Rating: 
Summary: Bad porn gone wrong
Review: If you have ever fantasized about what Larry Flynt would do were he to come to power in the Unseelie Court, this is the book for you.Gone are the days of Anita Blake, when the (identical short, red-headed, busty) female lead engenders enough sexless erotic tension with one or two male characters to keep the book humming. For that matter, gone are the days of Anita Blake when the book has a plot at all. _Seduced by Moonlight_ would be better titled as _A Day in Nero's Court_ - it combines the exquisite boredom of the Imperial Roman nobility with enough sex to jade even the most easily-aroused reader into flipping the pages in a vain quest for plot development. Even when the gloves (or trousers) are off, however, the sex is meaningless and mechanical... the incautious reader finds herself identifying the color-coded interchangeable Ken dolls of the Sidhe by their mouths and tackle rather than their names. Meredith is unable to work up any interest in regular sex by now, madam as she is of her own faerie brothel - she must have more, more, more sex, lesbian sex, oral sex, bloody sex, bukkake sex; this isn't a work of fiction, it's porn spam set to a sonata. The tattered shred of a plot is simple, as befits its porn movie action. Most of it, in fact, is carried over from the second book of the series. Meredith must get pregnant by one of her guards/lovers/dancing boys. Her aunt's Unseelie court is fraught with plot and counter-plot, endangering Meredith and all her plans. Someone tries to kill Meredith; she develops the requisite new, special, never-before-seen magical power that sweeps all before her (a standard for any Hamilton heroine, one power per novel); a new dea ex machina manifests Herself. The brief forays into Celtic mythology are interesting, if somewhat limited; there is some sorely needed (though limited) character development among the individual guards. The final scenes in the Unseelie Court are compelling, showing Hamilton's considerable writing talent at its finest. Sadly, they are really too little too late - by this point the reader is so exhausted from the endless, meaningless sexual roundelay of the previous 180 pages that even the prospect of something meaningful happening isn't enough to revive the reader's flagging interest.
Rating: 
Summary: Best of the three.
Review: No. You know what? This is a great book. So what if it has sex and lacks the stupid detective side-story. The sex scenes are less than in either of her previous books, and have much more relevance to the story. They are actually interesting. Yes, the entire book seems to be sexual, but it's all innuendo, implucations, and naughty descriptions. I wouldn't complain about the sex in this book as compaired to the other two. I felt like this book was a continuation of the second. Or rather, Part 1 of the 3rd. It ends before the story is finished and with none of the quick last-page wrap-up she usually does. You get the feeling it was just another chapter which ended, not an entire book. I love this book, because it jumps right into the story. Hamilton no longer needs to explain everything. Instead, she can focus more on the plot. Lots more fun this time around, yet still more to learn. We're left at the end wanting the rest of it. I know with a certaintly I will buy the fourth book. Good job, LKH.
Rating: 
Summary: Not her best......but worth reading
Review: I just finished Seduced By Moonlight. I don't think this volume was her best work. She seemed to give herself over to phsyical descriptions a little too much. The pace was too slow as there was entirely too much emphasis on hair and eye color..tri color such as this.....long shining waves of hair color that. Then there were her descriptions on the mystical events that were drenched in color and very little actual action. I like that Merry is gaining power and confidence (some).....however it almost seems that it is at the expense of the guards characters. They felt a little flat in this book. Sure, Frost pouted, Doyle scowled and Rys teased as per usual but they didn't have their usual power to pull me in. I confess to actually skimming some paragraphs rather than reading them completely just so I could get to a part of the story that had a little more meat in it.....so to speak. I wish she would bring Doyle a little more into the forefront and flesh his character out a bit more. He is my favorite of the guards. However, I remain a steadfast Laurell Hamilton fan and look forward to the next installment of the Merry Gentry series.
Rating: 
Summary: boooooring
Review: Let me just sum up what a lot of people have previously said in these reviews. This book was BORING. I have all of Laurell K. Hamilton's books and have been reading them since the first Anita Blake book came out and I never fail to rush to the bookstore to purchase her books because normally I love them. I haven't really been a fan of this series but I decided to give the 3rd book a chance. Needless to say, I wish I hadn't. What a waste of money. I still haven't even finished the book and normally I can finish a book of that size in a day or two. If I had to read one more description of their eyes and hair and how their skin glows and blah blah blah, I would have had to scream, and not in a good way. Yes, we know the fairies are beautiful! So just get on with it! Someone needs to tell Laurell Hamilton and/or her editors that her readers are more interested in reading a good story with a sound plot than reading about how someone's tri-colored eyes matched w/ their outfit, or whatever. I'll stick to the Anita Blake series from now on.
Rating:
Summary: Abrupt Ending
Review: I voraciously read the first two novels in this series and was expecting the third to wrap up the plot. Little did I know that Seduced by Moonlight would take an entire book to describe the events of a mere two days. The book dragged and not much happened with regards to plot development. I really was intrigued by Merry's new ability to return the Sidhe to godhead. However, I wanted to learn more about this phenomenon, their new powers and past histories, instead of how gorgeous they are and how great they are in bed. Yeah, I think we get the point. The descriptors of hair and eyes are tiresome, and if I have to read how her skin "looked as if she swallowed the moon" one more time I just might scream. It got confusing near the end to keep track of so many new men added to her guard. I preferred her small intimate circle of familiar Sidhe we have grown to love. In conclusion, erotica is fun, but please make it worth our while and develop some of that budding plot that begs to take us somewhere other than a bedroom.
Rating: 
Summary: Disappointing
Review: As much as I love the Merry Gentry series and find them to be a refreshing change from most of the other pulp fiction out in the market, the third novel in this series felt more like a "filler" book than a full-fledged novel. Not enough character or plot development and the sex scenes seemed kind of perfunctory, lacking the heat from the first two novels. The language often seemed awkward, especially in her attempt to fill the reader in on events from the prior two novels. It would be nice to have a little more forward plot movement (I'm not a fan of the never-ending series and would eventually like to find out if Merry ever becomes Queen and who becomes her consort/makes her pregnant--it will definitely be interesting to see if Hamilton will bring Merry back to monogamy eventually!). Still, I'm eagerly awaiting the next installment--they're certainly diverting to read and it's always fun to see where Ms. Hamilton's fertile imagination will next take us!
Rating:
Summary: Disappointed
Review: I have been waiting for Ms. Hamilton's new series, since the downward decline of Anita Blake into slutsville. And when the series finally came out, it's about - what else - sex and more sex. Although I know there are quite a few fans of this series, I bought this book, flipped through it, and returned it the next day. This is not a series I will be following. For those that enjoy this type of novel - go for it. I will be looking elsewhere.
Rating:
Summary: A three-scene novel
Review: This here story takes place only in three rooms, as far as I can remember -
A bedroom
Another bedroom
A throne room Oh, yeah, there was a pause at an airport along the way. Ms. Hamilton's writing is of course beautiful, drawing beautiful people the way artists do in fantasy comics, but the plot was really slow. Merry, princess of faerie, spends a good portion of the book in one extended love scene, and then hies off to her aunt's court *finally* so that the reader can say the entire novel didn't just take place in one spot. Things do get exciting at the Unseelie court, but if you want to find out when she finally gets to meet the Seelie king (this was announced in book 2) you'll have to wait probably till book 5, because book 4 will be taken up by another couple of bedrooms and part two of Merry's journey- the Goblin court. Halfway through the book, I was wishing Merry's admirers had only one eye-colour instead of three, making physical descriptions thrice as long. Most of the fairie men have long flowing hair, too. It would be nice if one or two of the men had a different hairstyle (to be fair, Doyle has a braid, which makes him doubly interesting to me for that reason). Despite all this, the book is worth skimming through, if only to see how Merry is slowly growing more and more queen-like, learning what she has to do, how she can bend the rules, where she can surpass them. I loved the changes her character went through. I'd suggest reading the last 50 pages of this book right before the next one comes out. Together, they should have enough action to keep a Laurell K. Hamilton fan going for a while.
Rating:
Summary: Finally! Hamilton is back to providing horrific endings
Review: Fans of Laurell K. Hamilton greet each new book from the author with a sense of trepidation. Originally the uneasy feelings were because we never knew what terrible things were going to happen next to Anita Blake. Hamilton routinely came up with some of the most horrific scenes in the history of the genre. I have been saying for years that the main reason Hamilton's Anita Blake novels have never made it to the silver screen is simply because to be true to them would be to end up with an "X" rating. But now the uneasy feelings are because in both the Anita Blake novels and these Meredith Gentry books Hamilton has been going for the more traditional justification for an "X" rating by having her heroines engage in more and more explicit sex. In "Seduced By Moonlight," the third in the series devoted to Princess Meredith NicEssus, the half-mortal heir to the throne of the Unseelie Court. At this point in the erotic story of the immortal fey we are now half way through the six month period during which her cousin Prince Cel has been imprisoned by his mother, Andais, Queen of Air and Darkness. Merry and Cel are the two claimants to the throne and the winner will be the first to produce a child. Towards that end the Queen has given Merry some of her personal guards, the Queen's Ravens, to the bed of the princess. So far their efforts have been unsuccessful and the fact that each instance of intercourse is fraught with such profound implications for the fey is wearing thin on Merry. To put the matter delicately, Merry is longing for sex that is not procreational in nature. This is not to say that Merry does not have romantic problems as well. If you thought Anita Blake sat on the fence a long time trying to choose between Jean-Claude the vampire and Richard the werewolf, then Merry mulling over Doyle, Frost, Rhys, Galen, and which ever new lovers end up in her bed in each novel might prove even more exasperating. But then which one she loves the most is a moot point, since it is whoever impregnates Merry who will be her consort. Sex is a key part of the politics of the fey, where the flesh and blood of the sidhe have power and are additional bargaining chips for those who would dare to play them. Merry is not only out to keep herself alive but also to protect those who are loyal to her and if that means bargaining with the goblins and other members of the fey, she will do what has to be done. My biggest complaint Hamilton's novels in recent years has been that whether we are talking Princess Merry or Anita Blake the recurring motif has been for the heroine to pull another power out of her hat at the climax of the story. Since Merry has already come into both of her hands of power, flesh and blood respectively, I had to wonder what part of her anatomy would suddenly display a new power. Indeed this happens, but instead of being part of the grand finale it is woven throughout the narrative as Merry's importance to the fey continues to grow in leaps and bounds. Meanwhile, Queen Andais sends more Ravens for Merry to bed, apparently convinced that the secret to getting the princess pregnant is for her to take two lovers to her bed at the same time (there are also indications that the former divine aspects of the lovers is a critical part of the equation: to be continued). The climax of "Seduced by Moonlight" is when Merry and her company return to the Unseelie Court to meet again with the Queen of Air and Darkness. More importantly, this is where the old Laurell K. Hamilton returns with a vengeance. Andais has a taste for pain and cruelty, but what Merry and her escort find is beyond their expectation and experience. This is only the opening act in the novel's end game, where Hamilton finally proves that she still remembers how to pour it on. I had been reading chapters of this book here and there, but once Merry got back to the Unseelie Court I read the rest of the book straight through. I really do not care if Hamilton wants to keep throwing soft core porn into her novels as long as she also delivers on the gut-wrenching horror. At the end of this novel she provides exactly what attracted me to her writing in the first place and what made me claim her best stories make Stephen King look relatively tame in comparison.
Rating:
Summary: Another small step downhill for LKH
Review: This is a library / loaner, not a must-buy. LKH still has the ability to grab attention, and make the reader want to see the next page. So 3 stars, not 2. But the surprises, drama, and sense of action are getting lost in a lot of stuff about goblin, sidhe, and demi-fey social conventions. Some of the plot twists just aren't convincing - if x is so powerful, and has been for so long, how could he/she/it be open to that trick now? Alas, LKH seems to be losing control of the complexity of her characters and plots. This book adds to the trend of more & bigger weird powers, more (talk about)odd sex, at the expense of a compelling story. For fans of Merry, go ahead, read it once, and move on. For others who want to see a better example of LKH's capability as a writer, start with Guilty Pleasures.
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