Mistral's Kiss

To set the scene, I read this installment of nonsensical fairy quasi-pornography whilst in the background my Nana watched snooker on the TV. I found that stolid commentary on the perambulations of balls around a green table really added to the Merry Gentry experience. I ran through 'Mistral's Kiss' quickly, because I wanted to get it over with. A friend who I won't name and shame warned me that it was by no means one of the better installments in the series, and they were correct. I believe this was because Mistral was a main character and he is such a jerk. As before, I found myself sympathising with Queen Andais - aside from the seemingly obligatory one creepy incest moment and her insistence upon torture as a solution to all show more problems. Mistral is her Captain of Guards and, given his fondness for getting rough with women during sex without prior consent, I can see why she forced him to be celibate. At the outset of the book, she turns up while Mistral is banging Merry and asks him, not unreasonably, what the heck is going on. Rather than admitting the obvious (magical booty call), he prevaricates by claiming he wanted to ask advice from Doyle. A weak excuse, since he charged into the room and immediately started frenching the princess, without so much as saying Hi to anyone.

Andais has to put up with a lot of bullshit, really. She is definitely the most plain-speaking character, which endears her to me. On page 49 she asks Merry, "You think you can fuck the gardens back to life?" Doyle replies in the affirmative and (spoilers) that is literally what happens for the next 250 pages. It must be tiring having a son who is deranged enough to be a danger to everyone and everything, as well as niece who unleashes random, disruptive, and powerful magic every time she orgasms, which is constantly. Since the lands of faerie have no apparent rule of law, she is constantly having to negotiate treaties, alliances, and agreements for every little thing - whilst Merry does the same without informing her of it. (I'm surprised by the lack of faerie contract lawyers, actually, as there is clearly a need for them.) To cap it all, Merry's magic is redecorating her entire underground palace without prior consultation. As Andais complains, "There is a field of flowers in my torture chamber." That's just uncalled for. At least she has the comfort of owning a sword called Mortal Dread, surely the most badass of weapon names, and a wardrobe of black ballgowns to match.

Perhaps it is the fact that the narrative really wants you to sympathise with Merry rather than Andais that makes me determined to like her despite her hyperbolic sadism. After all, Merry does some incredibly violent things too, but as the books are from her point of view, we know that she feels bad about bleeding people to death. With regard to Merry's plot arc in this book, I think the salient point is that she doesn't put on any garment whatsoever until page 270. Prior to that, she is clothed only in blood (mostly not her own), lake water, rain, and (presumably) other bodily fluids. There are many discussions about magical sex and several sex scenes in which she mainly seems to be trying to avoid being hurt, which is pretty grim. As with previous installments, the pacing is incredibly inconsistent. Things only really started happening three quarters of the way through, after (spoiler) Merry apparently shagged all the sanity out of Sholto, with terrible consequences.

Although the last quarter was thus pretty good, I enjoyed this installment less than the previous ones due to dislike of Mistral, sympathy for the villainness, and the absence of levity. The Merry Gentry novels work best when they acknowledge their own absurdities. This one contained a single solitary joke, two pages before the end. 'Mistral's Kiss' could have done with more light-heartedness, much less Mistral, and more Frost & Doyle interaction. Moreover, Merry deserves some R&R (her hair must really need washing by now) and it would be nice if she got to talk to her harem more. Calling out Rhys on his passive-aggressiveness is especially overdue as a conversation topic. show less

I actually enjoyed this installment much more than I have the last couple. Instead of having some sort of murder/mystery set up in the beginning (and then be basically ignored through the rest of the book), Hamilton just let the interactions between Merry, the guards, the queen, and the sidhe's growing magic be the plot. Much better, in my opinion.

I don't know of anyone who writes about sex and magic any better than Hamilton in this Meredith Gentry series. This installment moved slightly slower than some of the earlier books in the series, not advancing the narrative so much as exploring relationships and showingcasing some massive conflicts, but it will still be enjoyable for fans of the series. Truthfully, I should add that the early part of the novel had me wondering whether there'd be anything in the book But lovely description and sex, to the extent that I wondered whether I'd ever classify a Hamilton book as verging on porn, or just pornographic....But, I'm glad to say that the second portion of the book moved on in a fashion that left that worry to the earlier sections, show more focusing instead on magic and character and narrative. All in all, this isn't one of the books that keeps me coming back to Hamilton's work, but I enjoyed it for what it was. And, then again, it is her fascinating characters who keep me returning to her work again and again, so maybe it is all the same. Regardless, I don't think anyone who hasn't read the earlier books would get anything much out of this book, but I still recommend the series to lovers of dark fantasy who don't mind an R-rating (for sex and violence, as is always the case with Hamilton in this series) on their entertainment... show less

The plot gets slower and slower. I feel swamped by the seemingly ever-increasing cast of apparently minor characters who suddenly become more important as we learn more about them (having already forgotten that they existed and possessed this or that magic power apart from whatever new magic power has just conveniently appeared). I think this is the last of the Merry Gentry series that I will read. Hamilton has taken a very exciting idea and choked it to death. Although I do admire the way she sets the scene for a new location in the last pages of the book, thus opening up new possibilities for further books.

If you're reading this series, then it suffices to say this is more of the same: more sex leads to more power leads to more desire for sex and power... Wash. Rinse. Repeat. [EDIT: I just noticed I read book 5 without ever reading book 4 (found it under my nightstand) and never even suspected I might have missed something. That speaks a lot about the "plot" in this series.]

An urban fantasy featuring fairy mounds in Illinois and fairies having an extraordinary amount of magical sex in this 5'th Merry Gentry book.
The book is very light on plot, and forward motion, and very heavy on erotica - at least 50% of its content is sexual, and the rest seems mostly to be there as filling between the sex-scenes. The book is pure eskapism and wish fulfillment, wrapped in heavy eroticism and overblown aesthetics.
The story takes up immediately after the end of A Stroke of Midnight (the previous novel in the series) when Merry wakes up in her aunts - the queen of the unseelie court of faeries - bed. It describes the events of teh following night, which ends with the queen sending Merry and her guards back to LA for show more Merrys safety. In the interim Merry has had sex with at least three men, had encounters with three gods- or aspects thereof - and revived two dead fairy environments. Her companions have all received new - or old - powers, and long lost magical artifacts have reappeared.
The story begins with a imagined sex-scene, but also gives a quick schetch of the background for the novel - Merry being in competition with her insane cousin Cal to procreate first, thereby inheriting the throne of the Unseelie court - before the sex becomes real, forced by the Queen. The sex infuses the dead gardens of the fairy mound with new life, and absorbs a number of Merrys companions in order to grant them powers according to their aspects. Merry and her greatly reduced forces escapes the reawakened gardens, but end up in the Sluaghs domain. Here Merry has sex with the master of the Sluagh, reanimating their sacred grounds before the wild hunt is set upon them. The story ends with the wild hunt assimilated, and her lost companions returned.

This is a light and fast read where the descriptive passages are kept at a level where they contribute to the story, not detract from the readability of it - a problem with several of Laurell K. Hamiltons works, especially the Anita Blake novels.
The lack of plot may be a problem for some, and only works because the book is part of a closely connected series. It reads more like a chapter in the book of Merry Gentry and her quest for power than a proper novel, making it a bad start for new readers. show less

I'm not entirely sure why I can't stop reading Laurell K. Hamilton's books, but they're like cake frosting -- I always want more, but it's so very, very bad for me. For example, I'm completely underwhelmed by this book, yet I just added the two she will be releasing this year to my wish list. The best thing I can say about this book is that there's some resolution at the end (which is more than I could say about the two prior). The rest of it is pretty much sex and faerie politics. Really, this series is just thinly veiled erotica, yet I CAN'T STOP READING IT.