Gece Yarısı Dokunuşu

Merry Gentry #4

by Laurell K. Hamilton, Barbaros Bostan (Translator)

Ben Meredith Gentry. Los Angeles’ta özel dedektif, peri diyarında ise tahta vâris gösterilen bir prensesim.
İktidar bana, bedelinin ne olacağını bilmediğim bir güç sundu. Tüm bu büyünün karşılığı ne olacak?
İnsanlığımı kaybetmeden karanlık gücün sunduklarını elimde tutabilecek miyim? Yoksa yüzyıllardır katliamların üzerinde yükselen bir tahta
oturmak için korktuğum kişiye mi dönüşeceğim?

Düşmanlarım her hareketimi izliyor. Kuzenim Cel, hapsedildiği hücreden bana suikastlar düzenliyor. Yönetimi ele geçirmek isteyen soylular beni yoldan çekmek istiyor. Öyle ki tehditler, tarihimizde ilk kez polislerin
peri diyarına girmesine neden oldu.

Acı, zevk ve tehlike tahta uzanan yolda beni bekliyor. Korumalarım bana güç verirken tüm tutkularımı harekete geçiriyorlar. Peri diyarındaki iki saray arasındaki uçurum giderek açılırken düşmanlarım da
bana karşı birleşiyor. Peki, yanımda kim kalacak?

Genres: Fantasy, Urban Fantasy, Paranormal, Romance, Paranormal Romance, Fae, Fiction

490 pages, Paperback

First published April 12, 2005

About the author

Laurell K. Hamilton is one of the leading writers of paranormal fiction. A #1 New York Times bestselling author, Hamilton writes the popular Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter novels and the Meredith Gentry series. She is also the creator of a bestselling comic book series based on her Anita Blake novels and published by Marvel Comics. Hamilton is a full-time writer and lives in the suburbs of St. Louis with her family.

Reviews

[Arminzerella · Rating 2 out of 5]

It's official. My love affair with Laurell K. Hamilton is at an end. I should send her flowers and tell her how nice the journey was. We’re going different places, you and I, Ms. Hamilton – we need to part ways, literally.

Both of Laurell K. Hamilton's series have devolved into orgies – all sex, no plot. In her most recent Anita Blake release there was no time for other things to happen, because everyone was too busy getting laid – Anita more than anyone. Things aren’t much different in fairyland either. Meredith is still in the sithen and she’s still got more manly guards than any one woman should be able to handle…and yet, she can! She adds a few more conquests (notches in her lipstick case?) in this book and is in more danger than ever. It seems like more is going to happen what with reporters dying in the sithen, and police being brought in to investigate murders, but then everything is nicely wrapped up in the end (or maybe we get a shocking revelation in the next book?). We’re still wondering here who is going to get Meredith pregnant, and people keep obtaining new powers, so that at least keeps the story more interesting than the Anita Blake series. Also, there aren’t quite so many moody men around Meredith who need to have their feelings and egos stroked along with their bodies – that helps. Not the best, not the worst. I don’t know where this series is going, and I don't really care anymore either. I could use something with more action and less *action.*

[Lila · Rating 5 out of 5]

Is this all in the course of two days?

This is one of my main complaints about this series. All in all, the time barely moves in it. Too many things happening, too many sex scenes and too many assassination attempts, in the span of hours.

I get that she is descended from five fertility deities, but I'd think even Meredith needs a breather every now and then, doesn't she?

[Kathy Davie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fourth in the Meredith Gentry erotic horror/urban fantasy series revolving around an Unseelie faerie princess who is part-human, part-brownie, and half fae. And the contested heir to the throne.

My Take
It's a matter of choice and interpretation: the magic is returning to the Unseelie Court through Merry's actions. Even the sithen is coming alive, twisting time, nature, and décor. If Merry took the prudent course to placate her aunt and stay alive, what would happen to the artifacts, the magic? Would it stay or leave? Would it be gone for good?

As always, stepping into any fae court is like walking onto a minefield. It's also Hamilton's opportunity to poke fun and question our perspective on sexuality. To wonder why we as a society continue to believe that sex is dirty, wrong…and it is pretty funny what happens at the press conference.

It's personal growth and change from signs of the goddess approving Merry, learning from whence comes Frost's arrogance, the truth of Merry's father's judgement on Galen even as he's growing up, Kitto's discovery that life is not a bed of roses (at least not one without thorns) no matter which court you are a member of, the true difficulty in polyamorous relationships. Change includes conflict for the arrogant pure sidhe who believe they are the upper rung of the Fae. A power that has been diminishing until this weak, half-human shows them up. Their own pride has brought them an heir who values humans, those who are considered less. And I do love how Merry rubs that one in! For it's sex with Merry that brings each man into his former power, that makes the sithen begin to return to life.

"…be nice, be nice until it's time to stop being nice, then destroy them…"

It's also loss. A loss of childish dreams and a fear of loss for those who despise Merry but need her blessing as well as that experienced by those who adore her.

It's both more dangerous for Merry and less in a way. The queen is always a terrifying prospect. The more so as she discovers Merry's increasing powers and despises Merry's sense of fair play. For the knowledge the queen is gaining on how the fear she has engendered throughout her guards is coming back on her. How much Andais reveals about her own son and his plotting. How much the court reveals publicly and privately. It's really impressive how very diplomatic Merry can be with the queen.

The queen has never understood that fear is not an aphrodisiac—and the Prince's and Queen's guards all notice how much more fun Merry's men have.

It doesn't seem to matter how often I re-read this, but I just don't get what made Frost and Doyle freak out. They're normally such rational men. Well, Doyle is, anyway.

Hmmm, let me think, save a man who tried to kill me…or save a man who tried to save me…hmmm…

Kieran's disgust for Merry, his sarcasm causes Merry to remind him that "we are deities of nature" and that the sidhe have forgotten this. As has the queen! But the queen's anger also causes her to let slip in court, words that condemn Cel.

Ooh, there is definitely something between Doyle and Queen Niceven! And we learn a tremendously important bit about sithens and rulers! That the current status of two courts was not the norm and how the first Unseelie Court came into being. How courts and sithens formed.

The more I learn about the Seelie Court, the Fair and Shining Ones, the more disgusted I am. And Kitto reveals the truth about what happens to goblin-sidhe babies…oh, lord…

The Story
That troubled homecoming is getting worse when a demi-fey and a human are found murdered in the sithen. It can’t be covered up or hushed, and it’s up to Merry to ensure the queen accepts this.

Nor do the assassination attempts stop; they’re simply not directed at Merry anymore.

The Characters
Meredith “Merry Gentry” NicEssus is a beleaguered faerie princess considered a mongrel by those who don’t know her and as a goddess by those who do love her. And that crowd is increasing all the time, LOL. She’s also the Princess of Flesh and Blood, two hands of power, and she has five fertility deities in her lineage. Besaba is Merry’s Seelie mother, the one who hated Merry for being born, for being Besaba’s Bane, for looking more Seelie than herself. Prince Essus is Merry’s sixteen-years-dead Unseelie father, a former god.

Merry’s Merry Men now includes:
The originals are Doyle, the Darkness, once known as Nodens, the god of healing; Frost is the arrogant Killing Frost gaining powers he never had; Rhys, the Lord of Death, has regained his powers as Cromm Cruach, “Red Claw”, and it’s not his oldest or only name; Galen is Merry’s first love and the friend of her childhood, the green man; Nicca, who has sprouted real wings from those tattooed onto his back; and, Kitto, the snake goblin who is part of Merry’s alliance with Kurag, is anticipating her needs.

The plant and vegetable deity guards sent from Seduced by Moonlight , 3, include Abeloec, a drunken addict, was once the greatest libertine of the Seelie Court; Carrow was one of the great hunters and taught Merry the ways of bird and beast; Amatheon with his flower petal eyes and shoulder-length copper hair who despises Merry’s blood; Onilwyn, a bootlicking toady of a tree lord who hates Merry with all the arrogance of a sidhe; Usna is a cat-like sidhe; Ivi with his entrapping hair that looks like leaves blowing in the wind; Hawthorne; Adair, an oak lord, who now claims Merry as ameraudur, finally succumbs; and, Briac.

The new ones include Mistral, once a storm god and now the new captain of the Queen’s Ravens; Crystall with a voice like chimes in the wind with hair that seemed a prism as it throws light into the colors of the rainbow; Arzhel; Aisling, a.k.a., Terrible Beauty, is the most beautiful man in the world, able to make women instantly besotted with him.

The new ones from Prince Cel’s Cranes include Biddy, half-human and half-Unseelie sidhe, had been one of Prince Essus’ Cranes until his death, and she was given over to Prince Cel’s guards; Cathbodua, a former goddess of battle, a battle scald crow with a cloak of black feathers; and, Dogmaela, nicknamed Cel’s dog and forced to do his dirtiest work because she refused sex with him.

Beatrice, the pastry chef, was a demi-fey, cursed into her current size and cast out of the Seelie Court, and one of Merry’s friends. Harry Hob is a hob with drinking problems and one of Beatrice’s lovers. Maggie May, a brownie, is the chief cook for the Court and Merry’s great-aunt by way of being her great-grandmother’s sister on Merry’s mother’s side. Dulcie is one of Maggie May’s faerie terriers—and pregnant. Peasblossom is a tiny demi-fey who is friends with Beatrice. Mug is a demi-fey enthralled with the sidhe; she now works in the kitchens.

Andais, Queen of Air and Darkness, is Merry’s sadistic aunt who loves to torture people into fearing her. Eamon is her consort; Tyler is her human boy toy. Prince Cel, the last pureblood sidhe of a house that has ruled for 3,000 years, is her imprisoned son, beyond psychopathic, who has been hunting Merry since her birth, to kill her. Madeline Phelps is human and the court publicist, paying attention to fads, fashions, and how the court is seen by the outside world. Christine is the queen’s human secretary. Whisper is one of the few guards remaining in the Queen’s Ravens, her bodyguards. Too many leapt at the queen’s offer.

Kieran is the Lord of Knives with a hand of power to match; Madenn is his wife, once a goddess of youth. Lord Innis is the Conjuror of Phantoms. Cel’s guards are in on the assassination attempt: Hafwyn, a sidhe healer forbidden to practice who had been part of Essus’ guard; Melangell, a.k.a., Sweet Poison, is the temporary captain of the guard while Siobhan is imprisoned for her attempt to kill Merry; and, Kanna.

Lord Leri notes that the ring lives again. Afagu is head of one of very few truly neutral houses. Dilys is head of one of the sixteen and has never liked Merry. Elen is a survivor of Nerys’ house and notes that children would be a blessing in Faerie. Maelgwn, the wolf lord, questions the queen. Brave man! Blodewedd, created from spring flowers of oak, broom, and meadowsweet, is the head of the house to which Kieran belongs. Dormath, the door of death, is the head of the house to which Siobhan and Innis belong. Gwennin is the white lord, thrown out of the Seelie Court who still thinks he may return to it.

The sluagh are the least human-looking of the fae, nightmares that even the Unseelie fear. And the court of the last wild hunt. Sholto, their king, the Lord of That Which Passes Between, is half-sidhe, half-nightflyer.

Queen Niceven is ruler of the demi-fey and made a bargain of blood in an alliance with Merry. One she regrets, for she has pulled Sage from Merry’s side. Nor does she feel respected...with reason. Penny and Royal are two of the demi-fey, twins, who have no wings, and Royal is willing to chance a miracle for himself.

Kurag is the Goblin King who regrets his alliance with Merry. Holly and Ash are two goblin-sidhe with a reputation among the goblins for fierceness who want Merry to bring them into their powers; they have laid challenge to any other goblin.

Major Walters is the fae liaison with the St. Louis Police Department; his volunteering is simply a career move. Dr. Caroline Polaski is the head medical examiner for St. Louis County—she doesn’t like Marquez either. Jeanine Carmichael is one of Polaski’s assistants and susceptible.

Special Agent Raymond Gillett was one of the federal agents who investigated Prince Essus’ murder. And now a betrayer. Special Agent John Marquez is too arrogant for words. Joanne Billings is the wife of the president of the United States and a friend of Merry’s.

An ameraudur is a person, a war leader, chosen for love, not bloodline. A person for whom another would give his life gladly. The chalice was the cauldron of plenty in another age. It has returned to faerie through one of Merry’s dreams. The sithen is both living and not. It will respond or not, and not always in the way you wish. The Goddess and her Consort are the life of Faerie and its magic. The Goddess claims that she didn’t stop speaking to the fae, but that they stopped listening to her.

The Cover
The cover is shades of purple with what appear to be an aroused Meredith in a low-cut gown and wearing a silver barbed wire necklace, caressing the top of one breast with her head thrown back in passion.

Myth says that midnight is when bad things happen, and both evil and blessed events are leading up to A Stroke of Midnight.

[Beth · Rating 1 out of 5]

Warning: Quite a Harsh Little Review Ahead. Actually, less a review and more a roasting. In fact, not so much a roasting as a napalming. Plus, what could be considered spoilers. If you don't already know about all the sex.


I've been hearing about Lauell K Hamilton's Anita Blake and Merry Gentry series' for a while, so was curious to see what the fuss was about. Thank god I found one of the Merry Gentry books at a $5 book sale. If I'd spent any more I'd be even MORE disappointed.

Maybe it's because I started half-way through the series with this one, but I have to say, am not a fan. Merry and her Magical Vagina do not entice me to further books. The vaguely interesting murder to be solved at the start of the book is completely hi-jacked by their sexual hi-jinks, as Merry apparently has made it her mission to have sex every seven pages. As approximately 6 pages are used to describe the impossible and implausible gorgeousness of the current fling, this means quite a lot of sex gets had. As it turns out, Merry quite wasted 30 pages in the intro trying to get the police involved in the case, as it was quite simply solved in the last 5 pages by a handy bit of torture. All that potential sex-time wasted.....

I feel I should point out that I'm not actually that much of a prude, I have no objection to eroticism or sex in novels, actually, I'm quite in favour, for the most part. I do have an objection to poorly written dross. A Stroke of Midnight can't quite seem to make up it's mind what it should be: too much story to make for good porn, and too much porn to make for a good story.

If I were trapped for eternity in a small, dull hotel room and had only Gideon's Bible or the Merry Gentry books to entertain myself, I would read the bible until I could recite it by heart. Then I would develop a spreadsheet tracking the usage of each letter of the alphabet in the bible. And finally I would invent a new language to translate the bible into. After then, MAYBE I'd think about picking up the other book.

[Dianne · Rating 3 out of 5]

Merry is racing against time...there has been a murder within the Sithin, one of the Unseelie and a human reporter, to be exact. The politics are still there, greater than ever, as well as the race to get Merry pregnant before Cel is free from his torture.

It is interesting that some places have this series listed under the horror genre, and I would have to agree. There is one particular scene at the end when you may have to be near a bathroom while you read it, just in case you need to 'urp' while reading it!

What was somewhat annoying with this book (one of the things, mind you) is the fact that the writing centered less around the main mystery (plot) and delved ever more deeply into the sexual aspects of the Unseelie.


Although good things are happening because of the sex, some of it seemed more like filler to me. This is where the erotica aspects come into play. As a matter of fact, if you are also reading the Anita Blake series, you will see many similarities between the writing, certain keywords, positions, pre-sex discussions, and phrases being used during the sex scenes. This can be annoying for readers of both series. Actually, it can become annoying when a reader is only reading the one book. Take, for example, the word "spill"...just how many times does the reader want to see that particular word used? It became grating on my nerves. One thing to watch out for is a 'double berthing' scene - that was interesting and a bit unusual (and a bit shocking) to see in a mainstream book like this one. You'll see what I mean by that phrase after you read this.

Even though the threads of the initial plot are lost, and we never hear or see the human police or the FBI again, you tend to get caught up in the story until the very end, and then you find yourself scratching your head, wondering what the heck you missed.

However, the politics, intrigue, and mystery did sustain much of this book and even though it only took place over one day. This book served its purpose of bringing us to the next book quite well.

[Blue Bates · Rating 2 out of 5]

*Sigh*

I didn't think it would come to this point.

But it has.

I've resorted to making an excel sheet so that I can remember everyone this girl is fucking.

I did this with the Anita Blake books and stopped reading them because my excel sheet was needing too much upkeep. I spent more time on that damn document then I did reading.

I feel like Merry Gentry books are coming to that.

Unfinished list of Merry's fuck buddies so far:

Doyle: darkness. looks like night time
Frost: has silver sparkly hair
Rhys: Death god or somethin, missin a sparkly blue eye
Green: green hair, green skin. makes me think of puke
Kitto: Goblin, looks like a 12 year old apparently but she still has sex with him
Sage: only gave him head. grew big
Nicca: likes 3 ways
Sholto: *shudders* tentacles...
Adair: short hair, something about earth
abeloec: uhh???
amatheon: Mud?
barinthus: sea god, jizz in his pants


I feel like I'm missing some but whatevs.

[Daniel · Rating 2 out of 5]

More of the same with Hamilton. Lots of sex interrupted by a bit of plot.

This book pretty much takes place in the span of only one day and we see Merry get more action than porn star.

Only reason I read these books is because Hamilton does write well and her plot (what little there is of it) is extremely interesting and is a fully developed fantasy world with many well defined characters. Shame the author can't get over her sexual fetish though. I miss the style of the early Anita Blake novels. Sometimes less is more.

[Jenn · Rating 3 out of 5]

I will say for this series, I do like the underlying plot - it's just the methods to get there are a little over the top.

Faerie is still coming alive under Merry's power, but not everyone is happy about it. What was once the dark Unseelie court is now covered in roses and life - the opposite of what the court stands for. The Queen, even though she has named Merry heir, is not happy. Not only is Merry taking over the court she's also taking away all of her guard. But Merry's still not pregnant and until she is, it's open season on the throne.

Queen Andais is a really confusing character to me. I get that she's a mad queen of sorts, but her behavior is extremely erratic to the point that it really doesn't make sense. I don't understand punishing people for doing the one thing you asked them to do. I don't know, it's probably just me on that front. Also, her blindness when it comes to her son is something I don't understand how people can just look past. A Queen is not above the rules. And in all honestly, it makes her no different from the Seelie King - who is 100% mad.

As for Merry, more men are added to her harem and now women too because why not? And then there's the non-passing of time. This book literally takes place in the span of like half a day with nothing being added to the plot but more men. But I'm giving it three stars for the guys I do like and the fact that they are still present and in the front instead of being shoved to the side because more players are coming in.

[Jessica ❁ ➳ Silverbow ➳ ❁ · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5 stars

More sex. More men. Less plot.

All of the nearly 400 pages of this book took place over the course of a single day and night in the Sithen. Was the time running a bit wonky in fairyland? Well, maybe. Doesn't change the fact that all of the nearly 400 pages of this book took place over the course of a single day and night in the Sithen.

Why did I agree to review A Shiver of Light, again?

[Denisa · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well, the last one was better.

The story continues much the same way. Like the other books, it has some stuff that are annoying, some inconsistencies that are hard to understand, but I still like the world builder and the plot and even some characters.
All in all, a pretty nice read.

[Tuğba Atıcı Coşar · Rating 2 out of 5]

Kör olma yolunda emin adımlarla ilerliyorum resmen. Meredith’in şeyi kutsal kase anasını satayım giren bir şey oluyor. Bu kitap bunu okumaktan çooook sıkıldım. Tamam harem mantığıyla yazılmış zaten bir sürü adam ve seks okucayacağım biliyordum ama her seks olayında bir mucize olması çok cringe. Dümdüz sevişin, zevk alın yani bunu okuyalım. Her seks sahnesinde bir büyülü olay. Kadın maşallah alt tarafından gökkuşağı saçıyor. Bu olaydan aşırı sıkıldım.

[Beth · Rating 3 out of 5]

As a number of my friends know already, this year I've read half a dozen "light novels," essentially Japanese YA. At their best, they are fun, imaginative, easy reading, but so far there's always been something to bristle against, whether sexism, poor translation, repetitiveness, lack of direction, and so on.

What does that have to do with this book? First of all, let's be plain, this is not YA and that isn't where the similarities lie. Our main character is in her 30s and there are a number of explicit sex scenes. Otherwise, though, it has a lot of the same hallmarks. The prose is quick-moving and easy to read. There are lots of events, whether sex scenes, court intrigue, or gruesome violence, to keep things interesting. There's also a fair amount of repetition in character interactions and other events, and hints that they're written in a stream of consciousness without much attempt at a decent shape or satisfying arc for any given volume as a whole, which is a main gripe with at least one of the light novel series I'm partway through.

In the latter part of the previous book, Meredith/Merry gained a bunch of new guards, some number of them (or all? I don't really remember) refugees from imprisoned prince Cel's entourage. There are so many of them now that, aside from what I consider her central pack of Doyle, Frost, Galen, Kitto, Rhys and Nicca, I can't tell many of them apart. Three of them have names starting with A, three or four of them have powers based on plant growth, and then there's Crystall, whose name feels so throwaway it makes me chuckle, and who has prism-colored hair. (there's also Ivi, who... has hair with ivy in it.) The whole series started with Merry being required to have sex with all of her guards, and that's getting to the point that it raises some eyebrows, to say the least, when there are fifteen or twenty of them. I mean, she has a near-infinite capacity for sex, and comes to literal screaming orgasm anytime a guy penetrates her, so at least she has fun while performing her duties.

Aside from drawing the guards of both Andais and Cel to her side, Merry is gaining in mystical power. In this volume, the sithen, the fairie mound in Cahokia, is starting to come to burgeoning life while Merry is there. Previously dark hallways glow with light and color. Springs and soil come into being from pure rock. Plant life grows along the walls, and Merry's wishes for the sithen, both spoken and thought, come true at her command. A new fae couple, with the goddess' presence through Merry, comes together and are fated to be fruitful with a child.

This is all very cool, but there are aspects of this story that feel rather plain and mundane. A lot of the world building--as has been true since volume two at least--is done through people talk-talk-talking, in one case literally in the middle of a foursome. And the claustrophobic feeling, the sense of being cooped up indoors along with far too many people, continues. Every scene of any importance happens within the sithen. Some of the guards go outside to deal with the cops who are investigating this volume's central crime (about which more in a bit), but since the story is told from Merry's point of view, the reader is stuck in the sithen where she has interminable conversations and a lot of sex. In addition to that, the rooms inside the fae mound, notably the bathroom and bedrooms, feel like they were transported directly from a suburban McMansion.

As for the mystery that, in theory, forms the plot of this book, I dunno. I don't see the point of there being a "real" plot for each volume. The author herself seems only marginally interested in them, and in at least two of the volumes, including this one, they're dispatched in a matter of paragraphs. The fae intrigue, Andais' and Merry's rivalry (which can end only with Merry's ascending the throne, which Andais is well aware of), and the rebirth of unseelie magic, are all interesting in and of themselves without a half-assed mystery plot being tacked onto the beginning and end.

As with my light novels, despite the gripes, I am genuinely enjoying this series. Its flaws give it character and make it oddly charming. I am interested in reading more, even if, as with many light novel series, the author seems to be spinning her wheels a lot and deferring any significant movement toward resolution of the major conflicts for as long as possible.

[Kathryn · Rating 3 out of 5]

I don't know if there's much I can say in this review that I haven't said in the other three reviews. Slow pace blah blah blah, obsession with descriptions of clothing blah blah blah, Mary-Sue who's passionately hated by half the characters and passionately desired by the other half (if someone's indifferent then they're not featured in this book), and did I mention the slow pace? This one didn't even get two days of real time; apparently now the magical dwelling place of the fairie host is moving at a different pace from the rest of the world. Probably compensation for when Merry says something like "We need to talk to the police investigators right now!", and then it takes thirty pages, two seductions, and an assassination attempt for somebody to remember, "Hey, weren't we going to go talk to the police?"

And I still LIKE the books. They're packed with gorgeous characters, the sex is ENDLESSLY inventive (this one has middle-of-the-hallway sex, a four-way, mystical transport to another plane (via sex)(at least twice) and a surprise three-way), and Hamilton still has a way of combining the exotic with the everyday in the middle of a sentence that will catch the reader off guard. I'm thinking in particular of a segment where a magical sword is receiving a message from an unknown warrior. The blade drips blood from nowhere, the blood slowly begins to spell out words...and then the message itself comes across as so irritated and mundane that I had to laugh. I just wish Hamilton had found an editor that could have pointed out the overused phrases and moved the pace along a bit, but that won't keep me from reading the rest of the series.

[Lisa · Rating 2 out of 5]

Well - I am not actually sure why I keep reading these books. I am a huge fan of the Anita Blake character... yes, sometimes the sex is a bit much, but I enjoy the characters and am looking forward to each new book. I like the suspense, the plot development, the relationships and the fear (I am a big chicken).

I finally decided to read the Meredith Gentry books. I am actually listening to them, unabridged of course. The narrator is pretty good. The only complaint I have for her is that she changed the pronunciation of the character names in a few books, that it actually made me pause to wonder if new characters had been added. For example, one main character is Doyle, and she called him Dole for a whole book.

Unfortunately, I have to say that for some reason Hamilton gets mired down in inane descriptive details. I do not think I need to know every bit of information about every character in every scene, from hair to skin to clothing. I like to be able to picture a scene, but frankly by the time any action happens I forget why the characters were there to begin with. Well, lets be honest, there is very little action in this series, hardly any real plot from book to book (unlike each book in the Anita Blake series)

I cannot decide if I will finish the series after reading the first four books.

[phoebess · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book was a filler. Fullstop.
And as a fantasy lover, I would have been much happier if there actually was more fantasy than loving.
On top of that, even though not much was happening, it still felt not properly thought-out—like the author herself was lost in what was already written and/or said. Probably because she was dead set on shocking her readers with all those "wild" orgies. *eyeroll*

[Il confine dei libri · Rating 4 out of 5]

Buonasera, lettrici!
Torno a parlarvi della serie “Merry Gentry”, esattamente di “Nel cuore della notte”, quarto romanzo della serie di Laurell K. Hamilton, edita Nord.
Merry è sopravvissuta all’ultimo attentato alla sua vita grazie ai suoi corvi. Ma quando si trova di fronte a molteplici giornalisti per rispondere alle loro domande su ciò che le è accaduto, qualcuno continua a tramare nell’ombra e senza che nessuno se ne accorga colpirà, cercando di rovinare i rapporti tra umani e fate. Nella corte c’è stato un duplice omicidio: un giornalista e una fata sono stati uccisi. Merry dovrà cercare di sanare i rapporti tra le due specie e trovare il colpevole prima che scoppi un’altra guerra.
La nostra Merry non ha mai un momento di tregua, se prima in pericolo era solo la sua vita, adesso lo è anche quella dei suoi amanti. Coloro che stanno creando di impedirle di prendere la corona stanno trovando altri modi per sconfiggerla. E sono disposti anche ad uccidere persone innocenti.
Mentre viene bombardata da domande di ogni tipo dai giornalisti umani, uno di loro si troverà nel posto sbagliato al momento sbagliato e verrà ucciso insieme ad una fata. Questo potrebbe rivelarsi un enorme disastro per le relazioni umani-fate, per cui la Regina dell’Aria e dell’Oscurità ha lavorato tanto, quindi Meredith dovrà fare di tutto perché la situazione non degeneri. A complicare le cose si aggiungono i messaggi della Dea, che ha piani ben precisi per la nostra protagonista, tra cui il dover riportare la magia nella corte. Merry si ritroverà a dover scegliere bene ogni sua mossa, tante cose sono in gioco e il tempo sembra non essere abbastanza. Per ogni passo in avanti che la nostra protagonista compie, qualcuno è sempre nell’ombra pronto a metterla in difficoltà e gli insegnamenti del padre sono un tesoro inestimabile di cui Merry dovrà tener conto.
“Mio padre mi aveva insegnato ad essere prima gentile, perché puoi sempre essere crudele dopo, ma dopo che sei stata crudele con qualcuno, loro non crederanno più che tu possa essere gentile. Quindi sii gentile, sii gentile finché non sarà tempo di smetterla, per poi distruggerli.”
Una lettura scorrevole, divertente e piccante allo stesso tempo, per quanto ogni romanzo racconti in modo dettagliato un singolo evento, l’autrice riesce a non distrarre il lettore e lo tiene incollato alle pagine. Certo, ora i personaggi sono aumentati e sarà un po’ difficile ricordare il nome di ognuno, sono curiosa dei ruoli che avranno molti di loro nel corso della storia.
Rispetto al libro precedente, questo mi è piaciuto di più, la storia si intensifica capitolo dopo capitolo. I misteri e gli enigmi che la nostra protagonista deve svelare si moltiplicano appena se ne risolve uno, tanto da farmi pensare che l’autrice ci stia riservando una bella sorpresa che scopriremo solo proseguendo nella lettura!
Quindi buona lettura e ci vediamo ne “Il bacio della tempesta”.
A presto.

[Megan (BookWifeReviews) · Rating 4 out of 5]

I still don’t understand a lot of what’s happening. But I liked this one better than the last one.

[Carrie (brightbeautifulthings) · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’m caught in a loop where these are all I feel like reading. It’s partly real life being busy and exhausting, and it’s easier to sink into a universe I already love than it is to invest in a new one right now, but it’s also a testament to the world Hamilton’s built. Despite the many characters and quite a bit of world-building on the land of faerie and its inhabitants, I never feel bogged down in the details. (I also don’t really care if I forget a random guard here and there– Merry is bedding far too many men to keep track of them all at this point, but I’ve got the main ones down.) It’s dark and steamy and creative and easy to get lost in.

I don’t know if it’s because I’m reading them back to back in a way I usually don’t with series books, but the plots are starting to run together. However, I think that’s also just the nature of the series. There’s very rarely any real closure to anything that happens, and future events are referenced that end up not happening in this book (or, sometimes, at all). This one largely takes place at the Unseelie Court, which brings an interesting sense of place to it, and it introduces a couple new characters that will turn out to be important (I assume, since the next book is named for Mistral).

There’s a bit of a detour with a murder investigation, but it wraps up sort of vaguely, and then the book just ends randomly. I don’t really care, since I’m planning to read them all anyway–I don’t care if it all feels like one huge novel by the end–but it might be frustrating for readers who prefer a more complete story. Side note: Doyle is still my favorite.

I review regularly at brightbeautifulthings.tumblr.com.

[Jeri · Rating 4 out of 5]

This one takes place the day after the last book, and covers less than one full day in the life of our heroine. During this period, she investigates a murder, survives several attacks (both physical and political), has amazing and magical (literally) sex with several new partners, and gains and shares new magical powers. In other words, a typical day.

I both loved this one, and was disappointed in it. I loved it because I love spending more time with Merry & Co. (all those gorgeous men!), and continue to be engrossed and fascinated. I love the characters, and there are some great (and moving) emotional moments. I would prefer it if the sexual encounters dealt a bit more with character and emotion and a little less with continually increasing everyone’s magical powers, but there is still a lot of emotion to be had. And like I said, there are absolutely wonderful character bits. So I loved reading this book. But ... I’m disappointed because this feels very much like an unfinished work. Although both this series and the Anita Blake series are very episodic in nature, I’ve found that each book does have a feeling of concluding the episode. Even the last one had a nice conclusion, even with the hanging threads. This one really does not. You simply get to the end of a chapter, with the characters about to go off and deal with something, and that’s it. The end.

Even with that complaint, however, I still loved it.

[Carolyn F. · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the audiobook. Loved the narrator. I like it the second time going through it than the first. Although it's a 3.5 stars as it's not the best. Usually she has a summation of what happens at the end of the book, but this goes straight through to Mistral's Kiss (Meredith Gentry, #5), which I started this am.

Merry is back at the Faery mound and is trying to solve a crime, stay one step ahead of the queen, make then men happy and try to heal as many of the guards as she can. In between all this, the sithen (sp?) is changing and some of the men's powers are growing again. So, it's a little crazy. She mentions in this book a few times about how she can't do everything with so little time so the sithen slows time in the faery mound down. On top of this, 3 of Merry's guards are accused of raping a woman from the Seelie (sp?) court and she's got to figure out what's going on with that.

This book is a lot of running around, a lot of Merry's constant questions (but then I do need to know what's happening/happened so why am I complaining) and sex.

I'm enjoying the series more the second time around.

[Danielle (Danniegurl) · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5

Once again I find myself frustrated with this series. It's good, it has a lot going for it, but LKH has not moved us to the next point of the plot. In the last book it was 2 days before she was required to go to the Seelie court, and in this book it seems to be only 1 day has past but much has happened.

I am annoyed with how the Queen isn't challenged or killed. Why hasn't the goddess decided to speak to her through Merry? Why not tell her to get her ass off the throne or face true death? I'm sick of the way the queen treats everyone, clearly Merry is brining back fairie but she won't relinquish the throne. There's going to be a big show down battle soon too I can feel it. They aren't telling the queen everything either. Also the murders that Merry brought the police in for, we supposedly get the murderer but we don't see what she does with the police she invited, or what the police have found. It's annoying because it's not tied up. I would like some plot points to be fully tied up at the end of these books. I am definitely having to take a break now. I'm super annoyed. And lots of explanations are just not explained. Many plot holes and many things not tied up.

Ugh.

[Emma · Rating 2 out of 5]

2020 re-read: I'm actually downgrading this a star from my 2011 original read. A Stroke of Midnight drags in so many places and, again, feels way longer than it needs to be. A large portion of the book is made up of recapping things that have happened or already been explained in previous books.

There's something else, too, that I find super weird. Maybe this is a way to write books faster or chunk them up, I don't know. But Hamilton will have the same characters repeat the exact same phrases or scenes in every single book. Sometimes more than once in each book! An example is the sequence where Meredith is confronted by an angry Andais (idk if that's how it's spelled, whatever) and says 'something something Auntie Andais', and then Andais will say 'clever of you to remind me you're my niece' or whatever. This sequence happens at least once in EVERY book, exactly like that. It's just one more thing for me to skim over because I've quite literally already read that scene seven or eight times.

[Kathleen · Rating 3 out of 5]

So this is how I would describe a Meredith Gentry book: Merry almost gets killed, then she has sex with one or more people, something mystical and mysterious happens from aforementioned sex, followed by a long conversation about how amazing it is and how it hasn't happened in many centuries and then the whole thing repeats. It gets a bit repetitive and its really kind of sad when the sex scenes are so numerous and similar that they just get boring and you find yourself skimming through them.

That said, I have to admit I am still enjoying them. Like I wrote in an earlier review, Laurell K Hamilton is not a great writer but she is a gifted storyteller. I find myself caring about what happens to her characters and where the story is going to lead. I do find the world that she has created interesting.

[Jennifer · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Good: Merry and her men continue to be awesome, navigating the deadly political situation they've been thrust into. A murder mystery in the Slithen mixes the world of magic and faerie with the human forensics. I love how everything Merry says or does changes the whole of faerie. Her every action seems to push the plot into a new direction. You never know what the magic may do.

The Bad: The book moves at a quick pace the entire time, except when things get sexy. Those scenes seem to go on at a snails pace. Which makes very little sense since Merry is usually in the middle of a time-sensitive perilous situation when the clothes start coming off. All of this is important to the overall plot of the series, but it would be nice if the pace was balanced throughout.

[britta ⋆˙⟡ · Rating 3 out of 5]

How many fertility deities is Merry descended from again? Oh that’s right, 5️⃣!! Just in case you didn’t hear the first 12 times or guess from the giant orgy that was this book. LKH is a repeater folks.

Loved that these have been reissued on audio with a new more youthful narrator with voices! She is doing the most for us here. Could really do without the blow by blow of Merry, ahem, blowing the little white goblin that acts as her servant. 🆘😳 the “Ripe plum in her mouth” chatter truly adds some spice to my knitting sesh. Will always remember fondly when I wear this sweater.

[Adele · Rating 4 out of 5]

To quote one of my favorite movies "sex sex sex thats all they think about!" (Monty pythons life of brian).
It seems so accurate when speaking about this book and series in general.
This whole trying to get merry pregnant storyline is starting to wear thin. Sex with this one to save them.. sex with that one to form an alliance. Sex sex sex.
I like erotic books but i just got a bit sick of the sex that i started to skip the sexy scenes...as much as i could anyway.

[Jane · Rating 5 out of 5]

3-12

[MT · Rating 3 out of 5]

Real Rating: 3.5 Stars.

Dear Goddess Danu and all the other sidhe gods, would someone please get Laurell K. Hamilton an editor who will actually stand up to her?

A Stroke of Midnight was an enjoyable read. I would even say, like all of this series except the weaker Caress of Twilight, that it was good. But almost every issue I had with this book that kept me from rating it higher came down to editing. So I am going to structure this review, for variety, in the form of Things An Editor Could Have Improved About This Book:

The Plot: The plot of this one was pretty intriguing. The book picks up where Seduced by Moonlight ended, with Merry and her guards still back at the Unseelie Court for a visit. They hold a press conference to deal with the fall out of the assassination attempts that occurred in the previous book, only to end up with a new mystery, and a problem, on their hands when a fey woman and a human reporter are found murdered inside the sithen. With the press around, they can’t just cover up the murders, and Merry makes things more complicated when she realizes that the murderers wouldn’t have taken steps to prevent human forensic science from detecting them and decides to bring in law enforcement to help investigate the case. The presence of the human police causes all kinds of tension, since Merry has to use her experience living among the humans to manage the police teams, all while also keeping her sadistic Aunt Andais’ true nature hidden, evading additional assassins, negotiating her increasingly complicated relationships with her bodyguards, and running her own investigation among fey who refuse to talk to humans. Thorny ethical questions are raised when the police realize that any evidence they provide will be used to condemn the accused without a trial, and we learn just how much Merry, despite her love of modern concepts like free will, ultimately is more sidhe than not. And then it turns out the murders may be connected to the assassination attempts in the previous book, and the latest attack on Merry’s lover Galen in this one.

All sounds pretty good, right? So would it surprise you to learn that, after the humans leave to analyze their evidence, the murder is solved by Andais torturing some person we’ve never heard of until he confesses to a totally mundane crime of passion, and we never hear anything about the original suspect or the evidence against her?

Ok, yes, this may get addressed in another book. So far, though there is an ongoing political storyline in this series, all the mysteries in each book have been wrapped up by the end, but maybe this is the point when the series is going to move from episodic to serial. But if so, the book should have done a better job of making it clear that these are going to be ongoing plot lines and not just dropped ones. Evidence from the court making it out into a human lab seems like it could lead to all kinds of complications, so let’s hope Hamilton doesn’t just forget about them.

Pacing: I’m not usually someone who complains about pacing in a book; as long as I’m enjoying what’s going on in each scene, I don’t really care how quickly the book goes by. But the problem with Hamilton’s style is that she reads like she’s a “pantser,” writing her book without an outline, and then once it’s done she never goes back and smooths out all the bumps and obvious transitions between plots so they feel more natural. The first two-thirds of this book was pretty tightly paced, more so than usual for Hamilton; I was kind of shocked, by the time we got the big show-down in Andais’ throne room, to realize that the whole story was holding together and the various plotlines - the murders, yet another attempted coup/assassination, the mystery of the growing power in the sithen, Merry’s personal life - were all integrating smoothly. And then, with a third of the book to go, Andais announced that she would handle the political/murder-related storylines and Merry was free to, essentially, go spend the rest of the book having sex, and that’s when it all fell apart. Not because of the sex, but because suddenly Merry was off dealing with a completely new political problem with the demi-fey, and coming up with a solution to that, and then suddenly with three chapters to go there was a whole new set of powers to deal with, and characters who’d been hanging around in the background the whole time were suddenly important. And then it ended. It felt almost like Hamilton got to the point where she was ready to start the next book, but she hadn’t finished this one, so she just stuck the beginning of the next one at the end of this one. It was very weird.

Characters: I really like Merry and most of her inner circle of body guards/lovers. I like that we see Merry growing as a leader, especially in her determination to protect all “her” people and not just those the sidhe consider worthy of a queen’s attention. Her compassion and respect for all the members of the fey world is touching, and it also leads to hands-down the funniest thing that has ever happened in this series (the frying pan scene.) In general, Merry is much funnier and sharper in this book and that’s good. At the same time, her power is growing, and while the last few books have focused more on her gaining gory, offensive powers, now she seems to be picking up a role as a fertility deity and avatar of the Goddess, and that means the sithen itself responds to her commands, leading to some fun as Merry suddenly has to be very careful what she says or even thinks.

Doyle gets some development and a really well-written scene of vulnerability; Rhys has a lot of fun playing detective; Kitto gets some backstory, and almost a sex-scene where Merry pays attention to him. Galen is the most important of the men in this book, since his near-death and her emotional reaction to it drives a lot of Merry’s decisions. Barinthus is kind of like Merry’s uncle figure except that they almost had sex once, and he’s a major political force. Frost continues to be one of Merry’s favorites, and to annoy me, but at least Merry never lets him off the hook for his pouty self-centeredness. It seems like Nicca might get married and leave Merry’s harem, which is probably good because he still doesn’t have much of a personality besides “wings” and “really into threesomes.” After introducing the men all in one go, this book starts distinguishing what each of their relationships with Merry is like. Doyle and Frost are clearly the frontrunners for Merry’s heart, even if newcomer Mistral might be the most sexually compatible with her. Merry clearly loves Galen deeply but struggles with the realization that she would not be jealous if he ended up with someone else, and seems equally confused by the fact that she cares about Rhys but isn’t in love with him. (Merry seems oddly unfamiliar with the concept of friendship.) There are also some new important figures in this book - not only Mistral, but also the fertility gods Adair (who basically worships Merry) and Amatheon (who used to hate Merry because he was racist, but he got better.) It’s not yet clear whether these three will have any emotional importance to Merry, but they are important to the magic story.

Then there are the others. All the others. About half of them have green hair and I don’t know how we’re supposed to distinguish them. Ivy’s hair looks like ivy, so that one is easy. Crystal sparkles. Hawthorne is around a lot but never does anything to justify why he is in so many scenes. Onilwyn is a jerk and gets his face smashed with a frying pan. Usna is a cat. Arzhel is there. Aisling… okay, Aisling is the most Hamilton creation ever, a man who is so beautiful that he literally has to cover his face at all times or else women won’t be able to avoid loving him. One lady actually rips her eyes out over the whole thing. It is very over the top.

And now there are women, because in addition to stealing all of Andais’ guards away, Merry now gets permission to bring Cel’s female guards into her service so long as she also sleeps with them (despite numerous reminders that Merry “is not a lover of women,” because Hamilton is always very weird about bisexuality.) So we get creepy Cathbodua, half-human Biddy who will someday have Nicca’s baby, Halwyn the healer, Dogmaela… I don’t even remember what her deal was, but there was definitely someone with that name around.

Its a lot, is the point, and that wouldn’t be bad, but every time one of these characters shows up, we get an elaborate physical description, and often some element of their backstory, and they seem really central to the story for a chapter until suddenly they aren’t again. It makes it very difficult to tell how important any of these people are supposed to be. Do I need to be keeping track of which green-haired man is which? Will Ivy ever do anything but smirk? At one point, a big secret Merry and her inner circle have been keeping since the previous book is accidentally revealed to a few of the random guards, and then the story immediately forgets that, so who knows if that’s a problem or not. The Anita Blake series got unreadable at the point when Anita had so many lovers, and Hamilton kept insisting that we care about all these new people, and I’m afraid the Merry Gentry series will hit the same point.

The Sex: There are four… well, I can’t call them sex scenes, because some of them are multiple chapters long, but let’s say “sex situations” in this book. Pretty early on, Merry has sex with Mistral in the middle of a hallway, and the resulting magic spreads to all her guards and also kicks off a new plotline/power, which is Merry’s sudden ability to spot potentially fertile couples. This scene is really good - well-written sex, a good mix of physical and emotional, tells us a lot about both Merry and Mistral, and it moves the plot along. Then Merry has sex with Amatheon in the Goddess’ dreamscape world; he vanishes in the middle of it, and absolutely no one seems to care about that, which is weird, but the sex scene is itself pretty good. And at the end of the book, Merry has sex with Adair in an attempt to give him some kind of magical lojack spell … which, now that I think about it, we never find out if that worked… and in the middle of it Amatheon suddenly returns and it becomes a threesome, and the magic leads to them literally creating a garden. This sounds sillier than it is. This scene is actually really good, even though Adair and Amatheon are barely characters; the prose gets almost poetic in a couple of places, and Hamilton ends up saying some interesting things about the sidhe religion and Merry’s role as a fertility deity.

In between these is a scene where Merry has sex with Nicca, Galen and Kitto, and accidentally almost kills a whole bunch of demi-fey in the process, and that scene felt like it was never going to end. It went on for many chapters. The sex kept stopping because someone got their feelings hurt and Merry had to soothe them, or because there had to be a very long conversation about everyone’s preferences in bed (or, well, technically on a bathroom floor which… why?), and a very awkward bit about how to get everyone into the right positions and … look. Talking about sex in a real-life relationship is a good and healthy thing, but in this novel, an editor could do us all a favor and cut it way back. Scenes like this ruined the Anita Blake series.

The Prose: I don’t like Hamilton’s prose about eighty percent of the time. It’s a very weird mix of purple and flowering, and then suddenly blunt and straight-forward. So many phrases, especially in the sex scenes, get repeated to the point of parody. (Don’t like the hear about someone “screaming her pleasure”? Don’t want to hear about “that look all men get” before sex? Don’t read these books.) Her vocabulary choices are strange. (Apologies to anyone who doesn’t like crudeness in their reviews but…. the verb “to go” should never be used for orgasm. To go is for urinating. Every time Merry said she wanted one of the men to “go in her” I just wanted to scream “that’s not sanitary!”)

An editor probably wouldn’t help with those problems. But then there are things like the dialogue scenes that go on forever because Merry cannot stop saying”I don’t understand” or “I think I missed something,” like Hamilton is afraid none of us will be able to follow her frankly not that complicated politics if she doesn’t use her heroine as an excuse to simplify it as much as possible. Things like the way exposition gets randomly crammed in at strange places, like when Merry introduces herself by the title Besaba’s Bane and then goes off unnecessarily on why she has that title. Things like entire chapters devoted to figuring out minor protocol matters that could just be done off-page between chapters. Things like the incredibly childish arguments Merry has to have with every authority figure she meets.

Things like the entire bit with the FBI, why was that even there, it contributed exactly nothing. And look, I know Hamilton claims she does a ton of research into law enforcement stuff for her books, and I have no reason to think that isn’t true, but do all the cops and FBI folks who help her know she’s portraying them as complete babies in her books?

Stroke of Midnight was really good. I liked it. I want to read the next one. But like a lot of best-selling authors, Hamilton’s lack of editing seems to be making her writing weaker for no good reason and that’s too bad.

[K.C. ·:¨༺ ♱✮♱ ༻¨:·]

I’m not going to bother rating this book. The series started off very promising, but I’m already exhausted with all the recaps, descriptions of hair and eye colors, repetitive sex and the lackluster 50 pages of actual plot. Farewell Laurell, it’s been fun while it lasted.

[Barbara · Rating 5 out of 5]

They just keep getting better and better. And I keep getting wetter and wetter. 💦