At last! This is how a good Merry Gentry book looks like when it`s filled with actual action instead of repeated, detailed and aimless descriptions of sex scenes. ( )

I am a big fan of Laurell K. Hamilton. I do prefer her Anita Blake series but her Merry Gentry series is quite good too. As usual, for her, it is a very well developed world with lots of violence. It can be a bit tricky to keep all the guys straight but in general I find the books to have far more positives than negatives. ( )

I loved the first couple of Merry Gentry books, then gave up on the series when they became less plot than interminably long descriptions of her and her guards making love.

I'd sworn not to buy any of the series again, but I checked this one out of the library. Now that I've finished it, I'm glad I did.

This book is so much better than the last several, although Hamilton can't seem to get through more than a few days per book. A lot of time is spent with Merry and one or more of her consorts doing a lot of emotional processing about who loves whom more, and how the less-favored men handle their pain -- but there are also some intense scenes with Taranis and/or Andais, and of course more magic coming into being due to Merry's special status.

Most surprisingly to me, there are events which caused me to really feel in response. Most of the Merry Gentry books are popcorn: fun, quick, sexy reads with a beautiful half-fairy princess and her gorgeous harem having adventures and lots and lots of sex. There was some true pathos in this one -- at least for me. In fact, after a couple of years of shunning the series, I find I want to buy this book and keep it around to read again.

No one is more surprised than me. ( )

no tentacles, no tentacle porn, just boring political scheming, traditional het boning, and some offscreen rape. oh, and my fav character was turned into a big deer, NO BIG DEAL. I knew there was a reason I'd never reread this one; now I remember why. ( )

A Lick of Frost begins one month after the events of Mistral's Kiss. Merry and her guards/lovers Doyle, Frost, Rhys, Galen, and Abeloec in a conference room, being questioned about the charges of rape against Rhys, Galen, and Abeloec which King Taranis has brought the charges on behalf the woman allegedly raped by the aforementioned fey. The meeting ends badly, with Taranis losing what little control he had on his sanity. One of the officers of Taranis' guard, Sir Hugh, tells Merry that he is going to force a vote among the nobles of the Seelie court to choose a new king, and he wants Merry to take Taranis' place. When Merry and her guards get home after taking a trip to the hospital after tending to the injuries sustained by Doyle and Abeloec.
They call Aunt Andais to tell her of all that has happened���������specifically the offer to rule the Seelie Court. Andais believes Merry already agreed to rule and abuses one of her guards in a sadistic rage. Eventually, Merry and her men convince Andais otherwise, but she still continues to abuse the guard in reaction to many of them leaving to join Merry. The series of mirror-calls end and Merry finalizes the coming together of herself and two new half-goblins, Ash, and Holly for later that night. Night comes and Holly and Ash arrive, along with all of the Red Caps in tow. Jonty, a Red Cap that helped Merry fight in Mistral's Kiss, sheds a tear as Merry tells him she would bring the Red Caps into their power. She catches the tear on her finger and consumes it. This brings on the remaking of Maeve Reed's house into a sithen.
Those of faerie who stand in that room with no faerie dog to keep them grounded, crumple to the floor. Some of the crumpled men are revived by one of the dogs, but Frost stays down. The creation of the sithen allows the ring of fertility on her finger to flare to life and Merry realizes that she is pregnant with twins. Each twin has three fathers like in the story of Ceridwen. A phantom image of Merry���������s children appears by their respective fathers, Rhys, Frost, Galen, Doyle, Mistral, and Sholto. There is also a dimmer phantom image of a 3rd child that has the potential to be born after the twins. Frost turns out to be the sacrificial king for the creation of the new sithen. Merry prays for him not to die, and he turns into a white stag and runs off. Merry runs to one of the gardens of her sithen to be alone and grieve the loss of Frost. While out there, Taranis, using illusion to appear as one of her guards, knocks her out and takes her to his bedroom back at the Seelie Court.
It is assumed that he rapes her, and then believes he fathers her children. Hugh, some others at the Seelie Court, and Doyle sneak her out of the bedroom and into a press conference where she tells the press that Taranis made the Seelie woman Lady Catarin believe that it was Rhys, Galen, and Abeloec who raped her; when in fact, it was all just an illusion of Taranis' making and the woman was in fact raped by other Seelie nobles working with him. Merry also tells them that she is pregnant, and that Taranis kidnapped and raped her. The book ends with Merry in an ambulance with Doyle, continuing to mourn Frost and her current situation. She is on her way to the hospital to treat the concussion she received from Taranis and to take a rape test. ( )