Book Reviews - Laurell K. Hamilton - Meredith Gentry

Meredith Gentry Series by Laurel K Hamilton

Pro

I do love the series, love the reality the author creates.  It's very beautiful, poetic in-a-way, inventive and detailed.  She creates a magical universe I would love to live in.
Con
The series as a whole needs a cleanup.  I'd hire a few tough editors and maybe another writer to tag-team this.  Reboot the series, go back and weed out all redundancy, put glossaries in the beginning of each book, and straighten out the logic errors.  If Merry can heal with magic and increase other's powers, then character XYZ should not be able to be drained/diminished by a relationship with Merry.  If that were true, then all lovers of Merry would be diminished.  Rest assured Merry is not the first mortal they've been intimately involved with either, so she shouldn't be the first one to start precipitating their deaths.
Bottom Line: It is definitely still worth the read, and creates a wonderful universe.  Ignore the repetition, or treat it as spellcasting in creating your own personal magical reality.

9. A Shiver of Light (June 4, 2014) Review & Spoilers: See my series notes for the series in general.  Fertility and Sex magic have had it's way with Merry. At the last minute, Merry finds she is pregnant with not just twins; a third, much smaller baby has mysteriously shown up as well.  Hysteria erupts and the babies are born (I would've looved to see more about this delivery and the effect on the men). Taranis continues to menace, threatening to kill her lovers, or steal her and the babies away. Merry's power "may" be growing to the point where she can magically affect others in her dreams. One of her men is mysteriously losing his health, which is not logical and needs a logic correction and explanation.  You cannot have her improving the powers of all around her, remaking the very cosmic-matter around her, and only sickening one of the characters. The loss of another wonderful main character at the last minute is devastating, sudden, and left hanging. I was surprised at how sad I felt for weeks about this character's loss, when there are plenty of other minor characters loitering around eating her out of house and home. I also don't think the dead character should have been kill-able as easily as he was, or Merry should have been able to revive him with blood magic/etc like her soldiers. I mean, he'd survived being mangled and butchered for thousands of years by goblins, humans, and evil dictators, come-on! Bottom Line: Read it.

ISBN 978-0425255667 Book 9