One of my very favorite authors is Laurell Hamilton. She currently is writing two series of books, one about Anita Blake who is a vampire hunter and necromancer and the other about Meredith Gentry who is a fairy princess (literally) and who lives for awhile in the human world to prevent her family, and her Aunt the Unseelie Queen, from finding her and most likely killing her. Since it has been awhile since I have read the first book in either series I decided to re-read Kiss the Shadows. I found that I saw this book and its characters differently then when I read it the first time. Meredith is hated and seen as weak because she is not immortal like all of her relatives, she is only half fey and as a result she is mortal. The fey see her as less and have no respect for her. Her aunt, the Queen of the Unseelie, is really an evil and twisted bitch who enjoys inflicting pain so Meredith decides to escape into the mortal world where the fey do not like to be because the metal messes with their magic. But now the Queens Guards are sent out to find Meredith and bring her back to fairy, not to kill her but to have a child. The fey are immortal but they have been slowly losing their magic and they are no longer having babies. So Meredith, who is considered good for nothing, weak, and of little importance is now good for something, hopefully having a child. If she can get pregnant she will be the new Queen. Being more aware this time around it seemed funny to me that what makes her important is her uterus. Of course if she fails to get pregnant she will be killed but she has been threatened her whole so I guess what is one more death threat.