Laurell K. Hamilton Books: Author Profile - BOMC2® Book Club

Author Profile | LAURELL K. HAMILTON See available titles

Laurell K. Hamilton's passion for fantasy took root early?and a bit tragically. When her mother died in a car accident, Hamilton was raised by her grandmother, whom Hamilton credits with sparking her interest in fantasy. The older woman told horror stories that Hamilton remembers to this day. Growing up in the Midwest, Hamilton's first encounter with fantasy fiction was entitled "Pigeon from Hell," and soon after, she discovered The Natural History of the Vampire in her school library.

Years later, childhood reading and those bedtime tales would dovetail with influences like Robert B. Parker's Spencer series and Robert E. Howard's Conan The Barbarian, to create Hamilton's popular series, Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter. Now, Hamilton has found new success with her exploration of an entirely different realm of fantasy.

In her latest works, it's not vampires but faerie who share the world with human beings. In the best-selling A Kiss of Shadows, Hamilton introduces Meredith, a lovely fey princess on the run from the faerie court. A Caress of Twilight finds Meredith working as a private investigator in L.A.?and in a furious race with cousin Prince Cel for the throne of the Unseelie Court. The first of the two to successfully procreate wins the crown. Meredith takes on a series of lovers with passion and zest, dodging assassination attempts, and even a serial killer who stalks the city's fey and human populations.

Hamilton likes to spice up her dark and magical plot lines with healthy doses of sex and violence. "Two things I do well in books are sex and violence," she says. "I want a kiss to be so believable that it gives the reader shivers." In a lesser author's hands, such tactics might seem gratuitous, but Hamilton's prose is grounded by her first person narrative and her research into mythology and folklore.

"I think people have a real need to believe in things invisible," says Hamilton. "I think that in times of stress, we often turn to escapism." With her latest series, Hamilton continues to provide readers the means to do just that.

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