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A Lick of Frost
6th book in the Meredith Gentry series
by Laurell K. Hamilton

Despite my dwindling interest in the Anita Blake series by Hamilton, I still enjoy her Meredith Gentry series. I suspect it’s because the gratuitous sex fits Merry’s character and doesn’t seem quite as “thrown in to stretch the book” as is the case with the Anita Blake books. However, that’s not to say that this series is without faults.

A Lick of Frost picks up where Mistral’s Kiss left off, although the appearance is given that it’s a few months or so between the events, the author isn’t very clear on this. On top of this, the annoying trend that began around A Stroke of Midnight continues on. I am talking about the entire events of the book taking place in only a day, give or take a few hours. Upon completion of the book I always feel a bit cheated. First there is the size, the hardbacks for the Merry Gentry series are about half the size of an Anita Blake novel. That, combined with the fact that everything occurs within the span of the day, gives the story a very rushed feeling. If the author had just allowed the events to fully play out without worrying about keeping them all within the span of twenty-four hours the story would have been all the better. Not to mention, there would have been other avenues that could have been pursued as well instead of being left hanging out there or revealed through the unbelievable candidness of some characters.

At long last the race for the Unseelie throne comes to an end, Meredith is with child – twins to be exact – and the father is Doyle, Frost, Galen, Rhys, Mistral, and Sholto. Hamilton backs up the possibility of this happening by referencing two old tales that even the sidhe thought might be more myth then legend – the tales of Cerridwen and Clotho. The first to illustrate that not just intercourse was necessary to impregnate Meridith and the second to validate the possibility of a child being fathered by more than one man. All of which felt much too convenient for my liking. After all, Merry didn’t want to loose any of her favorite men, even if she didn’t love them all equally. How convenient that her favorite men are safe from Andais’ wrath given that they are the fathers of the children. Even Frost, who has a less than stellar twist thrown his way, is safe from Andais and will return someday.

This raises the question of how the hell there can be, technically, six kings. While Frost is not around at present and no return-date has been figured out for him, the fact remains, he is still a father of one of the children and thus king. How can a land, a people, be ruled and governed by that many monarchs? Doyle has always been captain of the guard and the ravens follow his lead. Yet Sholto is a ruler himself – how can this possibly work? That is a question that will [hopefully] be answered in Swallowing Darkness, but I wouldn’t hold my breath. Hamilton has shown she has no qualms about making her readers wait a few books before answering questions.

As a fan of Frost, I cannot say that I am all that pleased with his fate. The event that leads to Frost’s departure did, however, give Hamilton a means to give a jolt of life to the story that had begun to flounder. And while said event does reveal critical information like: the political state of the Seelie court, the King’s lack of sanity, the King’s powers, the event does feel like another convenient deus ex machina. After all, Meredith’s power and abilities, as well as that of her guard, seems to have just leap frogged yet again.

There was a decent amount of character growth and development for Merry and some of her guard, Frost, Merry, and Rhys in particular, however the vast majority of Merry’s guard and Cel’s former guards who chose to follow her into exhile than stay with him, are nothing but faces and names floating around in the background to me. No depth and certainly not real to me.

In short, while the book, and the series itself, continues to have it’s moments and holds a good deal of promise, there are many flaws and aspects of this book that will keep it from being anything more than a passable read.

Joana’s Rating: (2 out of 5 stars)