A True Queen

And if it amuses anyone, as I’m writing this I’m listening to “If You’re Not the One” by Daniel Beddingfield; it’s been stuck in my head.

So, Merry gave up the crown of Faerie in Swallowing Darkness and she and her encourage moved out to L.A. However, that doesn’t mean that Faerie is done with her. Far from it. She is still a vessel of the Goddess and she is still fighting in Divine Misdemeanors.

The main plotline of the novel is that someone is killing the lesser fey and Merry still feels that it is her responsibility to warn the fey and help figure out who is behind the murders. The murders are somewhat gruesome because someone is taking images from children’s books and copying them with the demi-fey and brownies. Very creepy when you think about it. What better way to ruin a childhood memory.

The title of the post comes from Merry’s responsibility to warn the lesser fey. When I cast characters as royalty, my good ones act like Merry does. They feel responsible for the people under them and don’t treat them as lesser or inferior beings. It isn’t sport for them to torture the people who serve them or demand their adoration. The royalty are adored because they are just and fair. And compared to her relatives, Merry could only be a better alternative, even if she possessed some of their nastiness. Part of this is explored because of her mixed heritage- sidhe, brownie, human. She isn’t one, but many and it makes her more aware of those she is responsible for.

She is also still facing opposition. Outside opposition comes from Gilda, the Fairy Godmother of L.A. And she is the godmother of the lesser fey, not a fairy godmother to humans; there is no such thing as a fairy godmother, like in Cinderella. Gilda is trying to turn the situation into a battle of queens and Merry just wants everyone safe. It’s amazing what power does to these people. Although, power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

The other opposition comes from within her camp. Her father’s friend, Barinthus, is unhappy that Merry and Doyle gave up the crowns of Faerie in order to save Frost and he is also resentful that he hasn’t recieved his full powers back the way some of the other fae have. It is another example of “power corrupts.” With him and with others, Merry steps up and refused to back down. Even if she didn’t accept the title, she is still acting like a queen and I think that says more about her than having the title.

This book also has more exploration of what happened under Andias and Cel. One noble was tortured into a bloody ruin. Merry saved him and his body healed but his mind is broken and even though he’s only in a few chapters, it hurts my heart to read what happened to him and what he is compared to the other sidhe around him. The female guards that stay with Merry also have issues to deal with because Prince Cel (may he rest in… well, actually, may he burn forever) sexually tortured them. One female guard has a bad reaction to being hugged from behind because Cel used to grab them and throw them on the bed. There is still a lot of healing that has to happen and I think it would be interesting to explore it.

Other characters get time too. Galen gets a bigger role in this one. I like him because he is a little naive and innocent,  and not as hardened as some of the other guards. Rhys gets his own sithen even if he doesn’t know what it does yet. And Merry’s alliances with the goblins and the demi-fey may be in danger, but that isn’t explored, just hinted at. It might be the focus of the next book.

One other thing that I like is that Hamilton gives a wrap-up at the end of the book. Life is heading in this direction. It’s enough to sum up the book and provide closure if she doesn’t write another book, but it doesn’t close it up so completely that there is no possibility of another book. If that makes sense.

Sometimes Fairyland is Where You Make It…

I reread Swallowing Darkness and have Divine Misdemeanors sitting on the side-table, which are the two books that follow Lick of Frost, in the Merry Gentry series by Laurell K. Hamilton. If you remember, I was very unhappy with Lick of Frost, mostly because of what happened to Frost, who is my favorite character in the series.

I still feel that LoF was the turning point in the series. The books before it were different than these three. But the circumstances have changed as well. Merry is pregnant and has not been granted the throne, and she is still fighting through the politics and physical battles.

Swallowing Darkness takes places over several hours, similar to Mistral’s Kiss. It starts with Merry recovering in the hospital after being kidnapped, spelled and raped by her uncle. He wants people to believe that her twins were fathered by him, when they actually have six different fathers (yes, six, read the books to figure out who). The Wild Hunt is called on again, like in Mistral’s Kiss, but this time it has a purpose. Merry has called it to hunt a kin-slayer and then it rides to save Mistral from an ambush. The whole series of events drives home that Merry is still in danger, even though she has conceived.

Oddly enough, Sholto is the main male character, even though the title suggests that it would be Doyle, called Darkness. But Sholto rides in the Wild Hunt with Merry and protects her during the events that follow.

It all culminates to a battle between Merry and her guards and her cousin, Cel, and his supporters. And Cel doesn’t make it.

More important than the events of the book is that Merry examines her feelings for the fathers of her twins. She knows that Frost and Doyle are her favorites and she is truly in love with them, but she steps back and really looks at how she feels about the other four fathers (still not giving it away). And that is more interesting to watch develop than all the politics.

The reader is also shown a bit more of Merry’s father, who was UnSeelie but generally liked by everyone. His killer is revealed and Merry wonders if her father had been a bit more ruthless and a little less liked, he would still be alive. Her mixed heritage is also brought to the foreground, as her Hand of Blood brings her more allies and highlights her unique bloodline. Because she is mortal and brownie and sidhe, Merry is not always bound the to the same rules of magic as her bodyguards. And this continual development (the mystery aobut her father’s death, her position and upbringing in the courts) is one of the reasons I read Swallowing Darkness after almost swearing off the series (I was really upset about Frost).

However, and this is my favorite part of the whole book, Frost is returned, in a humaniod form, to Merry and the other guards. I put the book down and did the happy dance the first time I read the book. Merry and Doyle agree to give up the crowns of Faerie in return for Frost, and to give up power for love is always a great idea, in my personal opinion.

The book ends with the group returning to LA, away from the faerie mounds of the Seelie, UnSeelie, goblin, Sluagh (Sholto’s people) and just about all their other kin. But the Goddess is not through with Merry and returning magic to the world, because there is Divine Misdemeanors and there’s something about a fairy godmother in LA and it doesn’t dissappoint, from what I remember. I have to re-read it after all. And there’s another Merry Gentry scheduled for release this year.

Frost is back. I’ll happily read whatever comes out.

Lick of Frost: Laurell K. Hamilton’s Latest Wicked Release

“I’m Merry Gentry, princess and heir apparent to the throne in the realm of faerie, onetime private investigator in the mortal world.”

 

Merry introduces herself in Lick of Frost, the sixth book in Laurell K. Hamilton’s Merry Gentry series, about an American faerie princess. Merry is not a faerie princess with the normal faerie tale trappings. There are no fairy godmothers to make this tale end happily.

 

In the sixth book, Merry is still trying to get pregnant by any one of her many guards, and trying hard not to play favorites, even when her heart belongs to Doyle and Frost. Even while she tries to become pregnant, she must fight against the forces of the Unseelie and Seelie Faerie Courts. In the Unseelie Court, her aunt, Queen Andais, wants Merry dead because of her mixed blood, and because she is the Goddess’s vessel and is slowly turning the darker and more perverted Unseelie Court into a lighter, more hopeful place. The King of the Seelie Court, Taranis, wants her dead because she has knowledge that could have him exiled from Faerie.

 

The book opens with Merry, Doyle and Frost in a meeting with many lawyers, because King Taranis has accused three of Merry’s guards of raping one the Fae ladies in his Court. The first half of the book, the accused guards and Frost, Doyle, and Merry are making their case to the mortal lawyers and to Taranis. Taranis goes insane and tries to attack Merry and nearly kills Doyle. The second half of the book is Merry and her guards dealing with the aftermath of the attack, the demands and perversions of Andais, and a treaty that they have with the goblins.

 

Their plans go astray when the Goddess and Horned God use Merry and Doyle as vessels and once again alter the dying Faerie and Goblin races, by re-creating and changing them, almost restoring them to their former glory. The price is a sacrifice: Frost’s Fae form. He is turned into a stag, the sacrificial king, and Merry mourns, because she is finally pregnant with twins, and he is one of the fathers.

 

After, Merry is captured by Taranis posing as one of her guards. He punches her to knock her out, and when she wakes up, she is naked in his bed. She panics and fears that he raped her and hurt the babies. The members of his Court help her escape and she speaks to the human press about Taranis’s actions. The book ends with her being taken to the hospital, clutching Doyle and mourning Frost. She says, “I had won the race to sit on the throne of the Unseelie Court and it was bitter ashes on my tongue.”

 

Hamilton is known for her dark, sexual writing, in both the Merry Gentry series and in other series, Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter. With her Merry Gentry books, she has continually challenged the limits, both with the sexual encounters of the characters and the level of danger the characters are in. Merry in continually in danger to the point of life or death and is constantly tested in her emotions. Hamilton also delves deep into the Faerie world and the unique legends, which are mainly from the older Irish tales, and gives them a dark twist. All of her books are page-turners.

 

Lick of Frost is just as compelling as her other Merry Gentry books. Once you started reading, you couldn’t stop until you reached the end. She brings back many favorite characters, among them Frost and Merry, and several others in Merry’s guard, although many of the characters play minor roles in this book. But Lick of Frost is not her best Merry Gentry book.

 

It could be that I am prejudice against Lick of Frost because Hamilton sacrificed Frost, who was my favorite among Merry’s guards. But Merry’s goal to become pregnant has been fulfilled, which means that the next book in the series is going to be very different from the previous six. This is the turning point in the series. I believe that this is the last book that will still be as high tension as her previous books have been; her next Merry Gentry book will probably be more along the lines of Merry waiting in hiding while she is pregnant. Even Lick of Frost wasn’t as dark as the previous five books. It lacked many of the Faerie legends and tales that the other books had and didn’t have as much character development as her other books. Readers who love Hamilton’s sex scenes will also be disappointed; there are only two in Lick of Frost.

 

The book does leave the taste of bitter ashes in my mouth.