From the darkling throng to the glittering court, this is a world of magic and delights, greed and grotesque ambitions. Laurell K. Hamilton has created a mythos of extreme power and pure beauty that is a delight to behold.

Princess Meredith will inherit the throne -- if she can stay alive long enough to claim it. Her cousin, Prince Cel, is determined to see that she doesn't. As long as they both live, they will be in a race for the crown. Whichever of them reproduces first... gets the throne. The men of Meredith's royal guard -- warriors skilled with blade, spell, and gun -- protect her from assassination attempts, and hope to become her lover, auditioning with pleasure for the role of future king and father of her child.

All the royal back-stabbing makes it very difficult for Meredith to pursue her living as a private investigator in Los Angeles -- especially since the media makes sure the whole world knows the Faerie princess is alive and well in sunny California.

The people of Los Angeles are dying in mysterious, frightening ways. What the human police don't realize is that the killer is hunting the fey as well. Havoc lies on the horizon: the very existence of the place known as Faerie is at grave risk. Meredith enjoys the pleasures of her life with her guardians even as she fends off an ancient evil that could destroy the very fabric of reality.

And that's just her day job.