A Caress of Twilight (Meredith Gentry Series #2) » (Reissue)

Toss everything you think you know about vampire stories and sword and sorcery novels into an open grave, because Laurell K. Hamilton is reinventing the genres with chills, thrills, and giggles. With her popular Anita Blake and Meredith Gentry series, Hamilton is making dark fantasy fantastically entertaining again.

As Princess Meredith will inherit the throne, the men of her royal guard desire to be the future king -- and father of her child. Back-stabbing makes it difficult for Meredith to pursue her living as a private investigator in Los Angeles. The princess must fend off ancient evil that destroys the very fabric of reality.

Publishers Weekly

In the second R-rated outing (after 2000's A Kiss of Shadows) from bestseller Hamilton to feature bright and winsome faery princess Meredith Gentry, the unlikely shamus, who runs an L.A. detective agency with a staff of faery musclemen (plus a pet goblin), seems to spend almost as much time pondering her position in the fey world as attending to her client, glamorous film star Maeve Reed, actually a Seelie goddess, who needs Meredith's help in getting pregnant. Meredith does what she can for Maeve, although she has troubles enough of her own in the conception game. As one of two possible heirs to the Unseelie throne, the other being her nasty cousin, Prince Cel, Meredith must produce her own child and then, by faery tradition, marry her partner. It isn't easy, since any father must be kingly material, but our heroine is a game lass, and her failure is not for lack of trying. In an exciting climax, the LAPD Bureau of Human and Fey Affairs summons Meredith to battle a fearsome, crawling, tentacled and slobbering monster, the Nameless, which was too blithely created by opposing faery courts her own, the Unseelie, ruled by her millennium-old aunt, Queen Andais, and the Seelie, ruled by the ruthless and equally ancient King Taranis. More attention to the detective motif might have made the story more fun, but steamy prose and Meredith's obsessive personal conflicts should keep the faithful turning the pages. (Apr. 2) Forecast: With a 10-city author tour, national print advertising and the success of last year's Narcissus in Chains and other novels in her Anita Blake vampire series, Hamilton should make another run at the bestseller lists. Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.