A Lick of Frost (Meredith Gentry Series #6) » (Reprint)

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.

I am Meredith Gentry, princess and heir apparent to the throne in the realm of faerie, onetime private investigator in the mortal world. To be crowned queen, I must first continue the royal bloodline and give birth to an heir of my own. If I fail, my aunt, Queen Andais, will be free to do what she most desires: install her twisted son, Cel, as monarch . . . and kill me.

My royal guards surround me, and my best loved–my Darkness and my Killing Frost–are always beside me, sworn to protect and make love to me. But still the threat grows greater. For despite all my carnal efforts, I remain childless, while the machinations of my sinister, sadistic Queen and her confederates remain tireless. So my bodyguards and I have slipped back into Los Angeles, hoping to outrun the gathering shadows of court intrigue. But even exile isn’t enough to escape the grasp of those with dark designs.

Now King Taranis, powerful and vainglorious ruler of faerie’s Seelie Court, has leveled accusations against my noble guards of a heinous crime–and has gone so far as to ask the mortal authorities to prosecute. If he succeeds, my men face extradition to faerie and the hideous penalties that await them there. But I know that Taranis’s charges are baseless, and I sense that his true target is me. He tried to kill me when I was a child. Now I fear his intentions are far more terrifying.

Publishers Weekly

Wild magic and wilder sex enliven the seventh heady escapade (after 2007's A Lick of Frost) for half-mortal, half-faerie and pregnant Princess Meredith NicEssus, aka Merry Gentry, as she rides into faerie on a wild hunt for revenge after the death of her ensorcelled grandmother. Merry is still recovering from being raped by her uncle, Seelie King Taranis, and the loss of her transformed lover Frost. Though determined to protect herself and her numerous guards and lovers-including the six fathers of her unborn twins-with every fiber of her generous body, bloody battles with the Seelie Court's minions make her question whether being a faerie queen is worth the price. The dreamy development of the surrealistic fey world puts this installment well above its predecessors; a tidy ending will leave fans wondering whether it concludes the series. (Nov.)

Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.