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    A Lick of Frost
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    A Lick of Frost
    Unavailable
    A Lick of Frost
    Audiobook8 hours

    A Lick of Frost

    Written by Laurell K. Hamilton

    Narrated by Laural Merlington

    4.5/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this audiobook

    I am Meredith Gentry, princess and heir apparent to the throne in the realm of faerie, onetime private investigator in the mortal world. To be crowned queen, I must first continue the royal bloodline and give birth to an heir of my own. If I fail, my aunt, Queen Andais, will be free to do what she most desires: install her twisted son, Cel, as monarch…and kill me.

    My royal guards surround me, and my best loved - my Darkness and my Killing Frost - are always beside me, sworn to protect and make love to me. But still the threat grows greater. For despite all my carnal efforts I remain childless, while the machinations of my sinister, sadistic Queen and her confederates remain tireless. So my bodyguards and I have slipped back into Los Angeles, hoping to outrun the gathering shadows of court intrigue. But even exile isn't enough to escape the grasp of those with dark designs.

    Now King Taranis, powerful and vain-glorious ruler of faerie's Seelie Court, has leveled accusations against my noble guards of a heinous crime - and has gone so far as to ask the mortal authorities to prosecute. If he succeeds, my men face extradition to faerie and the hideous penalties that await them there. But I know that Taranis's charges are baseless, and I sense that his true target is me. He tried to kill me when I was a child. Now I fear his intentions are far more terrifying.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBrilliance Audio
    Release dateOct 23, 2007
    ISBN9781423340430
    Unavailable
    A Lick of Frost
    Author

    Laurell K. Hamilton

    Laurell K. Hamilton is the author of the New York Times bestselling Anita Blake series and Merry Gentry series. She lives with her family in St. Louis, Missouri.

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    Reviews for A Lick of Frost

    4.5/5

    114 ratings25 reviews

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    • 2/5
      Honestly this book is boring af. I did realize after looking at reviews it's not the first in the series, so I also had very little idea of any context because nothing is explained.
    • 5/5
      6 audiobooks so far Good alot of characters to keep up with it seemed like this would end the series but 3 chapters left I knew LKH couldn't stop now can't wait to find book 7 hopefully in audiobooks

      1 person found this helpful

    • 4/5
      Fast paced, and a good eight hour of entertainment. Thumbs up.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 5/5
      I had begun to tire of Merry Gentry until this one. There wasn't as much sex in this book (the pages and pages of sex really get kinda boring after a while), and I really came to love Frost once I learned his backstory. I also really came to love Sholto because of this book, and now he's one of my favorites of Merry's Men.

      2 people found this helpful

    • 5/5
      This is Hamilton at her absolute best, and so far, I have to say that this is the best book in the Meredith Gentry series. Full of Hamilton's impeccably drawn characters and graceful description, this installment moves more quickly and with more twists than the more recent books before it, and is virtually impossible to put down. Here, Hamilton's penchant for eroticism is well-balanced by plot and character development, and each chapter builds upon the last to make more progress in the storyline than I'd expected from a single work.Simply, this book is the reason so many of us love Hamilton. You wouldn't want to read it out of order, or I doubt you'd get much enjoyment from it, but it is without doubt Hamilton at her very best. Maybe my favorite book by her yet.Recommended for lovers of Hamilton and this series--those who were put off by the extra focus on sex in the last book should move on to this one--they'll be rewarded for their devotion to the series.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 2/5
      Last straw. Again, I didn't get my money's worth from this book. If it had been put together with 'Mistral's Kiss' & half the sex (or more) had been left out, it would have made one good book. Still a great world & story line, just not enough per book to warrant the money.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 2/5
      I don't like Frost. He's portrayed as being aloof, posessive and as a complainer. Reading his background explains a lot about his behavior and insecurity. This made the book interesting and kept me reading to the end of the book. I wish I hadn't gone to the end because the ending was awful. What a thing to happen to the guy after revealing so much about him! I couldn't help but wanting for everyone to drop everything and go out there and bring him back. It'll be interesting to see how this will be resolved in the next book.
    • 3/5
      Well, blow me away and call me Mary Poppins -- I actually enjoyed this. After the forgettable melodrama that was "Mistral's Kiss", I figured this series was done for. I hate leaving a series unfinished, though, so I picked this up for half-off. I was surprised to find things -- real plot -- happening. It wasn't just chapter after chapter of touchy-feely (pun intended) conversations and wasted time. There was story development, great strides of it, in fact. And it wasn't even a particularly long book. Best of all, in my opinion, the Frost problem has been "taken care of", if you will. I can't stand him, and I was quite happy with the way things turned there -- I won't say more and risk a spoiler. Anyway, I'm truly and surprisingly looking forward to reading the next book, "Swallowing Darkness". Go figure.
    • 5/5
      One of my favorites of the series, a bit of frost's backround, I like this series a lot.
    • 3/5
      Ah, the next book in the Meredith Gentry series (book #6 if you want to keep track). This is a series that I read because I like reading about the Seelie and Unseelie courts. I am not sure why else I read it. The plot is complex and interwoven and the characters interesting. Meredith herself is an interesting contrast of personality traits. Like most of Laurell Hamilton's books I think I can best review this by breaking it down into the good, the bad, and the ugly.This series makes no secret about devoting itself to sex. Strangely this book was lacking in the numerous number of pages detailing sex scenes. There were a measly two sex scenes; no sex until around 200 pages into the book...I mean wow! That's got to be a record. There is a lot of talking about sex. So onto the good, the bad, and the ugly.The Good- The plot moves...seriously the plot actually advances in this book (notice I didn't say quickly). A good portion of the 300+ pages are devoted to plot!- We get to hear about Frost's past; I love Frost and I loved hearing about his past.- Amazing fairy things continue to happen and amazing creatures are introduced- The book focuses on 4-5 of Merry's "men" instead of having her sleep with a plethora of them- The Red Cap goblins are back; I love them.The Bad- Continuous rants about how every kind of sex is acceptable take up loads of page space. We get it, S&M can be a good thing, multiple partners can be fun...now let's move on.- Merry humoring her thousand year old boyfriends' need for constant emotional support; geez if I had to try and not to hurt the feelings of 20 guys at once I guess it would take time...but does it have to take up soooo much page space???The Ugly- Merry's guards seem to never be around to guard her when something extremely bad happens...what it up with that!- This whole book, like the last two, spans a time frame of maybe a day.- Rumors are that Swallowing Darkness is not the end, we will continue to be tortured by this incredibly strung out story.***SPOILER START****- Much of the book is taken up preparing with you for a sex scene between Merry and the goblins but it doesn't lead much of anywhere.***SPOILER END*****Okay so, in general this book had more plot and less sex than I was actually expecting so that is a good thing. It focused more on characters I like and less at throwing in a billion new men for Merry to have at it with. All-in-all I wasn't disappointed. I read a ton of paranormal genre books and these books are still very creative and reasonably well-written compared to most of them. I know it's easy to gripe about the lack of plot, etc. etc. I am guilty of that too; still Hamilton is a good writer. I mean how many other people have made erotica hit the New York Times bestseller list?I'll read the next book because I am a sucker for the characters. I am hoping the series doesn't drag on for too much longer though. Seems to me the overall story could come to an end soon.
    • 4/5
      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.
    • 3/5
      Merry is in LA. Working at staying alive and trying to get pregnant with the various candidates for the job of King. She's now facing the fact that Taranis wants her and isn't very stable. If he's deposed she's also a good candidate for the throne of Sidhe and she's not sure she wants that job.It's pretty much sex with a touch of plot but it kept me engaged while I was reading it. Some of the roles and uses of the various men in her life are resolved. It's a paper thin plot that doesn't cover many days but it kept me reading.
    • 3/5
      There was a time when a new Laurell K Hamilton book was time for celebration - curling up, switching off my phone and reading until the last page had turned. Her character Anita Blake was a kick ass heroine with principles and spooky abilities. Over time (since around book 9) the Anita Blake series has headed downhill - round about the time Merry Gentry came on the scene. Originally Hamilton created Merry Gentry to get out of her system all the weird sexual kicks she clearly has, and to take the fantastical elements of her stories to new areas, but gradually both series became filled with sex, the plots collapsed and eventually my reaction to a new book in either series was 'meh'.So I picked this book up without many expectations and only because I found it cheap in a charity bookstore. However, I was pleasantly surprised. It still wasn't the page-turning supernatural horror of the early Blake books, but the story sped along and there was actually some plot to speak of.The plot is still pretty slight - in fact, it is hard to delve into any of what happened without giving away some pretty big spoilers, so I am not going to even try! I also have some other big complaints - the cast of men 'belonging' to Merry is hard to tell apart, except for a select couple. There is very little character development barring the usual monologuing that Merry does about how hard her life is. The sex is uncomfortable rather than titillating to read - especially when Hamilton adds in all the rough stuff. Finally, Merry (and Anita, to be perfectly honest) are complete Mary Sues, and it is difficult to hear about how perfect they are at everything they do.So, huge improvements on recent books, but still a lot lacking from earlier books by Ms Hamilton.
    • 3/5
      After reading Mistral's Kiss, I was much, much, MUCH happier with this book. This was the most plot the series has seen in awhile, and a few of the plot threads got taken care of.The second half of the book is really what sticks in my mind. While it wasn't the best plot development ever, I was still happy to see Tyrannis and the Seelie court dealt with decisively. I was also happy to see some of the power that's been hinted at in Meredith come to good use, though the scene where she uses her ring again does have some pretty ridiculous results.While there are still a lot of men around, most of whom are interchangeable, much of the volume focuses on Frost, and for good reason. I'm mildly upset as to what happened to him, but... well, there are a lot of characters in this series.The book left off at an awkward cliffhanger, and I am kind of wondering how all the ludicrous stuff that happened will be resolved and/or dealt with in the next book.
    • 3/5
      I'm impressed! I made it more than halfway through the book before there was any sex at all, and there were no freaky faerie orgies! I feel like there was actually some plot in this book. I like that Hamilton has finally crawled out of that dark, sweaty hole she'd dug herself into with both this and the Anita Blake series. There's some heavy foreshadowing about Merry's health, so it's not a surprise when the truth is revealed, but leave it to Hamilton to put her own special twist on what's normally seen as a pretty standard part of life.
    • 5/5
      Former LA private detective Meridith Gentry may have moved up in the world socially (and her sex life has certainly never been better or more diverse), but politics do have a way of spoiling the best of things. Merry's been walking a narrow tightrope of diplomacy with her aunt, Queen Andis of the Unseelie court. Now her Uncle Taranis, king of the Seelie court wants in on the action - literally. The story opens with Merry and her best men and a group of lawyers. A Seelie court lady has accused three of Merry's guards of rape. Since the fae can't lie, the DA & co are predisposed to believe her sworn statement. But things quickly prove other than they appear. Taranis has gone mad - which gives him a neat loophole in the whole no-lying thing - and he's determined to take Merry at all costs. Hamilton's back in fine form. There are still plenty of erotic moments and some rough sex, but this time there's a plot. The bits in between sweaty piles of groping bodies don't feel like filler, the story actually moves. I was up way too late finishing.
    • 5/5
      This was a very fast, comfortable read, unlike the book I gave up reading to change to this one.If you're a fan of the series, apart from relatively little sex, there's intrigue, fun, multiple loves, dancing delicately around Andais and all the usual things. However, this book contains a lot more interaction with the Seelie Court than normal: One of the nobles has, with Taranis' support, accused three of Merry's guards of rape. There are layers of games going on here of course, but it becomes screamingly obvious early on that Taranis is barking mad. He's using the charges as a chance to get close to Merry and abduct her and make her his Queen - something that goes down rather like a lead balloon.Merry is feeling under the weather, but it's rather predictable why - she's pregnant at long last, thank god.The story wraps up with Merry abducted and probably raped by Taranis, although thankfully with no memory of it (I wouldn't have enjoyed reading a rape scene, no thanks) and in a nice (and commented on in a suitably post-modern way) circular fashion, with Merry accusing Taranis through the human legal system.
    • 4/5
      Thank goodness for the return of plot. It had been seriously lacking in her last two installments of the Meredith Gentry series. I enjoy a steamy scene as much as the next person, and this book does not disappoint. What she also does though, is return to the political intrigue and character development that I also enjoyed in the first two books of this series. I was so overjoyed I was able to ignore the silliness with 6 fathers for 2 babies...and am awaiting the next book...
    • 3/5
      To my complete lack of surprise, I wasn’t impressed with this newest addition to LKH’s Merry Gentry series. From the very first novel, it had about the same quality as the trashiest of the Anita Blake series, and it’s only gone downhill from there. Why do I keep reading it? One of the great mysteries of the universe.After suffering several assassination attempts while making a Christmas visit to the Unseelie court, Princess Meredith has cancelled her planned visits to the Goblin mound and the Seelie court. A Seelie noblewoman has accused three of Merry’s guards of rape, and the Seelie want them to answer for it. Merry knows the accusations are false, but how can she prove it to the human authorities her uncle Taranis, the Seelie king, has called in?This book is actually better than its prequel, Mistral’s Kiss, in that it has some semblance of plot, and Merry spends more time out of bed than in, but unless you, like me, cannot stop yourself from reading LKH’s books even when you know, from previous experience, that they will not be worth your time, don’t bother.
    • 5/5
      The Merry Gentry books are a true guilty pleasure of mine. This one was probably the best one since the first. There were some things about the book that made it difficult to suspend disbelief, but that's what happens when books are based on mythological concepts. What I found most impressive is the fact that I was halfway through the book and she hadn't had sex with anyone. Which proves that, yes, Laurell K Hamilton can still write books that are not completely and utterly saturated to overflowing with sex.
    • 4/5
      This book was chock full of court intrigue, which is my favorite part of the Merry Gentry books. Reading this one was pure fun, from the first page to the last. I look forward to the next.
    • 4/5
      Hamilton's best book in years - in either series. I really enjoyed this outing of Merry and her men. I was surprised that there was less sex and more plot. I hope Hamilton continues on this path.
    • 4/5
      Well, well, well, we're back to having a plot. After the last few books which took place over a few hours and felt that they had been written in the same amount of time, this book was much better. The plot moved ahead in leaps and bounds and Merry is finally getting somewhere. I like this series, though I find it hard to care about the individual men - there are so many of them, and we were introduced to so many of them in groups that I found it hard to differentiate or care for them. So Frost's story didn't mean that much to me, because I never really liked the moody bastard, but I can accept that Merry does. I always liked Doyle more. An engrossing addition to the series.
    • 4/5
      A return to form for Laurell K. Hamilton -- more plot, less sex, actual progress in the storyline. One carryover plotline that got resolved did so in a way that I expected, with a twist that surprised me but still fit with the logic of the story. I'm looking forward to the next book, and scrapping my plans to switch to buying the series in paperback. This one was worth buying in hardcover.
    • 5/5
      Anyone who hasn't already read the first books in the series should avoid jumping in now, and instead enjoy the buildup of intrigue through the first five books. Fans of the Merry Gentry series will not be disappointed by the latest installment. Hamilton keeps all the tried and true themes in place, but ratchets the politics up a few notches. Things are changing for Merry in this book, and upon finishing you'll be dying for the next step!