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Divine Misdemeanors: A Novel Review

Divine Misdemeanors: A Novel Feature

ISBN13: 9780345495976
Condition: New
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Divine Misdemeanors: A Novel Overview

You may know me best as Meredith Nic Essus, princess of faerie. Or perhaps as Merry Gentry, Los Angeles private eye. To protect my unborn children, I have turned my back on the crown, choosing exile in the human world with my beloved Frost and Darkness. Yet I cannot abandon my people. Someone is killing the fey, which has left the LAPD baffled and my guardsmen and me deeply disturbed. I thought I’d left the blood and politics behind in my own turbulent realm. But now I realize that evil knows no borders, and that nobody lives forever—even if they’re magical.

Divine Misdemeanors: A Novel Specifications

Laurell K. Hamilton on Divine Misdemeanors

Meredith Gentry was created as a character so that my muse and I could have a break from writing the Anita Blake series. I’d written five Anita books in a row and was starting to have job anxiety dreams about her life instead of mine. I needed something different for my muse and me to play with. Merry was created to give me a different voice, a different world to visit. I guess she’s like a second child that you have so the first one won’t be an only. Then, like a parent that just didn’t understand that a second child doesn’t double your workload, but quadruples it, I was suddenly trying to do two different series at two different publishers. It went well since they’re both New York Times bestsellers. The audience for both crosses nicely and continues to grow with every book in a time when very few authors can say that. So it’s all good, but just like trying to juggle two kids instead of one, juggling two book series instead of just one presents its challenges.

At the beginning keeping Anita’s voice out of the Merry books was the biggest challenge. I was used to her, and her voice and attitude were closer to my own, so Anita wrote faster, clearer in my head. Merry was that second baby that is nothing like your first baby, so most of what you learned about taking care of character A doesn’t help a damn bit with character B. Who knew? But there comes a point when you make peace with the second child being so different from the first and so different from yourself. You find the unique joys in that second person, as I’ve found the joys in the Merry series that are different from Anita.

Anita fights me on paper and always has. She’s very much my rebel. Merry never fought on paper until the last book, Swallowing Darkness, and then she found things worth fighting for. She finally stood up and told me what she wanted and she was willing to do whatever it took to get there. I understood that. I let Merry’s desires, loves, and choices change where I had planned to end the first cycle of the series. Anita has thrown out entire last thirds of books by her choices, and even scrapped entire novel ideas because she’d simply grown in a different direction. If I did that for my oldest creation, how could I not do the same for my youngest creation?

In fact, Merry found her voice so pure and clear that on the last two Anita Blake novels I’ve had to chase her out of my head so Anita could be loud. Now the biggest challenge is balancing the writing schedule between two bestselling series, two different publishers, and that thing called a real life. Doing justice to my two imaginary worlds, and still managing to have a life in the real world... that’s the true challenge.--Laurell K. Hamilton

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Customer Reviews

Just ok - C. Jaegge - Maine
Others have already provided decent enough summaries, so I won't bother. Let me just start off my saying that I've read every book LKH has ever written. I have, until this point, been a dedicated reader who read her books simply for the entertainment value; the typos and inconsistencies never really bothered me.

Now, I get to Divine Misdemeanors. This book is simply just okay. The whole books takes place over a couple of weeks, although the majority of the plot is accomplished in about 2 days (the rest is summarized as "we went about our lives in the same way..." with very little context. There are substantially too many sex scenes that lead no where and really seem to serve no plot-furthering purpose except to show us something we already knew (e.g.: how much of a jerk Cel was) or to provide a potentially interesting moment that is left completely undeveloped (except for a brief mention that only perpetuates some of the men's childish behavior). LKH starts new interesting plot threads that are completely ignored once accomplished. She has also managed to give previously likable characters horrible new character traits. The majority of the men have also managed to revert to their own childhoods now that they have a leader who cares about them. This book goes from whining to sex to whining to sex to murder to sex to whining to murder to sex to resolution of murders with little to nothing else happening in the interim.

This series should have ended with the book previous to this one. This book was entirely unnecessary. The only reason I gave it two stars instead of one was because Frost seemed to have no part in this book - finally; and the book did manage to capture my attention enough to provide an afternoon's worth of mindless activity.

Book 8 of the Merry Gentry Series. Audio CD. - Sushi Girl -Laura - Gainesville, Florida
This is a review on the Audio CD version of Divine Misdemeanors, read by Laural Merlington.

Book 8, and nothing was moved forward, or backward, or in and out that was interesting ifyaknowwhatimean.

I started reading this series because It was a fascinating story, and it had alot of hot sex in to be frank. By the 6th book, it started to go downhill. I started to catch patterns of speech, plotline, and sexual positions. The plot couldnt go any slower I dont think, and this book is nothing but filler. A murder mystery, that even the scooby gang could have solved within the first few pages. The rest of the book is filled with Merrys Men and how catty they have become about her power, and their lack of in some instances. Of course she has to bed one male and with her enchanted vagina transform him into whatever the goddess wants. Its so old, and so not the least bit of a turn on. Half the book is just going over the way characters look AGAIN, as if we didnt catch it the first 7 books. I want her to just pop out these miracle babies and move into a retirement home for sex addicts.

The audio version, is horrific. Laural Merlington uses different voices for the characters, which is awesome, BUT with her she goes about 10 octaves higher than the regular voice she uses and you must immediately jump up and turn the sound down for fear of your ears bleeding. Especially her voice for Bittersweet. Also it seems that she is bored of the sex scenes because she reads them so monotone and matter of fact its like listening to NPR.

I want this series to end, mercifully end!

Why do I keep doing this to myself - J. Smith - Detroit, MI United States
I keep on waiting for that high I got in the first couple of LKH books. They have become lazy in the plot and I am tired of the entire book taking place within a couple of hours or days. Where is the character development? There is more time spent on describing the color of the room and the ripple of his abs than how 14 men and one woman actually work and sleep together. What do the guys do when they are not in bed with Merry? There is so much opportunity in the plots, but it is never realized.

Is Laurell believing her own hype that she can do no wrong with her books? I have other authors I enjoy and they pump out better books quicker.

Divine is devoid of merit - J. Flickinger - Ohio
I'll start by saying that I won't pretend that this series is heavy literature or Nobel Prize material but I have always found it entertaining...until now. Where to start??? No plot, no continuity, no sense, no entertainment and even the romantic scenes are boring. I am very disappointed and disillusioned and I will not buy anymore in the series and even think twice about anything else by the author. In fact, I didn't want to finish the book but I kept hoping it would improve as I got farther into it. It didn't, in fact the best thing in the whole enchillada was the blank page at the end. Good luck Merry. If you are to continue on as a character... you're gonna need it!

*** Product Information and Prices Stored: Aug 31, 2010 06:38:06

Books Science Fiction & Fantasy

Tuesday, August 31, 2010