, but if you're expecting new and different, you'll be disappointed. If you're looking for that style and flavor that is very much Laurell K Hamilton, with strong female characters and that air of darkness and action she's good at, you'll find the book entertaining in its own right.

[rosetyper9 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I saw Ms. Hamilton was about to release a new Merry Gentry book so I decided I needed to re-read this series as well. I forgot how much I loved them. I enjoy the lost princess aspect as well as all the court politics and sexy menfolk. I also love that Merry doesn't have the same sex qualms as Anita Blake (well as she did when her series started).

I enjoy this series for what it is. Yes, there are some plot holes you can drive a small armored vehicle through and yes some of the sex scenes are a little far fetched but hey, I enjoy it.

[juva_3 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Lots of sex in this one. Lots of weird, strange, tentacle-y sex at times. I like the close examination of fey courts, though. Very strange, terrible creatures. Lots of blood and sex, etc.

Very graphic violence, even more graphic [unorthodox] sex. Not for the squeamish.

[whybehave2002 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I was pleasantly surprised as I do not like the Anita Blake series. I'll definitely try the next one.

[grapeapril75-1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

It has been a little while since I read this book but here is what I recall...

I had a love hate relationship with this series. It was confused about if it wanted to be mainstream or erotic. Mostly Merry had loads of sex and the story fell to the wayside.

I quit before I finished the whole series. But I did get quite a few books in so there must have been something drawing me back every time!

[jmourgos · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Laurel K. Hamilton's Anita Blake series were the only books I've read of hers before diving into the Gentry series, the first book of which is Kiss of Shadows.

When I read lines like: I heard someone scream: it was me! – then I knew I was reading a Hamilton novel. Her Gentry book was similar to Anita Blake's books in many ways. We have a young woman who is coming into her own in discovering her new-found powers and abilities. For Anita, she was more than just a raiser of the dead. For Merry Gentry, she was more than just a mortal in the immortal world of fairie land.

As in the Anita Blake novels, where werewolves and vampires are not myth but reality, so too is the reality of The Unseelie Court of fairies, goblins and elves and so on.

Hamilton really gets into the sexuality of the situation even more so than in the Anita Blake books. Merry pretty much will jump on anyone who looks at her and enjoys these men immensely, as she teases and flirts with certain death. Her aunt, the current queen, has been looking for Merry for some time. Merry has been undercover as a detective working for a supernatural detective agency until caught and brought back to the fairie land that she originated from.

Confronting prejudice and attempted assassinations as well as some crazy news reporters, she deals with these things fairly well.

My criticisms center around plot! When we start at the detective agency and find one case that exposes her as the missing fairie princess, Hamilton drops the agency bit completely. We don't get back to it until nearly the last chapter of the book and then rush through what they're situations are.

The bad guys were hard to follow and center on. Yeah, we had the Prince Cel and his minions but they were not clearly developed for me. His animosity towards his cousin Merry was not clearly explained. Her relationship with a former lover was not explained enough for me to understand his actions and betrayals. And finally, when she was allowed to have sex with her Guard, all I got for my reading pleasure was some softcore pornography!

On the other hand, I did enjoy the potential of a world that deals with the magic world and humanities' response to it. There is made mention of World War II and Hitler and their dealings with this fairie world, and this was enticing to me. Unfortunately Hamilton does not develop much of a history of this world – she seems more interested in paragraphs describing wardrobe and matching socks & hairstyles rather than plot and story.

I'm sure the later books in the series solve these problems as there is so much introduced and not enough development of main characters or much explanation as to motive. I'm not sure if I will continue in this series, but it being such a welcome change from vampire novels, you just might give it a try.

Recommended for those loving romance novels with a bit of supernatural flair for the dramatic.

[pabkins · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

So sometimes I like it naughty - sue me.

[dearheart_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Merry Gentry, the first Faerie Princess born on American soil, has been working in L.A. as a private investigator, hiding her identity from all of the fae for the past three years. Third in line to be ruler of the Dark Court, she’s also an oddity because she never came into her powers, and she’s the only sidhe born with some mortal blood.

Aunt Andais, Queen of the Dark Court, sends her assassin to fetch Merry as she’s got a proposition for her. One that puts her life in danger all over again as she’s up against her cousin in a race to have a child. The winner will be the heir to the throne and most sidhe don’t want to see Merry win.

What the author does really well with both this book and the series is politics. Everything Merry does or says has to be weighed for both the short term and long term, and she’s good at it without spending a lot of time over-thinking it. We also get a rather wide variety of fae, both the beautiful as well as terrifying. But unlike all other fae in a position of power, Merry had been raised to accept and respect all, and goddess knows she’ll need allies. Her attitude and compassion mark her as vastly different from the rulers of both the light and dark sidhe courts.

This book was first published at a time before Anita Blake was accepting of having multiple partners. With this world, the fae have absolutely no hang ups with sex; who, what or how often. It’s something to be enjoyed.

Mystery, action, politics, along with an interesting world and characters. You never know what’s going to happen next.

[nicolefromcarmel · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

So the whole series can be summed up as Anita Blake minus the vampire hunting and raising of the dead. Meredith (Merry) is a fae. Which I guess means having a much sex as you possibly can with as many people as you possibly can. Everyone loves Merry )with the exception of her aunt and uncle)

[closetwryter · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Great world building novel with strong emphasis on sensuality both pain and joy.

[darkonelh3730 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

It reminds me a bit of the Anita Blake series mixed with th show "Lost Girl." At first the whole "fae" thing threw me off, it is not normally something I am interested in. But i like the dark twist to it. the main character might as well be called a succubus :P. I look forward to the next book.
-Is there a prequel? That would help.-

[abshepherd · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

If you fantasize about having mind blowing sex with many men/male creatures then this book is for you. It wasn't really for me.

Laurell K. Hamilton does have quite a fertile imagination and the fantasy world of the Unseelie court that she creates is an interesting one. I like how she mixes the magical world and the modern world together. I like how the main character, Princess Meredith, views the world around her. She's a down to earth type gal who just happens to be a princess and have magical powers.

But what I didn't especially like was all the meaningless sex with sooooo many partners, especially in such a short time frame. What ever happened to fear of STDs? They were never mentioned. Maybe in Laurell K. Hamilton's fantasy world STDs don't exist.

Anyway, I'm more of a believer in monogamy, even in my fictional life, or at least more than a 24 hour span between partners. But hey, that's just me.

[capnrandm · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Upon re-read, I feel like the Gentry series holds up better than the later Anita books. Hamilton's world building is a lot of fun, and as so many characters and concepts are being created there's a lot of action to leaven the "pedantic leading lady" issue.

[akmargie · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I like this series the more it goes on. Yes there is still lots of explict sexual content but Hamilton set this series to be based around that, Merry comes from a line of sex gods. So I accept it better in this world than in the Anita Blake world. Some Hamilton first person style that works well.

[jalenv_2 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I encountered Merry Gentry before Anita Blake, thanks to my local library shelving the newer series in the science fiction & fantasy section, the older with regular fiction, and my preference for wandering the shelves instead of checking the online catalog. After I read the Anita series and the excuses Ms. Hamilton needed to get her heroine to have multiple sex partners, I suspected that Merry (and her fey-style feelings about sex) were created to get around that.

I like many of the characters, the death traps are interesting, and so are the various types of fey. Princess Meredith's mixed blood, especially the fact that she's mortal, has been an excuse for both the Seelie and Unseelie Courts to look on her with disdain. Still, she is the daughter of Queen Andais' late brother and the queen wants an heir of her bloodline. Merry was engaged for seven years without getting pregnant, so now she has several gorgeous royal guards to try with. There's the excuse for multiple-partners sex.

If that's not enough, Merry's sex and blood have magic that's good for her partners and good for the fading magic of the sithin. Bring on the sex -- her people and their home need it!

I feel sorry for Merry because of the magical healing available to the fey. That means they're as unlucky as Marvel Comics' Wolverine, the superhero who can be injured in terrible ways issue after issue because of his healing factor. Not everything gets healed. One character has lost an eye and several have scars.

Court intrigue is another factor in this series. It does lead to a lot of the danger, distrust, and bloodshed.

Has Merry been contaminated by her three years among us humans? In chapter 9, she tells her readers, 'One thing the Unseelie Court teaches is the love of every form of fey. There is beauty in all of us. Ugly is simply not a word you use at the Unseelie Court.' So why are Merry and her aunt repulsed by the tentacles of a half-sidhe who otherwise has what the Unseelie sidhe consider a great body? Don't ask me. It's not my world.

Still, it is a world I enjoy visiting.

Here are a few notes that I hope will help me remember some series facts and where to find them. If they help you, too, good:


Beathalachd is Queen Andais' a magic ring that steals the life and skill of an opponent. (ch.16)

Mortal Dread is Queen Andais' long knife/short sword that can kill any fey, even the sidhe. Its hilt is made of carved bone. The carving is of 3 crows with breasts meeting, wings entwined, open beaks holding jewels for the pommel. (ch. 15) (The crows are called ravens in chapter 16.)

Frost's great sword, Geamhradh Po'g (Winter Kiss), can steal a fey's passion so he or she is left cold and barren. (ch. 33)

Chapter 19 is the place to find the explanation of 'virgin rights'.

The Abyss of Despair used to be three levels down, but now it's on the main floor of the sithen. (ch. 36)

Chapter 22:
Merry is also known as Child of Peace because her Unseelie father, Prince Essus, and her half-Seelie, one-quarter human, one-quarter brownie mother, Besaba, were to spend three years together as part of a peace treaty between the two courts. Eluned, Besaba's twin sister bore her husband, Artagan, a daughter who looks like Eluned and Besaba's half-human, half-brownie mother.

Merry is also called Besaba's Bane because getting pregnant with her trapped her mother in marriage with Essus.

Besaba and Eluned's father is Uar the Cruel, who had to bed their mother to break a curse that caused his three sons to be born with poisonous hands. For some reason, Merry calls her maternal uncles her cousins in this chapter. They live at the Unseelie Court because of their hands.

Ch.31 is where we learn what it means if a goblin man doesn't leer at another man's woman.

I wondered why I couldn't find any credit for the cover, but I see it's a cropped version of the original hardcover dustjacket.

My mass market paperback is the first printing. I've just checked the excerpt from A Caress of Twilight at the end against my copy of that second book. The excerpt is chapter 10. I didn't notice any differences.

[timctaylor · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

I found the writing lazy, clichéd, and lacking passion from the author, as if this were one of a batch of novels mass produced on autopilot. Some of the world-building and the faerie politics could have been very interesting, but I couldn't work through the contrived scenes of erotica and romance to actually enjoy them.

I guess Laurell K. Hamilton is just not right for me. Plenty of people seem to like her and perhaps you're one of them.

[yvensong_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I found I liked this book more than I thought I would and will look for the next book in the series. Hamilton uses a very vivid imagination in creating her characters.

[shelleyraec · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

More fantasy (and more erotic) than the Anita Blake series started with but there are strong similaraties between the lead characters - not only physical descriptions but also in terms of what drives Merry and how she handles what she faces and discovers about herself. Having said that it is quite different to the Anita Blake series and expecting more of the same may lead to dissappointment.While I prefer fantasy more grounded than it is in the Gentry series, I picked this up and could not put it down, hence the four stars, and have the next 3 books ready to read and hope they keep me as interested.

[maurag_35 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Don't let the two star review fool you, I really disliked this book. Picked up on a whim as a free download for my Kindle a few months ago, I finally found the time to devote to this best-selling Urban Fantasy. I’d never read anything by Ms. Hamilton before this, but I wasn’t entirely unprepared for my first foray into her particular brand of fantasy / erotica. I’ll forego the normal plot summary, since the plot exists here to 1) move our heroine, Merry Gentry, from one sex scene to the next and 2) set-up another series of best-selling books in the vein of the Anita Blake books.We start off promisingly enough with a detective story. We’re introduced to the books two most interesting characters, a battered wife and her husband’s mistress. But the only purpose these characters serve is to establish that our Merry is a private investigator. Task complete, they exit the stage taking an interesting story with them.And so it goes. Characters enter the story to establish some point: Merry likes sex, she has enemies in high places, she’ll have sex with almost anything, etc. But outside of sex, nothing much else happens. Characters come, stay a few pages and disappear, no doubt to return in a later book in the series. Plot threads are left hanging all over the place.I might be able to forgive all this if the world-building was believable. But in this world human, faerie and other assorted creatures wander the world in plain sight. I’d be willing to suspend disbelief and accept this as given, except the author tries to explain it all away. Problem is: the explanations are ridiculous and completely ripped me out of the story with every attempt. Some of the explanations are truly groan-worthy.It’s too bad. This book is not badly written. Ms Hamilton is not without skill as a writer. There are a few redeeming moments and the author does display a wry sense of humor throughout. The story starts very well. If the rest of the book was as good as the opening chapters, I’d have no trouble recommending this book. Unfortunately, for my taste, there was not enough story for too many cookie-cutter characters inhabiting a silly world where the only point is to have sex. But I am left wondering. If you buy this book for the sex scenes instead of the urban fantasy, is it any better? My guess is no.

[readingfever · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Merry Gentry is in hiding, living in Los Angeles as a Private Investigator of supernatural crimes, she is doing pretty well. That is until one case reveals her as Princess Meredeth NicEssus, the lost Princess of the Unseelie, or Faerie court. She is brought back home, to the place where she had been running from for the past three years. The place where attempts on her life had been overlooked by the Queen, and even accepted by some of the nobles. It had been made very clear that she was wanted dead. Merry knows she will be assassinated when she returns home but Andais, Queen of Air and Darkness--Merry's aunt--has other plans for her.----I wanted to love this book; I really did. The imagination and thought that Laurell K. Hamilton put into this book is amazing. She created a world where humans and Faerie (or Sidhe) live and cooperate together. Her Fae are imaginative, unique, and glorious; my favorite Fae characterizations yet. I love the plot and premise, and Laurell's writing style only adds to the story.That having been said, I can only give this book three stars. Why? The main reason is that I felt as if the story ended in the middle of the book. There were a couple of things that happened which made it suspenseful, but the book had no real story arc. I felt cheated at the end, as if there should have been more to the story. I loved the characters in this book, but I feel as if I didn't get to know them well enough. Merry moved from one man to the next, then back again so fast that we only got to see the personalities of a few men. I loved the imaginative way the intimate scenes were described, but the feeling of detachment we often received afterward was offsetting. It was as if those moments meant little to Merry, so they meant little to me. This book had the potential to be one of my favorite paranormal romances, but I don't think it pulled it off. Though it came short of being a great book, Laurell K. Hamilton's descriptive writing and interesting world are too tempting, and I am still interested in reading the next in the series.

[c5ibarra · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This was a good book but there is an abundance of secondary characters. I sometimes feel that a large cast of characters can make it difficult to connect with them. That was the case with A Kiss of Shadows. I plan to give the second book in the series a chance and hopefully by the time I’m done, I’ll be able to keep Merry’s male admirers straight :)

[averitasm · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I loved the Anita blake series so I thought I would give these a chance I am glad I did , very similar in taste and it kept me interested and I kept wanting to read more of the books before I had them, I would ay get them you will like this series too.

It is a bit different and has more of a mythology like bent, but I love books like that

[5aweek · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Meredith Gentry #1: A Kiss of Shadows, by Laurell K. Hamilton

I think this is either a book you love, or a book you hate. There's not much of an in-between. Personally, I rather enjoy this book and have reread it a few times - generally once a year, before I read the newest book in the Merry series.

The basic concept is that Merry Gentry is a faerie princess living in voluntary exile in Los Angeles, working as a private detective. She'd fled the royal courts after she realized the assassination attempts would never stop - most of the sidhe do not welcome Merry because she is half human, and thus half mortal. Her exile is broken when her aunt, Queen Andais sends for Merry - she wants to recognize her niece as heir to the throne at last. But in the Unseelie court, politics are deadly, and just treading water takes a tremendous amount of work. And Andais's offer, like much that occurs at the courts, is not what it seems...

I think the biggest complaint about Hamilton's writing is the amount of sex included in her works. However this first volume is pretty slim in the erotic aspect. I enjoy the Merry series because of the world Hamilton has created - the updating of old stories and legends, the unique characters of the sidhe, the intriguing court politics. Even the human world is aware of the fey and magic; police departments have witches on staff, reporters can sense magic and use it on the trail of stories, etc. I don't care for erotica, and tend to skip past those sections, but I've read where Hamilton says she uses a lot of it for character development and that I can see.

I really, really enjoy many of the characters in Merry's world. Doyle, the Darkness, a sidhe who was the queen's left-hand enforcer - a man who is stern, scary, and yet vulnerable. Barinthus, a former god with the nickname "Queen-maker." Rhys, one of the few sidhe to enjoy the modern world, with a love for Bogart and film noire. Queen Andais, a rather terrifying, sadistic monarch. And Kitto, who's quickly becoming my favorite - a goblin-sidhe crossbred who's agoraphobic and short in stature, a little child who's two thousand years old. And the sidhe...a race much like elves, with glowing skin and beautiful eyes. Many of the sidhe have tricolored eyes, with three bands of color; the sidhe descriptions make for some very gorgeous characters.

All in all, I think it's a pretty damn good story. I love the amount of detail and thought Hamilton puts into her world and its characters. I like how she reveals parts of sidhe history as the book unravels, as well as drops hints about Merry's past. Even though I have read it before, I'm always saying to myself "just one more page" as I go through it again.

5/5.