A Caress of Twilight

The Good: This series is very addictive. Merry is a wonderful main character - tough in her own right, intelligent but always learning more, open to new experiences and fully embracing where her life is heading. She's also a realist, understanding her situation and the ramifications of her choices. A Caress of Twilight doesn't spend a lot of time rehashing the events and world-building from A Kiss of Shadows, which I appreciate reading the books one right after the other. But, if a lot of time has past since reading the first book, a refresher may be in order. The stand alone mystery in the book is interesting and well thought out, but I especially love the continuing story line of Merry's place within the world of faerie and her show more mission to ensure her survival among her people.

The Bad: Not a thing. show less

A Caress of Twilight

by Laurell K. Hamilton

Ballantine, 326 pages, hardback, 2002



I have to confess that, the last time I tried to read one of Ms Hamilton's many novels, I got about halfway through and then threw it across the room. The book in question was called Narcissus in Chains, and was the umpteenth volume featuring Ms Hamilton's series heroine Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter. I had fought my way through about two hundred pages of badly written soft porn (I have no aversion at all to well written soft porn) and had come to a section where various of the loathsome characters were discussing the genital endowment of a particular historical vampire. This vampire, we were told salivatingly, had been the possessor of a penis so doughty that show more his erection was a full six inches thick.


That's right: thick. Not six inches long. Not even six inches in circumference. But thick.


This reviewer did not, as might have so many other men, rush straight to the nearest mirror to gaze at and weep over his own deficiencies. He did not even accidentally turn the ruler to the centimetre side while frantically checking. Instead he threw the book across the room and then, remembering the principles of academic rigour, asked a couple of congenital experts on matters penile if such a weapon might be of any practicable use other than being waved around proudly to impress the rest of the guys
in the locker room.


Gentle reader, they laughed so hard I wondered if I should call an ambulance. And the book stayed thrown.


A Caress of Twilight is not about Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter. It is the second in a series of novels about Meredith Gentry, a princess of Fairyland who is also a private detective in our own world, it being the rather charming conceit of this series that the USA has offered a home to refugees from the Realm of Faerie. Meredith -- "Merry" -- is somewhat of a
fugitive from the politics of the royal courts of Fairyland, some of whom wish to murder her and with others of whom she maintains at best a relationship of mutual distrust, powerbroking chessplay and hostile alliance. She is guarded by a bunch of other elementals, all male and all of them possessed of six-inch . . .


Well, no, not quite. At the start of the book, Merry has just finished a threesome with two of the guards, and as the tale -- such as it is -- progresses she samples the rest of them, in each instance for several drooling pages. Two prove to be endowed with members of such enormity that, while not six inches thick (oddly, Ms Hamilton gives no precise dimensions
concerning such important attributes, neither in US Customary units nor in metric), our heroine has, to use technical phraseology, some considerable difficulty cramming the damn' things in.


Now, I wouldn't want to give the impression that this book is nothing but nonstop writhing. There's a plot as well. It's rather problematic to remember what the plot actually is, because it appears only intermittently among the couplings, among lengthy and tedious character descriptions, and among interminable scried conversations with various royals that seem to have little point except to show what complete bastards they all are except our Merry -- who might well be just as much a bastard if she could ever stay upright long enough, but that's only a wild speculation on this reviewer's part, you understand.


Lemme think, now. The plot has to do with a criminal investigation that Merry and her studs are attempting to carry out. There's this ex-goddess of Fairyland who decided years ago to come to Hollywood and be a screen goddess in the human world instead. Someone's out to get her. Someone's also mass-murdering people in all directions, and the police -- one of whom, the lieutenant in charge of the case, is really, really stupid and
doesn't think Merry and her pals will be at all helpful, whereas we wise readers know of course that she's the only hope -- the police, as I say, are getting nowhere. The screen goddess wants to have a baby by her mortal husband, but he's at death's door so Merry and one of her gang have to do some detailed proxy banging for the luckless couple. Someone in Fairyland has let loose an ancient terror which is responsible for all the bad
things that are going on.


Case solved, out with the measuring tape and back to the fun.


Merry is not the only fun- and dimension-lovin' female in the book's cast, although she's the only one whose fun is described in gratuitous detail. Here's a sample of one of the others being unusually subtle:

"I also never thought you'd be so blessed down below." [The Queen] sounded wistful now, like a child who hadn't gotten what she wanted for her birthday. "I mean, you are descended from dogs and phoukas, and they are not much in that way."


"Most phoukas have more than one shape, my Queen."


"Dog and horse, sometimes eagle, yes, I know all about that. What does that have to do . . ." She stopped in mid-sentence, and a smile crooked at the edges of her lipsticked mouth. "Are you saying that your grandfather could turn into a horse as well as a dog?"


He spoke softly. "Yes, my Queen."

That's in fact one of the better-written parts of the book; elsewhere we find such delights as "He had managed to keep just enough cover over his groin so that he was covered", to isolate just one. Late in the book we encounter the minor character Bucca, who is supposedly Cornish; in order to prove that he's Cornish his speech is rendered in dialect that veers excitingly between Irish, Scottish, Yorkshire/Lancashire and who knows what
else. And so on.


There are also, unless this reader is being even stupider than usual, some puzzling inconsistencies. To select a single example, on page 25 we're clearly told that the penalty for a Raven (a member of the Queen's personal guards) who touches -- I assume this is a euphemism -- any woman other than
the Queen is death by torture, yet this is clearly forgotten later on when there is no thought of making it secret from the Queen that our Merry discriminates not one whit against the Raven seconded to her personal entourage.


As stated at the outset, this reviewer has no particular prejudice against reading soft porn (so long as it's well or at least competently written). There is a point of unease, however, when one begins to sense -- probably completely incorrectly -- that a text has teetered from consciously created erotica (or attempted erotica) into the writer's personal masturbatory fantasies. Within fantasy, one strikes that point frequently when reading some of Anne Rice's early, pseudonymous, overtly erotic novels, such as her Sleeping Beauty sadomasochistic cycle;
one runs smack into it as into a brick wall in the works of John Norman; and one encounters it again here. It is almost certainly, as noted, a misleading sense, but that doesn't make the reading experience any more pleasurable: one squirms not with lasciviousness nor even a delectable feeling of minor guilt, but with sheer embarrassment, as if a stranger had just asked you to fumble through their used underwear.


What, leaving such considerations aside, of the status of A Caress of Shadows as a straightforward fantasy? Well, of course, there's not much room for yer actual non-erotic fantasy in among all the rest, and most of what there is is pretty mundane stuff: you've read these imaginings many times before, drawn as they are from the genre-fantasy writers' common
stockpot. That initial conceit, however -- that the denizens of Faerie are the new refugees in an alternate-reality USA -- is genuinely a pleasing one. It's a great pity the rest of the book can't live up to it.


But then that is perhaps not the purpose of Ms Hamilton or her publishers.





This review, first published by Infinity Plus, is excerpted from my ebook Warm Words and Otherwise: A Blizzard of Book Reviews, to be published on September 19 by Infinity Plus Ebooks.
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Truly, I just love this series... I mean, what's not to love? A kick-ass heroine that discovers more and more about herself and her abilities as she goes, that doesn't back down from a fight and I'm not even mentioning the men yet! (Doyle being my absolute favorite so far *sigh*)

For this instalment, we're staying in LA, but no worries, trouble just has a way of finding Merry :) All environments and scenes were detailed and well described, right down to all the blood clinging to Queen Anais at a certain time, lovely.

Character development was good. As I've already said, Merry keeps on learning about her abilities, about what it means to be (a possible) Queen and mostly how to handle the men alongside her. Not an easy task when they are so show more different. The men themselves open up more to her, some even letting festering wounds heal at long last.

Pacing and flow were really good. A great balance between conversation and action (and yes, that kinda action too!). The book kept my attention from start to finish and made me get the next instalment immediately afterwards (yes, it's just so good!).

While this isn't as bad as the Anita Blake series, there is a lot of sex described. However, not once did it feel too much or just, nope. These highly erotic books are very well written and if you don't mind a few extra partners in or out of bed... hop on, you won't be disappointed! show less

This was a compelling enough read, but as it was coming to a close I felt as if there were very important plot points that Hamilton sort of just skimmed over instead of truly telling her reader about. Such as there being more mass murders. I understand that Doyle and the others wouldn't know about the first one in the civilian home, but they did know about the second because it had been on the news, but the reader wasn't told. Secondly, I felt that Maeve Reed's whole situation was sort of skimmed over. We meet her, she tells Merry her problem, then nothing till they are suddenly performing a fertility right. There was no explanation of how they got to that point. There are many other cases like this throughout the book. It is almost as show more if Hamilton invests so much energy talking about sex and going into minute detail about clothing and hair that her plot suffers. I guess some readers aren't reading these books for plot, but an attempt would be nice for the rest of us. show less

Another day has vanished into a book. I am really enjoying this series. I like Merry and her men. I do not care for the same trope appearing in this series as in Anita Blake where Merry is hated and treated badly by the police she is trying to help. I am hoping it doesn't become a constant whereby in every book, every new boss cop lets his hatred of Merry get in the way of the job.

Reread in 2018 - again I read this in one sitting and enjoyed it. Isn't it strange that when you have nothing negative to say the review is so short and if you have the slightest grievance you can write reams.

Having given up on Hamilton’s Anita Blake series, I figured I would give her Fae books a try. Unfortunately, A Caress of Twilight is no better than the Anita Blake novels. Just like her vampire books, this novel is oversexed for no particular reason. The story is weak and after about a dozen chapters, it was no longer capable of holding my interest.

In this novel, Faerie princess Meredith Gentry, who has left the land of the Fae, and is our mortal world, is trying to give birth to a child and take her claim to the Unseelie throne. An exiled goddess with a dark secret is Meredith’s latest client. So much of the novel was about Faerie politics and what goes on in the Seelie and Unseelie Courts, and very little of it was interesting. show more This was a forgettable novel that I would recommend skipping.

Carl Alves – author of Blood Street show less

In her role as supernatural detective, Merry and her band of guards and lovers are faced with investigating mysterious mass deaths in California, despite resistance and prejudice from local authorities. In her role as would-be queen to the sidhe, she continues to investigate her convoluted and perilous political position, to nurture alliances, to consolidate her power base, and above all to try to get pregnant (which is, after all, the only way to actually become Queen and thus survive). I really like the Anita Blake series. I read this series because...well, it was there and there was no Anita Blakes while these were being written. I didn't dislike the series, I just became werry of the character of Merry. Okay - she was a fae Anita Blake.