Publisher: Ballantine Books
Author: Laurell K. Hamilton
Release Date: 10/30/2007
Pages: 330
$7.99
Recommended Audience: Adult
The Good: Steamy and explicit sex scenes if that’s your thing, interesting twist on using “sex magic”, well-developed characters
The Bad: Not very sophisticated or deep, disappointing climax, the world feels small, using real world references draws you out of the fantasy
I have never heard of the Princess Meredith series of novels, but this was just a random book I picked up at Barnes & Noble a few months ago. The book is obviously a sexy and steamy novel, but overall you don’t need to read the rest of the books in the series to get this. This is the 5th entry, but I pretty much got what was going on in the weird and cheesy world because it’s not very sophisticated or deep. The book starts out with a seriously freaky dream that Meredith has, but overall she has to return life to the world of faerie and ends up reawakening the wild hunt by having sex with the the King of the Sluagh. Yeah, the book is all about “sex magic” that can bring back life between two different races: Seelie and Unseelie.
While the book mentions real life places I really hated this and it took away from the fantasy part of the book. When the characters talk about LA, cops, taxis, and so on it just draws you out of that fantasy mind set and I hate that. The book is very shallow and not very deep because of how uneventful it all is. In 300 pages you read about a 6 chapter long sex scene (the book is very graphic and explicit), about 7 chapters of talking, 2 chapters of more sex, then the final which is a mediocre battle of goblins, the wild hunt, and naked fairy people. Yes, through the whole novel most of the characters are nude and even fight nude. Sound cheesy? It kind of does, but for while it lasts it’s entertaining, but if you prefer toned down sex scenes stay away because this is probably the most explicit I have ever read in any book.
Overall Mistral’s Kiss offers a quick flash of fantasy fun and a unique twist on using sex with magic, but overall the book feels uneventful and shallow in a sea of sci-fi/fantasy novels. I thought it was entertaining and interesting with some well-developed characters, but the overall plot and the world felt small.
