Customer Reviews

Seduced by Moonlight (Meredith Gentry, Book 3)

5 star:		(58)
4 star:		(52)
3 star:		(41)
2 star:		(50)
1 star:		(34)

 

 

Well just how many men (elves, goblins, demi-fey....) will Princess Meredith actually take to bed in her quest to get pregnant? How many 'true' and 'final' loves does she have? Guess the number of jellybeans in the jar and win the kewpie doll! There's the five or six she has regularly, then the two new goblins, then another four or five, maybe six, new guards the queen sends her, then there is the queen herself... Heck I can't keep track, and to be honest after the fifth or sixth time it happens I kind of lost interest. It seems the only criteria the ring uses to select her bedmates is the ability to move, and even that's not a forgone conclusion.

Everything in SEDUCED happens in the span of two days and if you read it and look back over the entire story you realize although you've gone through a lot of pages you really haven't accomplished much.

Hopefully SEDUCED is being used as a setup for a grand finale because it really isn't all that interesting in and of itself. For those of you, like me, who have followed this story from A KISS OF SHADOWS thru A CARESS OF TWLIGHT you will probably want to continue, but be warned, you just might give up on the series after this. I'm going to bite the bullet and RECOMMEND it, but I'm hoping the next one makes it worth the time.

I devour everything Hamilton puts out. Her books are a great distraction as well as mind-candy. I even put in an order for this book before it was even published, then eagerly awaited its arrival. All that anticipation ended like a balloon with a hole.

The story of Merry picks up with her harem (um, I mean guards). The boys are back, trying their best to impregnant their (hopefully) future queen. This is where everything gets difficult. You see, I want to explain the plot, but there is no plot to explain. Scenes of the book move from one sexual romp to another, even going as far as girl on girl. Perhaps I'm just too innocent, but that was a new one for me. About half way through the book, the reader finally gets excited, because it sounds like something is actually going to happen. Merry and her men have an agenda. They are to visit the Seelie Court, then King Kurag (who want her to attempt procreation with a few of his creepy dudes), then on to the Unseelie Court. Yeah! Possible conflict, possible suspense, possible action! Then just more sex.

Oh, well. It won't stop me from reading her books, since I truly do love the Anita series and did love the Merry series. I hope Hamilton does read these reviews and perhaps she will take a little more time in building up the elements of plot in her future books so that instead of a feeling of dispointment, we can all lay back in the afterglow. (No pun intended!)

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.

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.

I liked this book more than Caress of Twilight. Unlike the first two books, there's no mystery or investigation in this book. The first half of the book is filled with new and regained powerful magic for Merry and her men in Los Angeles. The latter half of the book takes place at the Unseelie court and is full of ten new guards, two new goblins, politics, a duel, assassination attempts, more scary Andais, and a great ending. My favourite part of Laurell K. Hamilton's books is that the heroine, by being an honorable, protecting, courageous person, gets ahead in life. Merry's responsible, humble, sheltering nature turns more and more guards to care for her more than the Queen. I liked the ending in particular because it was very tender and shows Merry's old guards easing the new guards into the very different culture of guarding Merry, which the old guards seem grateful for as a reprieve from the Queen's tender care. The book heavily hints that the next books in the series will cover their visit to the Goblin Court and the Seelie Court, and Merry keeping her bargain with Sholto. I've read it 3 times in 2 days, and now I'm re-reading the entire series again. I can't wait for the next one. Highly recommended.

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.

Besides being plotless, which in and of itself is impressive -- 400 or so pages of no plot is quite a feat, LKH's latest has waaaaaaay too much unnecessary sex. I've actually been to a book signing and heard Ms. Hamilton get snippy when asked about the gratuitous sex in her novels. "There is no gratuitous sex in my novels," she said, uh, snippily. Clearly the woman has some soul searching to do.

"Seduced" is barely readable. And I'm a fan. Was a fan. At any rate, I won't go on and on about what's really bad about this book. Other reviewers have done so already and all of them are directly on point. I would like to say, in regard to those reviews that have given "Seduced" 3 stars and above with interesting titles such as "great filler" or "a bridge to the next book in the series" or some such; when I pay $25 for a book, when I run out to the bookstore on my lunch break the day the book is released, in the pouring rain, in a pair of Charles David heels that cost me 4 arms and 3 legs, I expect more than 400 pages of "great filler." Especially when that "great filler" needed only 40 pages to get the job done.

Do better, Ms. Hamilton.

am a big fan of LKH and both of her series of books, but I have to join others who have said that this book is the weakest of the three in the Merdith Gentry series. Hey all the sex is cool, but after a while all the glowing and breathlessness and being on the verge of dying if she has one more orgasm is just tired. Plus all her Sidhe characters are alike. All are tall, and perfectly slim, with long hair, and perfect "tri-color" eyes. Even the ugliest Sihde is 10,000 time more beautiful than any human. It a bit childish and trite.
Also she has introduce the idea that all the mythical gods from humanities past were all Sihde. Well how come there are no gods of other races mixed in with the Sidhe? This book just has no variety to it. As sexy as she tries to make it, she forgets sex is more than just having GQ cover boys surround your bed. If it wasn't none of us would be getting any. It like she is living out her high school fantasy in these books.

I hope the next book in this series concentrates more on the story of the Sidhe than who hair is forest green and eye are gold and blue and ... page after page after page of how perfect they are.

One more thing.. if they are so Powerful... ex gods .. then how come they are living under humanities foot. This books makes it seem like they could destroy anything and everything that stood in their way.

I don't know.. I'm just disappointed in this book. I hope the next two years it takes her to write the 4th book, she can come up with something better.

First, I loved the Anita Blake series, as well as this one. Fresh, imaginitive and well plotted.

But Now??? This book spans approximately 48 hours in Meredith's life, and is taken up with one sex scene after another...Complete overkill....the plot doesn't just suffer, it doesn't exist!

The last Anita Blake novel seemed to follow the same path....all the good detective/zombie plots gone...one sex scene after another in the place of a good story line.

Please, please, go back to your earlier format, and give your loyal fans some substance!

Meredith NicEssus is still trying to get pregnant in order to win the Unseelie crown. A half-mortal faerie princess, Merry has been copulating with six gorgeous guards for several months, and has even helped impregnate another member of the Sidhe with a fertility ritual, but she still hasn't conceived. Which is a really bad thing because if her co-heir cousin Cel gets out of prison and produces a child first, he becomes the monarch of the dark fey.

To complicate matters, a creature Merry recently killed left a deposit of magic inside of her. Now she has the ability to grant powers, and even return deity status to former gods. She's also brokered a deal to continue her alliance with the goblin king. He'll remain her ally if she has sex or shares blood with all of his kingdom's Sidhe half-breeds and awakens their faerie powers. Such an alliance could prove crucial when Cel is released, but it also means Merry will be a busy girl in the bedroom.

Doyle, Frost, Galen, Rhys, Nicca and Kitto have all returned to be the king of Princess Merry's world. The first half of this book revolves around having sex, thinking about sex, talking about sex and then having some more sex. When her aunt, the wicked Queen of Air and Darkness, demands Merry's return to the Unseelie Court, violence and debauchery ensue.

In the first two books of this series, Merry was an intriguing character, a multifaceted woman trying to balance her mortal life as a private investigator with her royal faerie ties. Now she's an unemployed vessel of power and a political prostitute. For someone whose only occupation is having sex, Merry is entirely devoid of passion.

Laurell K. Hamilton's writing continues to be evocative, and her world-building skills are top-notch. But she fails to give the reader a story worthy of her characters. Nonexistent plotting, dull dialogue, repetitive body part descriptions and disappointing "power" plays transformed "Seduced by Moonlight" from a highly anticipated novel into barely readable soft porn.

--Previously appeared in The Science Fiction Romance Newsletter