I Read Books: A Kiss Of Shadows
Laurell K Hamilton has an urban fantasy series, Anita Blake Vampire Hunter that began as a monster-of-the-book adventure laid over with plots-politics-sex-and-details-of-clothing, and eventually became much more about the sex and politics. With this series she jumps straight into magic and sex and weird plots.
Merry Gentry is the missing American fairy princess. She’s been working as a private detective in Los Angeles. A case accidently leads her to a cult who worship the sidhe, the greatest taboo of American fey who are not permitted to set themselves up as gods. This blows her cover and someone sends the Wild Hunt after her. It turns out this was a plot and not actually ordered by Queen Andais, leader of the Unseelie sidhe court, who sends one of her guards to protect her and bring Merry back.
Merry manages to get some magic called the Hand of Flesh, which allows her to literally turn people inside out, heals the sealskin of her selkie boyfriend by having rough sex with him (without hiding her magic as she has previously). Then she goes to the Cahokia mounds where the sidhe courts are, is declared co-heir with Andais’ son Cel, with the one who first has a child becoming king or queen. Children are rare and precious amongst the immortal sideh. She reveals that Cel is behind the assassination attempts on her and manages to get him sentenced to six months of torture (which obviously gives her a head start on the contest). She then heads back to LA with a bunch of the Queen’s Guards as her guards, but also with orders to have a lot of sex to get her pregnant.
Along the way her favourite guard has his tackle damaged by the demi-fey (tiny, butterfly winged blood-suckers), she creates an alliance with the goblin king (the footsoldiers of the Unseelie), gets hassled by paparazzi, and meets and rejects her ex.
There’s a lot going on is what I’m saying.
Read This: For sex and plotting and magic and maybe even some crime solving in America
Don’t Read This: If half a page of description and background, most of it actually necessary for the plot, for every character and location and situation, seems likely to bog you down
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