Seduced by Moonlight (Meredith Gentry, 3)

Rating:
Summary: Nearly plotless soft-porn; borrow from the library
Review: I gave this one star, because it didn't look like I could give it zero.

Like many other readers it seems, my first introduction to Ms. Hamilton was "Guilty Pleasures", the very first book in the Anita Blake series.  I enjoyed it immensely, and proceeded to inhale the next six books in the series (fortunately they'd already been published).  Then the series began to go downhill.  With each new book, Anita gained a new power, lost a few more of her morals, and had quite a bit more sex ... and so on and so forth until her escapades are no longer remotely believable and the books detailing those escapades are three quarters soft-porn.

Unfortunately, Hamilton's "Meredith Gentry" series seems to be "Anita Blake" on growth hormones.  Only three books into this saga, Meredith is already collecting powers left right and centre and copulating with everyone in sight.

Don't get me wrong:  I appreciate a good sex-scene as much as the next well-adjusted post-pubescent person.  As long as all parties involved are rational and consenting adults, they can do what ever the hell tickles their fancy.  Hetero-sex, same-sex, S/M, D/s, BDSM, kink, bring it on.  It doesn't bother me a whit.

But, personally, if I had to choose between a sex scene and plot-development, the plot would win hands-down any day of the week.  I'd prefer not to have to choose.  If I could get both, I'd be very pleased.  Unfortunately, I don't get to choose, and unfortunately, Ms. Hamilton's choice is not mine.  And to add insult to injury: the sex isn't even that good!

"Seduced by Moonlight" saw me skipping entire pages, utterly bored by the tedious sex-scenes, stopping only briefly to take note of what new weird and wonderful thing had occurred as a result of Meredith's latest orgasm.  Maybe I missed some of them.  I don't know.  I don't really care.  And doesn't that just say it all?

I will say one thing for Hamilton.  Her descriptive prose is beautiful and does a great job of painting a scene for me.  She could, however, mix it up a little, since if I read one more time about how Merry had swallowed the moon I think I'd have thrown the book away in disgust.

In all other aspects, however, there is a *great* deal of room for improvement.  Her characterisation leaves a lot to be desired, the plot gets lost in the constant sex, and if someone - *anyone* - can show me what Meredith sees in Frost, I'd be eternally grateful.

My recommendation: if you're really interested in finding out what happens next, borrow it from the library.  Don't waste good money on this drivel.  I will admit that I may hang on for another couple of books, though I'm fairly certain that Meredith's eventual pregnancy will be delayed as long as possible to get as much sex in with as many different people as Hamilton can possibly conceive of.  I live in hope that Doyle will be king.  If it doesn't happen, I may never even look at another Hamilton book again.

Rating:
Summary: Couldn't we at least get GOOD sex?
Review: I'm starting to be disappointed in Laurell Hamilton's work. Not necessarily because she's putting so much sex into her books, but because a) it's at the expense of plot, dialogue, and character and b) it's bad sex. If this were a book filled with nothing but hot, kinky sex, I'd be just fine with that. But the sex isn't even that great! The second half is taken up with Meredith touching a bunch of guys with a magical ring that gets her off each time. Nice, but after the fifth guy in line, it gets a little old, and very unsatisfying for the rest of us.

The plot, if anyone cares, involves Meredith coming into some serious and mysterious new power that could restore the Unseelie Court to its former glory - if she can stay alive and keep it out of the hands of her enemies. Typically, however, she's less concerned with resurrecting Faerie than with picking out outfits and cuddling with her bodyguards. And talking. My God, do these people talk a lot. They will literally drop whatever they're doing and go on for pages at a time, about the most inconsequential detail imaginable - yet, when something really, really important happens, it barely even rates a mention. Nicca's wings burst out of his back in the middle of having sex with Meredith - and she wipes the blood off her face and hauls someone else into her bed. Focus, girl!

The end is left somewhat dangling - the whole book takes place over the course of a few days, so a lot of issues are raised that don't get resolved. I can hope, I guess, that they'll be addressed in the 4th book, "Stroke of Midnight", but something tells me I shouldn't hold my breath. On the other hand, Meredith adds a few more men to her queue, so at least the hot sex should be back soon.


Rating:
Summary: 80% talk; 20% action; 0% closure...
Review: After reading the first two books in the Meredith Gentry series, I was really looking forward to Merry's next foray into the dark and dangerous world of faery, fraught with intrigue and a complex struggle for survival between the light and dark courts, all within the boundaries of the world of humans. I was hoping for more action - more murder, or mayhem, or scheming - and if not action, then a mystery - enlightenment as to the many troublesome adventures Merry might face as she pursued the throne. I looked forward to seeing how LKH was going to handle Merry's visit to her uncle's Court of Light, or the status of Cell's sanity after his months of punishment, or how Merry was going to continue to juggle her Merry Men in her quest for pregnancy.

What I got instead was annoyed by the slow analytical pacing of 3/4 of the book. There were a few interesting turn of events, but as my anticipation built and built, I hit a long plateau as I continued to read page after page of speculative dialog about Merry's new-found power. [And since this is only book 3, at this rate it seems Merry's powers will emerge even faster than Anita Blake's - at least Anita's grew over the course of 12 books.] At every opportunity the characters seemed to ponder over all of the hows, the whys, the possible ramifications for the future of faery, how those powers might effect her lovers, and so on - all compounded by the tedious rehashing of their emotional baggage. And in between the chapters of talk and whining, Merry and her Merry Men experimented and tested their theories with sexual encounters that were tepid at best.

If you're looking for any real answers or any closure on this one, you can forget it! With this book encompassing a whole two days in the life of Princess Meredith, you can bet that several more books are being planned for this series. And yes, as a LKH fan I am looking forward to them; I just hope the plot will move faster, and more emotionally-crippled lovers will not be added to Merry's already complicated life.

I was originally going to give the book 2 stars, but the last 100 pages earned a third star for saving the book (and me) a slow death.

Rating:
Summary: Getting Worse
Review: The first book in this series caught my interest. I managed through the second one and I couldn't even finish the third.

What happen to the story line?

Why is there more than two sex scenes per chapter? It is too much. I undertstand the character's need to reproduce, but common on! And it's not even with one or two characters, it is with almost a dozen! What happened to character dynamics?

Her earlier novels I couldn't put down. Her latest novels have been a great disappointment and I hesitate to waste my money on such garbage.


Rating:
Summary: Merry and her Stepford Boyfriends
Review: Okay, I admit it. I liked the first book in this series. The idea of a Fairy Princess as a PI totally hooked me. But this is the last book in the Merry series I can stomach (unless LKH changes her writing style). There's just way too much sex and blood for my taste. I ended up fast-forwarding half the book to get to the parts of any substance. Laurell is a good writer...But I think she needs to take a breather and let her characters do something other than fornicate.

I don't consider myself a prude, but I like more mystery and depth in my books. Also, I've begun to think this series is increasingly sexist. Merry's men are treated very shabbily. I don't think I could stomach a novel where females are treated the way Merry's 'men' are. It reminds me a bit of Heinlein's later works... You know the novels where the nerdy male protagonist takes many young nubile women to bed? And amazingly none of these women are jealous or get fed up with the 'relationship.' Ach du lieber!

I'll regret not knowing more of what happens to Rhys, Doyle and Galen, but I'm going to have to give Hamilton's next work a pass... Unless she gets out of her boinking-as-substitution-for-actual-plot rut.

2 Stars for some good characterization and excellent descriptions. -3 for the oodles of boring, squiggly, and unneccessary fornication with way too many similar ken-doll-esque men.

Rating:
Summary: Mildly Disappointing, but still a guilty pleasure
Review: While I will agree with a few of the previous reviewers, there was a little to much sex and too little plot in this book, it was kind of nice anyway. I'm enjoying LKH's romp through a dark, adult, erotic faerie. I think that there was indeed a good plot buried under all of the gratuitous sex, and I for one would be highly dissappointed if she stopped putting sex in her books, but I would like it if she could at least cover more than 2 days in a 367 page book. (Just a note, she did the same thing in Incubus Dreams... how about finally getting the amour under control Anita?)
All that said, I still find all of her books a great read, and my husband LOVES it when a new LKH book comes out, cause I wear him out. :-)

I would definitely reccommend this to anyone looking for a mixture of fantasy and dark erotica.

Rating:
Summary: Good dirty fun
Review: Laurell K. Hamilton first gained fame as the author of the Anita Blake, Vampire-Hunter series, the first few of which were tightly plotted fantasy/mysteries, seething with repressed sexuality, highly charged and erotic. Her last few books in the Anita Blake series, and all three in the Merry Gentry series, are pornography. This is an observation, not a criticism. I have nothing against pornography. I do wonder, however, if all this was deliberate. Did Laurell Hamilton consciously decide to build an audience before she could be pigeonholed as merely a purveyor of erotica? Is she only now writing what she had wanted to write all along?

No matter, a purveyor of erotica she is, and a good one, too. Seduced by Moonlight is the third book in the adventures of Merry Gentry, the only native born Elven American Princess. The heroine has fled the home of faerie, which lies somewhere in the vicinity of St. Louis, Missouri, in order to escape an unending series of assassination attempts by the followers of Merry's very unloving cousin, Prince Cel, who is the only child of the Queen of Air and Darkness.

Faerie is dying. The Sidhe have few children, and their magic has faded over the years. Through a combination of luck and pluck, Merry has rubbed her Aunt's face in the facts of her son's iniquity. Queen Andais has decreed that whoever first begets a child, Merry or Prince Cel, will inherit the throne of the Unseelie Court. Since Prince Cel is in prison, Merry would seem to have the inside track, but despite constant and imaginative sex with a horde of guardian lovers, she is not yet pregnant.

As Seduced by Moonlight opens, Merry and her men are temporarily living on the estate of Maeve Reed, a Sidhe exiled from faerie because of her dangerous knowledge regarding Merry's uncle, Taranis, the King of the Seelie Court. Merry has a dream of power, and when she awakens, an ancient chalice that had been thought lost from faerie is lying next to her in bed. Merry proceeds to have sex with a number of people, one of them Maeve Reed, all of whom regain godlike powers they had lost many ages before, or gain godlike powers that they had never had. Merry, as if we had ever doubted it, is special.

The action of Seduced by Moonlight takes place over a very few days, and the overall arc of the series advances little. Merry has been invited, first to a feast in her honor at the Unseelie Court, and then to a similar event at the Seelie Court. The current books ends at the Unseelie Court, with many volumes, presumably, to follow.

Seduced by Moonlight certainly has its weak points. For one thing, the Sidhe, both the Seelie and Unseelie, are depicted as beautiful, powerful, racist, violent and untrustworthy. Their problems are, to a large extent, of their own making, and it is difficult to feel much sympathy for their society as a whole. Europe had exiled the Sidhe generations before, tired of the internecine warfare that they had caused, and President Thomas Jefferson had offered them sanctuary in America. One cannot help but feel that Jefferson made a mistake.
Merry, alone among the Sidhe, is "mortal." At one point, a Sidhe noble protests against Merry's possible ascension to the throne, since a mortal Sidhe would, presumably, hasten the demise of their magic. It is stated that all the Sidhe with whom Merry has "shared blood" have become mortal. Doubt is cast upon this point, but it is not refuted. Merry and her accuser fight a duel, in the course of which they share blood. The accuser does not become mortal, and Queen Andais offers this, not as proof that Merry's mortality will not contaminate the Sidhe's powers, but rather as proof that Merry is now immortal. Merry wonders if this is so. How does it feel to be immortal? Would she know? Well, I certainly don't. How did she know she was mortal in the first place, if she can't tell the difference now?

Do not think from the above that I do not like Seduced by Moonlight. I like it just fine. Laurell K. Hamilton's books move along at a breakneck pace, even when they don't go very far. It's one thing after another and the reader is taken for a wild ride. Merry is an attractive, sympathetic and very sexy heroine. The dialogue is hip and snappy, the characterizations, well done. The overall dilemma is compelling. Laurell Hamilton has gotten into a nasty habit of having her heroines escape from (and usually kill) the bad guys by suddenly developing a brand new power, just in the nick of time. This book, thankfully, does not succumb to such an obvious device. Seduced by Moonlight is a creampuff. It's light and delicious and mostly air. It's certainly not "high art," but it's never boring and the reader looking for escapist fiction of the more outrageous variety, and who chooses to overlook its obvious flaws, will find it, I think, quite filling enough.


Rating:
Summary: A Mary Sue by any other name....
Review: Let's be honest here, Meredith Gentry is a flat out, blatant, *screaming* Mary Sue. (For those who don't know the term, a Mary Sue is the idealized version of the author, little Ms. Perfect with super intelligence, super powers, super fashion sense and in this case, a super sex drive.) In fact, I haven't seen a Sue this obvious since the godawful Rhapsody novels.

Merry is not only a Faerie Princess, she's so incredibly beautiful that nearly everyone wants her, male and female alike. She has multi-colored eyes, naturally striped hair and skin that glows. Of course she has "faults" (which really aren't) like being too short, too big-chested, too curvy, too mortal, etc. She's more intelligent than everyone else; she develops powers that are rare and always right when she needs them, and as of the end of this book, she's making people into deities with a kiss or a touch. Added all together, this character should be enough to make you want to stab her and put her out of your misery.

The thing is, you don't quite get to that point.

Yes, the plot is predictable, the pacing is at times torturously slow and Merry is annoying. The sex is explicit and still manages to be utterly un-arousing and oft-times unintentionally funny. But this book, and the two preceding it, are a great deal like a trainwreck; you know it's bad, you have the feeling you should do something besides stare, but for some reason you can't look away.

I waded through all three novels and I couldn't put them down. Despite the mediocre writing, dull characters and contrived plot devices, I just *had* to see what new superpower Merry was going to develop next, or what new guy would end up in her bed.

It's hypnotizing, in a brainless, tasteless sort of way.