Feed Your Interest

Part of my reason for reading Swallowing Darkness was because of the rumours that it was the last book in the series.

Basically the first thought running through my head was “Laurell K Hamilton is going to FINISH a SERIES?!??!!??”.
I was SHOCKED! This is the woman who has given us countless Anita Blake books (Guilty Pleasures - Anita Blake #1), a series that was kick-butt necromatic fun for the first 9 (or so) books, before degenerating into badly written, euphemism driven porn that *everybody* just wishes would finish, but will never ever do…

Back to the book under discussion…
I’ve just finished it, and it certainly does seem like an end to the series. Let’s just say that I’d be very disappointed if there’s another. There are things left unanswered, events that I would have like to have seen, but I also think I’m fairly happy not having actually gotten those. Complete closure is mildly annoying when you really think about what it means.

Did I enjoy it? Yes, yes I did…
This sounds a bit weird, but I didn’t have serious problems with the amount of sex in this Merry Gentry series. For one thing, it was honest… Right from A Kiss of Shadows onwards, Merry was stated to be descended from a goddess of fertility, it was well stated that sex was a weapon that the Faerie of the court she was exiled from used on a regular basis… None of this “Hey everybody! I’m a powerful necromancer who raises dead people and uses them to tear “innocent” old ladies to bits and pieces… NOT! I’m actually a succubus who will sleep with every man, vampire and were-creature that happens to be close to me!!!”
There’s no unexpected, (and undesired) sudden 270 degree twists in direction and character development… (Ok, granted character development isn’t particularly high on the list anyway, but that’s not the point…)

And oh, the vampire machinations of Jean Claude, the vampire council, etc, have got nothing on the political maneuvering of the Sidhe… And the magic that they live in is very *very* well described.

Back to the book…
There’s no gratuitous sex for the sake of it. Well, there was this one small scene where I was a little “huh?! that’s a little unexpected…”, but it kinda made sense. A bit. And it was a small scene.

The events were major, massive changes that made sense taken in the context of the whole series. Some of the characters, Mistral as an example, were fairly shallow in terms of how they were used in the story, but the main characters were well-represented. Kitto surprised me in A Lick of Frost, and while he didn’t make an appearance in “Swallowing Darkness”, his close relationship with Merry was made evident by her bodyguards’ surprising actions. Sholto grows in his role of King and matures in his role of Merry’s lover and ally. Andias’ twin roles of mother and queen are brought into conflict…

I’m not too sure what else to say about this (seemingly and hopefully) final book in the Meredith Gentry series. I did enjoy it: the faerie politics, the magic, the mild levels of sex, they worked well together to form what I feel is an appropriate and strong finish to a series that I mostly enjoyed.

Okie, we just got 7 boxes of books, and there are a fair few new ones in it, as well as a fair few old ones.
the new ones are here because… well, because they are new. and we always need new books to read.
the old ones are here because we loved them, and want more people to read them.
(I should start using proper caps and what nots…)

So without further ado, here are a list of the interesting new books. (Yes, we do judge a book by its cover.)

New Books!

Swallowing Darkness - Meredith Gentry by Laurell K. Hamilton
This is the latest book in the Meredith Gentry series. I also heard a rumour that it was the last!!! We’ll see… I’d be *very* surprised if it were.

Magic to the Bone by Devon Monk

Cauldron by Jack McDevitt
Orphan’s Alliance - Jason Wander #4 by Robert Buettner
We’ve got book one Orphanage lying around somewhere too. Good military sci-fi series.

The Warrior’s Tale by Alan Cole & Chris Bunch

Reawakened - Aspect of the Crow by Jeri Smith-Ready

The Black Ship (Crosspointe) by Diana Pharaoh Francis

The Unwilling Warlord by Lawrence Watt Evans
This is actually a reprint. It’s another stand alone in Watt-Evans’ Ethshar series. Good clean fantasy fun, the first book (and you don’t need to read them in order) is The Misenchanted Sword

Queen of Stone (Eberron) by Keith Baker

Amber & Blood (Dark Disciple #3) by Margaret Weis
Tons of people have been waiting for this. Weis obviously still has a strong following

So there you go.
Some of the newest books that we’ve just gotten in in this morning’s delivery.
As always, our stock numbers are weird, so call/email us asap if you wanted a copy put aside for you!