You did it! We figured this one out! It is a truth universally acknowledged (by me for certain) that the Bitchery pretty much knows everything, and really, it's true. Scroll down to see the solution for this HaBO - and many thanks!
This HaBO comes from Melanie, who is looking for this dark fantasy (possible) romance:
So I read (kind of skimmed) this dark fantasy book that I picked up several years ago on super sale at B&N. ($4.99 for a hardcover woot!)
It featured a heroine who was from a bit of an alternate/hidden fantasy world and had fled to the modern-day real world. She had some kind of magical powers, but they were weak compared to the rest of her family. She was mourning the recent breakup with her selkie boyfriend who found his pelt (I think) and returned to the sea.
And then the evil queen of the other world (her aunt?) sent her royal eunuch guards/henchmen after the heroine…not to kill her? To watch her? I don’t really remember. But one of them was super handsome and they started to get down (which was odd for a eunuch, but…) and she made him lose his magical cloaking spell or whatever and reveal his true self and it turned out he had a bunch of tentacles coming from his stomach.
They were nice tentacles (all soft and kind of shy) but she was weirded out so they stopped with the fun times. Then the other eunuch was somehow involved, and they did follow through on the fun times.
She got called back to the evil queen’s palace, and she figured something weird was happening because the eunuch had been celibate for some thousands of years and suddenly he’s allowed to have the sex. And in the end, the heroine touched some bad guy (maybe the queen, but I don’t think so?) and channeled all this power to turn the bad guy into an eternal lump of inside out misery. Like seriously, the physical form was turned inside out, but the carcass was still alive and was tossed into a dungeon cell to be in agony forever. Or something.
I think this was book one of a series. Not my usual jam, but it was really well written. Great world building. Very dark and mysterious. But I cannot for the life of me remember what it was called or who it was by.
And strangely, googling “dark fantasy selkie ex-lover tentacle eunuch evil queen inside out magical powers” brings me nothing useful. Help!
The evil queen and tentacle dude (I was a Sholto fan) remind me a lot of the Merry Gentry series by Laurell K. Hamilton. Hamilton’s books were also released in hardcover. But I don’t remember any selkies.
However, I don’t think Sholto made an appearance in the first book of that series. It’s been years, though, so I could be wrong.
A Kiss of Shadows
by
Laurell K. Hamilton
Add To: Goodreads to-read list →
This book is available from:
As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying
purchases.
We also may use affiliate
links in our posts, as well. Thanks!
I agree. It’s definitely the first book in the Merry Gentry series. The selfie was a minor character, as I recall.
Selkie. Damn autocorrect
Yes, 100% Merry Gentry. The selkie was her boyfriend at the beginning of the book – Connor?
Chiming in to say definitely the first Merry Gentry. She was dating the selkie Roane Finn. He was also employed at the same detective agency. Her power manifests during sex with him. This heals him, giving him back his skin. Her power manifestation is what kicks off the whole series.
The selkie thing definitely threw me and I only remember Sholto being prominent in later books. But I’m glad I finally knew one and you all helped me confirm it!
Yup, definitely Merry Gentry #1, A Kiss of Shadows. Tentacle eunuch is definitely Sholto and the selkie is her initial dude that she heals back into having his pelt, or something. And I definitely remember her turning the dude inside out. I think that was her cousin and the heir to the Unseelie Court, and they were, I believe, dueling. Those books were weird, and came out right around the time Anita Blake got weird.
Boy, it really is weird the stuff that hangs out in your brain for long periods of time.
And the guards are not eunuchs, they are sworen to celibacy (sort of… it’s complicated).
Another vote for Merry Gentry. I knew it at the ex-boyfriend selkie and inside-out bits. I don’t remember the tentacles, but man those books are wild! I read the first few when they came out.
Definitely Merry Gentry.
Yep, Merry Gentry! Turning the guy inside out os how she found out she had the hand of flesh.
I agree that there was a great idea somewhere in this novel but suffered the same fate as the later Anita Blakes, generally too many navel gazing and whiny characters. I DNF this one.
It’s definitely merry Gentry. The selkie was one of her Partners in her PTI business. Also her lover.
Joining the choir. I’d forgotten the selkie but definitely remembered the tentacles and the turning inside out of the other character.
I was so excited to finally know the answer to a HABO post, but many someones beat me to it!
Definitely Merry Gentry.
Shilto and Merry are negotiating a potential alliance and she is attempting sex with him (she is uncertain about the tentacles) when she is attacked by one of his hags. She discovers she has the hand of flesh defending herself
So what I’m hearing is that even though Sholto sounds like an intriguing character, it’s not really worth wading through the rest of it to read about him?
@MaryK: I would say no. Though he does make appearances and is part of the larger “sex cast”, he isn’t one of the main trio.
As I recall from research into the Ottoman empire, they had two ways of making eunuchs. You could cut off the penis, or cut off the balls. Typically they didn’t do both. So in one case, a eunuch could have sex but didn’t really have desire, and in the other case they had desire but couldn’t really do standard sex.
Speaking of weird stuff that fills up your brain….
Thank you! This was such a weird book, and obviously only a few random things stuck with me. I think I was too focused on tentacle dude.
Anita Blake/Merry Gentry got weird(er) after the author’s change in life partner(s). i sherlock’d it through the dedications in the books.
Anita Blake/Merry Gentry is kind of a guilty pleasure for me – and it was one of the first books with the reverse harem trope imho.
It’s not everybodies cup of tea, but for me Anitas relaying on being the one loaded for bear (heavily armed, trigger-happy and kind of shoot first, ask questions never) was nearly putting me off the series in the beginning.
Maybe it’s because I am german, but a person with anxiety and ptsd is not someone I would give a loaded weapon.
Spook the bad guys with sex magic and whine about the problems of fitting the need of a dozen men into the schedule of a working woman any day of the week, but puh-lease delay the armory.
I am sorry for the rant. And as i said: guilty pleasure.
And for the LOVE of all things romance will Ms. Hamilton puhleassee write another book in the series! Please, I’ll beg on my knees if necessary.