One of the things most people seem to forget about fairy tales is that they were, once upon a time, earthy, lusty stories in which just about anything was possible, and no subject was too taboo to touch upon. While the sex was offscreen, the results were profoundly apparent, from illegitimate children to faithless stepmothers to cursed relatives to mysterious orphans. And while the fairy tales might have been sanitized in the Victorian era, made safe for younger ears, with the blood and sex and gore and scandals toned down or removed, they’ve never forgotten their true nature. And now Laurell K. Hamilton, best known for her Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter series of novels, has turned her own literary attentions towards the darker side of the fairy world.

Meet Meredith Gentry. To the world at large, she’s a private investigator, working for an agency that specializes in the occult and weird, in a world where the Sidhe are as potent and public as any rock star or Hollywood personality, where the Fae are all too real, and where magic isn’t something kept entirely under wraps. She’s good at her job, respected by her friends and coworkers, and very happy to keep a low profile. For three years, she’s lived a lie. In truth, she’s the Princess Meredith NicEssus, directly in line for the throne of the Unseelie Court, those creatures of air and darkness who would as soon torture a human for sport as look at them. In truth, she’s as big a celebrity as Elvis, and twice as elusive. She’s on the run from her aunt, the Queen of the Unseelie and one of the most dangerous creatures alive in a kingdom where even the least of their number possess powers no human can imagine. Meredith is weak compared to the rest of her kind, not yet come into her full power; perhaps she never will. She’s paid her dues, survived her duels, and all she wants is to be rid of her family and all the obligations that come with them.

Unfortunately, no one wants to respect her wishes. Not her aunt, who constantly searches for her. Not her aunt’s private guard, some of whom love Meredith, some of whom want her dead. Not Cel, the queen’s son. Not the sluagh host of the dark fey. What’s a girl to do? When a routine case goes horribly awry, and evidence linking one of the Unseelie sidhe to a mortal sex cult is revealed, all Hell begins to break loose, and Meredith finds herself dragged, kicking and screaming, back into the Byzantine affairs of the kingdom she turned her back upon. And in a society where Machiavelli would have been less competent than an infant, one wrong step can lead to fates much worse, and much longer lasting, than death. If Meredith can’t unravel the politics and conspiracies riddling her aunt’s realm, and take control of her own destiny, and survive, everything that makes her unique is at stake.

This is not a fairy tale for children. This is a passionate, sensual, down-and-out randy fairy tale for adults. *A Kiss Of Shadows* celebrates all the capricious cruelty, icy beauty, and sexual mystique of the fey in all their alien glory. This is the sort of book you read with only one light on, curled up somewhere comfortably. This is the same sort of tale we like to tell about vampires, assigning a sort of erotic power to them. I can honestly say that I’ve only rarely, if ever, seen the creatures of Faerie in such roles. Reading this book, I can honestly see them as the creatures who’d seduce a mortal maiden under a full moon, and leave laughing. I can see True Thomas taken from the riverbank. I can see the sort of beings who’d curse a mortal with eternal life as a tree. They’re dangerous, deadly, unfathomably complex, and above all else, superior to humans in every way they consider important.

Laurell K. Hamilton is well-known for combining modern horror, dark urban fantasy, adult complexity, and more than a trace of sexual undertones in her *Anita Blake* series. However, in A Kiss Of Shadows she’s outdone herself. I love all things Faerie, from Grimm to Froud, and this book definitely conquers new territory in a field that Dungeons and Dragons strip-mined long ago. So for those readers with the maturity to handle the rather overt erotic tones, I recommend this book highly. However, I certainly wouldn’t let anyone under the age of oh, sixteen, anywhere near it. It’s not subtle in its treatment of the fey as creatures of great passion, and no little darkness. Taking that into consideration, this is one more example of why Laurell Hamilton continues to be regarded as an evolving and notable talent in the fantasy field.