Top 5 Sundays!
"You may know me best as Meredith Nic Essus, princess of faerie. Or perhaps as Merry Gentry, Los Angeles private eye. In the fey and mortal realms alike, my life is the stuff of royal intrigue and celebrity drama. Among my own, I have confronted horrendous enemies, endured my noble kin’s treachery and malevolence, and honored my duty to conceive a royal heir—all for the right to claim the throne. But I turned my back on court and crown, choosing exile in the human world—and in the arms of my beloved Frost and Darkness.
While I may have rejected the monarchy, I cannot abandon my people. Someone is killing the fey, which has left the LAPD baffled and my guardsmen and me deeply disturbed. My kind are not easily captured or killed. At least not by mortals. I must get to the bottom of these horrendous murders, even if that means going up against Gilda, the Fairy Godmother, my rival for fey loyalties in Los Angeles.
But even stranger things are happening. Mortals I once healed with magic are suddenly performing miracles, a shocking phenomenon wreaking havoc on human/faerie relations. Though I am innocent, dark suspicions of banned magical activities swirl around me.
I thought I’d left the blood and politics behind in my own turbulent realm. I had dreamed of an idyllic life in sunny L.A. with my beloved ones beside me. But it becomes time to wake up and realize that evil knows no borders, and that nobody lives forever—even if they’re magical."From GoodReads.
I am a big fan of the Merry Gentry series, as you can tell by the review I did for the first 7 books in the series. I f you haven't read it, you can check it out here. Though I am a bigger fan of Hamilton's Anita Blake series, I have read both series, in their entirety, twice.
For that reason, I was really looking forward to get my hands on the new Merry book. Finally, Dec. 8th arrived and I ran to (more like clicked) on of my favorite eBook store to get a copy. I just couldn't wait for a physical copy to be delivered and I really didn't want to spend that much for a hardcover. But I digress.
I started the book yesterday, only because I had already a book planned before it, but I ended up going through it quite quickly. I think that is a good testament of how much I enjoy Hamilton's writing. There are some authors that write so amazingly, that I can go through a book in less than a day. If I don;t, it means that I procrastinated on purpose, just so I had more time in that specific world.
Divine Misdemeanors (DM) is not even close to being the best in the series, and at some point during it I thought I was going to really not like it at all. However, I had to stop and think on it for a bit. Because my biggest problem with it was a certain lack of action compared to the previous 7 books. I stopped and thought about it. I got to the conclusion that it made sense that this book had so much less action and I actually came to really like some of the decisions Hamilton made when writing this book.
Laurell has said time and time again that DM is a new chapter in Merry's life. She has gone through the whole, will she or won't she get pregnant, be queen and so on. However, to be able to start a new chapter, you have to close the previous one in a way and that is what this book feels like. It feels like a transition to bigger and different things.
Merry and her band of merry men's story didn't end when she refused the crown for love and they all have to deal with the consequences of that choice. How would the rest of her men feel about it? How would she deal with the women that went back with them to L.A.? How would the newest members of her "court" deal with living in L.A.?
There were a lot of questions that the end of Swallowing Darkness (SD) brought to us. To be quite honest, I hadn't even though of that and it kind of took me off guard that there was more talk than action in this book. After a while, though, I realized how necessary it was and got to quite enjoy it.
I enjoyed getting to see all those characters that I missed since the last book. It was was quite comforting to get lost in a world that you feel you know pretty well. It was also nice to learn new things about Merry's men. I mean, in the previous books they were always in a hurry or having sex, so actually talking and getting to know each other wasn't really a priority lol.
We got to see that the return of some of their lost power has brought some arrogance and prejudice to the front and I love how Merry dealt with it. I really liked Merry in this book, I think she has evolved nicely into a fair ruler and has become the Queen of her little Court out of Faery. Sholto is one of my favorite characters and it was so cool to see his and Merry's relationship evolve. I liked that the fact that she actually is still Queen of the Slough has not been forgotten, I felt that had been overlooked by the end of SD.
The plot was another weak point in the book for me. I liked how it turned out, but the result could have been guessed pretty easily and it just wasn't gripping enough for me. I think what didn't get me to the edge of my seat in that department, was that I never really felt Merry was in danger. Though, I am happy she wasn't, the fact that I wasn't scared for her life at any point, made me not feel much thrill during the novel. The murders were quite awful though and I found that the idea was nice (inventive) and well thought out by the author.
I also liked that we got to be introduced to new characters in L.A. Some new and some Merry knew but we didn't. It helped make her "new" world out of the Unseelie Court more interesting. However, I do think she might get involved in her aunt's court once again, since after Cel's death in SD, Andais has gone even crazier and things are not going well in that department.
The sex in this book was really nice and it didnt'e feel overwhelming at all. There wasn't the urgency for it, like in previous books, since Merry is already preggers. I liked that it was more about having sex and making love because they wanted to and not a necessecity, I felt it brought a different dynamic to the series.
All in all, I ended up enjoying the book much more than I thought I would in the beginning. I found myself quite sad when it was over and I am already looking forward to the next one. Merry's magic continues to grow and strange and cool things are happening, that I am sure will be much to be discussed and dealt with in the future books.
I will give this Book 4 out of 5 Loveys. Because though it wasn't perfect, it was a great read.
As a Merry fan. the pace difference might be a shock, but I think it was a great transition book and I can't wait for more.
4/5 Loveys
Smut Level 3.5 =)
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xoxo
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