Merry Gentry, detective turned fairy princess, adjusts to her new powers in Hamilton’s series. Charlotte Hill shows narrative authority as she directs complex conversations between Merry and her six lovers, who together fathered her three magical sets of triplets. This novel, composed mainly of discussion, presents unique audio challenges even as Hill’s voicings provide clarity and drama. Extensive, repetitive dialogue makes it difficult for her to establish the book’s narrative drive. She convincingly expresses Merry’s affection for her partners, but listeners will wonder if it could be dramatized more succinctly. In the last chapters, a tragedy allows Hill to speed up the pace, but it’s too little too late. C.A. © AudioFile 2014, Portland, Maine
For over a decade, Jim Killen has served as the science fiction and fantasy book buyer for Barnes & Noble. At the end of each month, he’ll be sharing the lists of B&N’s bestsellers in the genre, from new hardbacks, to trade paperbacks, to mass markets and media tie-ins, to graphic novels and manga. These are the […]
Laurell K. Hamilton’s work over the last 21 years has played an integral role in reshaping the genre fiction landscape. The phenomenal commercial success of her Anita Blake saga in the early ’90s—which audaciously blended elements of horror, mystery, fantasy, and romance—began what became a revolution (or more fittingly, an evolution) in genre fiction. The […]