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Title: Kiss of Shadows Author: Laurell K. Hamilton ISBN:0345423402 # pages: 480 Publisher: Ballantine Publication Date: Feb 26, 2002 Price: 6.99 Reviewer: bf Review Date: 4/14/2002 Keywords Text Don't start a book by Laurell K. Hamilton if you only have a few minutes to kill. I took A KISS OF SHADOWS, the first in a new series by the author of the Anita Blake, Vampire Killer series, with me to an appointment wondering if I should take another book in case I didn't like this one. I'm not fond of fantasy, being more literal minded and preferring hard science fiction, but I thought a book about a faerie detective, written by someone as skilled as Hamilton in creating new situations within our familiar world, was worth trying. I was immediately sucked into the tale of Princess Meredith NicEssus, known as Merry Gentry, an operative with the Grey Detective Agency in Los Angeles. Two women come into the office with a strange tale and ask Jeremy Grey, the head of the agency, for help. Jeremy doesn't know what to do, so he asks Merry for her advice, since the agency never ever takes divorce cases, but both women are convinced that the husband is trying to kill at least one of them. Gentry finds that at least on of them has been placed under a spell, and she volunteers to go undercover. Merry had run from the Unseelie Court three years earlier. To say her real name, after dark, would cause her Aunt, the queen to find her and probably have her killed. But working this case exposes her and she returns to the Court, but not before her magical powers start maturing. She had rown up thinking that she had no special powers since she was part Sidhe, part Brownie, and part human, and mortal. Much of the rest of the book is taken up with the politics of the Faerie Court. There are more different kinds of creatures than one would think possible. Their interaction make the shapeshifters and vampires of Hamilton's other series, look simple. There are several highly charged erotic scenes, as only she can write: imagine making love with a demigod who had been celibate for 800 years, or with a goblin, or with a seal man or..... The next book in the series, A Caress of Twilight is now out in hardcover. I may treat myself to a copy. This is a review of the UK paperback, published by Bantam in October 2001  available from CrimeBks@aol.com. A US hardcover edition is also available 
Reviewed by Barbara Franchi, April 2002
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