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 Author Laurell K. Hamilton takes on vampires and nature and comes out the winner.
By Jim Catapano
Laurell K. Hamilton has been telling stories since she was 12 years old, all of them designed to scare the pants off of you. Though most of her early tales are lost to history, there are 11 Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter and three Meredith Gentry novels, among other works, to do the job.
Hamilton's latest, Seduced by Moonlight, returns us to the world of Merry Gentry, detective and uniquely mortal princess from the mythical faerie (fey) race of Celtic lore. Merry is the daughter of an Unseelie prince and a Seelie woman, whose marriage was designed to forge peace between the rival Seelie and Unseelie courts. Ever since the fey's exile from Europe to America, their power has waned. In an attempt to revitalize her race, Merry’s aunt, Queen Andais, has declared a race to the throne between Merry and Prince Cel, the queen’s son. The first to produce a child will win the throne. The loser? They won’t live to see their cousin’s coronation. To conceive a child and ensure her survival, Merry must choose among a colorful group of suitors known as the Ravens, making for an interesting audition process…
"It’s basically a race to see who’s going to be king," says Hamilton. "Who’s going to rule, with Merry. It’s a real challenge to keep people’s interests for seven-12 books and not have them already decided by book three. It’s OK for some people to be convinced of their favorites from the beginning, but you don’t want the majority of people to be sure.”
The Ravens comprise an impressive cast of bodyguards/paramours for Merry. From Doyle, the captain of the guards and “bearer of the painful flame,” to Frost, the icy second-in command, all have a chance at the throne and Merry’s heart. And just when one Raven seems a shoo-in, another comes to the fore, making for a suspenseful ride.
“The mystery is the skeleton of the book,” says Hamilton. “As far as choices for Merry, I started off with no preconception about whom she would care about most. Up to Seduced by Moonlight, almost everyone has had the same two or three leading favorites for king. In this book, I’ve thrown out enough new people and also showed some more depth to some of the ones that we’ve had around. One of the things that I’m most happy about is people getting back to me and going, 'I thought such and such was going to be king but now I’m not so sure that he’d be good'. And they’re changing their mind after two books already."
Unlike the gritty, more down-to-earth Anita Blake, Merry comes from an alien culture and presents her own challenges. "One of the things that was the hardest to do with Merry was to not have her sound like middle class, middle America, middle of nowhere, like I was raised. Nothing wrong with it, but I wanted Merry to sound like she was from a different culture."
Read the complete story in VAMPIRELLA Magazine, on sale now! |
