If you took the wonderful fantasy series, The Chronicles of Amber, by Roger Zelany, mixed in a touch of Shakespeare's A Midsummer Nights Dream, added a pinch of the Marquis De Sade�s writing and finally threw in a large dollop of the porn film Debbie Does Dallas the results would probably be much like A Kiss of Shadows. As is to be expected from Laurell K. Hamilton the writing is excellent and the characters are intriguing, but the fantasy in the novel takes a back seat to sex scenes that are so predominant as to be almost overwhelming. Just an off-the-cuff estimate, but I would guess that a sex act takes place roughly every eight to ten pages. Ms. Hamilton tends to go equally overboard with the gore in her otherwise terrific series about Anita Blake, Vampire Executioner, but gore doesn't seem as intrusive in a horror series as the enormous amount of sex found in a fantasy such as A Kiss of Shadows. In addition, these acts generally take place between non-human, and I mean some of them were **really** non-human characters. I'm sure that beings that look like a cross between a squid and a human need love too, but I don't want to read about them getting it. Writing about a non-human species who�s society's predominant concerns are bloodlines, purity of the race (not color, but species) and, as a result, sex it's easy to why there is so much making whoopee in A Kiss of Shadows, but knowing this didn't make reading it more pleasant. I mean, I like sex, I really, really do, but too much of even a good thing can eventually be off-putting. Frankly, had A Kiss of Shadows been written by anyone with less talent then Ms. Hamilton I'd have dumped it about a third of the way through. Because of Ms. Hamilton's talent I did enjoy it, marginally, enough to finish it, but came away with very mixed feelings.

So my verdict for A Kiss of Shadows would be well written, but off-putting. Maybe I've just turned into a prude, who knows? Try A Kiss of Shadows for yourself and decide, but just remember, shadows aren't the only things getting kissed here by a long shot.

Grade: C+

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