The idea of a part-human part-Fey princess, heir to the throne of Faerie, and her band of Sidhe warrior/lovers is packed with possibilities. The series also features some excellent characters, which are developed with skill and occasionally surprising sensitivity. The immortal pair, Killing Frost, who in my mind's eye looks like a young Richard Chamberlain with silver hair, and Doyle, formerly the Queen's Darkness, who I picture as Isaac Hayes in his Black Moses period, are tremendous assets to the story. Hamilton also manages to cram in a few new characters, such as Mistral, the hard loving, enormously endowed, storm lord, and the subtly dangerous Aisling, a Sidhe who is so handsome he has to wear a veil. Aisling's magic forces anyone who sees him bare faced to fall hopelessly in love. Andais, the Queen of Air and Darkness is back again, and more insane than ever. Some of the scenes where she appears are so well done and so tense that pausing before the end of the chapter is all but impossible. Then there are the revelations, casually thrown in as back story. These include a war waged in the past between humans and the Fey, a set of conditions imposed upon the Seelie and Unseelie courts before they were allowed to come to America, and the reason why both courts have been fading for centuries. It was such elements that kept me reading.

Unfortunately, instead of weaving the various intriguing strands together with the skill she possesses, Hamilton resorts to graphic sex as a focal for point. Not once, but for the vast majority of events. Almost every time there is some kind of progress, it is directly as a result of Meredith's insatiable carnal activities. These over long descriptive passages are interspersed with embarrassingly bad, Mills & Boon romantic filler. Quite why Hamilton torpedoes her characters credibility with this tripe, was a mystery to me. I found it hard to believe that immortal Sidhe warriors, forced into celibacy by the mad Queen for centuries, were so easy to manipulate with the promise of sex. Even though, in this case, there was the added incentive that whoever makes Meredith pregnant will become King. For me, it was a stage set for inhuman politicking, tightly controlled passion, and a level of deviousness at which beings who've lived for thousands of years would surely be expert. Instead, all we get is a soft pornfest, where Meredith drops her knickers at every opportunity and all the blokes are whipped. Unlike other things in the plot, it doesn't stand up!