Meredith Gentry is a half-mortal princess of the Unseelie Sidhe living in Los Angeles. She’s also in a race with her cousin to be the first to produce an heir. The winner gets a throne – the loser ends up dead. Of course, it’s hard to produce an heir by yourself, and so Merry is accompanied by a group of the Queen’s bodyguards, who have all selflessly volunteered to have sex with her.
Seduced by Moonlight, the third of Laurell K. Hamilton’s Meredith Gentry books, begins as Merry prepares to return to the Fairie courts. Hamilton has chosen to try to catch new readers up with the series as she goes, so the first part of the book alternates between sex scenes and backstory. Fairly soon, Hamilton is going to have to let that idea go – it’s just taking too long. This portion of the book is redeemed by the scattered insights into the histories and personalities of the bodyguards, but since we’re trying to follow Meredith, the story is a little disjointed.
Once Merry returns to her aunt’s court, assassination attempts and plots keep the book moving forward. Hamilton sets up some solid challenges, political, social and magical, for Merry to deal with, but the dealing is mostly going to have to wait for the next book. One of the political challenges is dealt with neatly, but it’s clear that the best is yet to come.
The book will keep existing readers interested in the next installment, but is unlikely to win new readers over. Starting with the first book (A Kiss of Shadows) is a better bet.