It's a Trailer Park of Emotion!: A Caress of Twilight

Chapter 7 begins with Merry and Co meeting with Maeve Reed’s bodyguards – Kane and Hart. Ethan Kane met them outside Maeve’s house, blocking their way through the entrance. He has short hair, so obviously he’s not attractive, and he has a perpetual sour expression. Four additional guards were standing between Ethan and the door, blocking the way, and there were many more standing amongst the front porch. How many fucking bodyguards are needed, jeez? One of the men standing between Ethan and the door was one that Merry recognized as hired muscle – Max Corbin. Merry greets Max in a friendly manner, and he likewise returns the greeting, and Ethan gets all pissy about this, demanding to know why Merry is there.

Merry tells them that Maeve invited them there, and asks Ethan why they’re keeping them from entering the house. Ethan demands they tell him what their business is with Maeve, and Merry sighs. She’s had a very long day already and she doesn’t feel like dealing with a needy asshole.

JOKE’S ON YOU MERRY, YOU’LL NEVER STOP DEALING WITH NEEDY ASSHOLES.

Merry tells Ethan that she’s there at Maeve’s invitation and isn’t quite sure what Maeve wants. She tells him that she alone was invited to come speak to Maeve, not her guards, so it is safe to assume that Maeve does not want them for guard duty, that she does not want to replace Ethan’s men with Grey’s guards. Merry tells Ethan that if she lets them inside, they can all find out together just why Merry was invited here. Ethan suspiciously responds with “That’s almost… nice of you, Meredith.” Which causes Max to ask, under his breath, just how nice Merry can be.

Rhys responds to that with “very, very nice.” And he and Max share a laugh.

The two of them shared one of those masculine laughs that women never seem to be able to participate in, but are always the subject of.

Oh fuck off with this nonsense, seriously.

Ethan gets pissed off at their laughter too, and snaps “Is something funny?” When Max responds that they were just passing the time (“Just passing the time of day, Mr. Kane.” – what the hell? Is this an expression? Passing the time of day? It sounds so dumb.) and Ethan gets all “We’re not paid to pass the time of day!” and then turns his attention to Merry’s guards. He tells them that he will not let them in armed as they are, to which Merry responds that Doyle would never give up their guns. So Ethan again won’t let them in.

So to resolve this stupid stalemate, Merry shouts into the house “Maeve Reed, Maeve Reed, come out to play. It’s Princess Meredith and her entourage. Maeve Reed, Maeve Reed, come out to play.” She keeps yelling over and over, like a fucking child throwing a tantrum. FOR FIVE MINUTES. Five minutes after Merry starts her yelling, Maeve’s assistant, Marie, lets them all inside, allowing all of Merry’s guards to keep their weapons, and threatening to fire Ethan and his guards if they did not let Merry’s guards pass.

The chapter ends with Rhys and Max falling over themselves laughing over Merry’s fucking tantrum, because reasons???

Characters Introduced:

Ethan Kane – short-haired, unattractive douchebag who co-owns Grey’s Detective Agency’s biggest competitor.

Max Corbin – some random guard Merry knew and is on good terms with

Marie – Maeve Reed’s personal assistant

Themes Introduced:

Nothing really, just another stupid short chapter stalemate. This happens so much that I guess that’s a theme. Chapters that are merely “One character won’t let the other do what needs to be done. Other character argues how badly they need to do that thing. First character won’t relent. Continue for pages. End chapter.”

Sex: The two of them shared one of those masculine laughs that women never seem to be able to participate in, but are always the subject of - this still pisses me off.

Chapter 8 begins with Merry and Co sitting down in Maeve Reed’s living room. It was large, larger even than Merry’s entire apartment, and full of off-white carpeting, white furniture, brick walls, and basically other such stuff that wealthy people are supposed to have. A large white Christmas tree stood in one corner, because it’s December. The room was so immaculately put together that it screamed interior decorator, that “when a person doesn’t have a single mismatched thing in a room, down to the last light on the Christmas tree, then it’s not real. It’s just for show.”

Right, because to have a homey feel, everything gotta be mismatched to fit the owner’s style. Like hiring an interior decorator is the worst thing in the world.

Marie was showing them around the living room, and she’s obviously unattractive because she has short brunette hair. Marie asks them if they’d like any refreshments and points to a side table with a pitcher of fresh lemonade sitting on it. Merry turns down the offer, as apparently it’s a rule never to take any food or beverage from a fellow fey unless you were sure they meant you no harm. Oh okay. Marie leaves them in the room to go fetch Maeve.

Merry goes to sit down on the long white couch, and Kitto follows her. He curls up at Merry’s feet like a timid dog curling up at the feet of its owner. Merry realized that the expanse of the white room had triggered Kitto’s agoraphobia, and he is grasping one of Merry’s legs like a child would a teddy bear. THERE’S THOSE CHILD REFERENCES AGAIN.

AND ALSO, why would they even bring Kitto anyway? Why not leave him tucked away in the van, at the very least? The property they are on is super warded, so no one from outside could get at him. He’s useless to Merry in a fight, so he cannot even protect her, and he has such a little psychic makeup that anyone super powerful, like Maeve, probably wouldn’t even be able to recognize his presence if he did hide in the van. OR CRAZY IDEA, WHY NOT DROP HIM OFF AT HOME. Why bring someone who is terrified of everyone and everything thing with you on a job? Why do this?

Merry invites everyone in the room to sit down, everyone including Ethan and his guards. Ethan responds that a good bodyguard doesn’t sit down on the job, and Merry tries to comfort him, saying that they were not a threat to Ms. Reed at all. Which then starts another fun discussion about how because they are Unseelie sidhe, they’re obviously evil and obviously want to attack Maeve Reed.

So Merry does the right thing to try to diffuse the argument by telling Ethan that HE’S JUST JEALOUS OMG

“You’re just jealous, Ethan, jealous that most of the major stars prefer a sidhe warrior at their back instead of you.”
“You’ve bewitched them,” he said.
I raised an eyebrow at that. “Me personally?”
He made a small angry gesture toward the two warriors. I think it would have been a large angry gesture but he was worried bout how Doyle would take it. “They have.”

Just that moment, one of Ethan’s business partners, Julian Hart, enters the room tsk-tsking at Ethan for the comments he just made. “Ethan, Ethan. I’ve told you before that that is simply not true.” Julian walks up to them, all sleek and sexy in his burgundy satin jacket and burgundy/brown pinstripe pants and LOAFERS WITHOUT SOCKS. What the Christ, this is a fashion thing still? Oh wait, that’s right, LKH is stuck in late 80s-early 90s with her fashion preferences, I forgot. And also, this is LA, where every man wears fancy suits and shoes without socks.

Julian flops down on the couch next to Merry and tells her how lucky she is, and is a little upset that she won’t share her delectable men. Merry asks how his lover, Adam, is doing. Adam is Ethan’s older brother, and they had been in a relationship for over five years. Julian seems grateful that Merry asked about Adam, and tells the guards from Kane and Hart’s to sit down with them on the couch, inviting them all to relax.

No one moves. Merry acknowledges that Doyle and Frost won’t sit down until Ethan and the other guard, Frank, do. Julian tries again to reason with Ethan, but Ethan won’t budge, so Julian orders him to sit, and he does. This makes Merry wonder what was going on behind the scenes at Kane and Hart, as being equals, Ethan shouldn’t have to listen to an order from his partner.

They all begin taking their seats. Frost moves to go sit next to Merry, but Doyle blocks his way, telling him “Merry needs to concentrate.” and so Frost gets all pouty about this, but Merry ignores it this time. She instead catches Ethan glaring at Kitto, a look of disgust in his eyes, and she calls Ethan out for this. Ethan responds that he just doesn’t like monsters, no matter how pretty they are.

Julian took his arm off the couch and sat forward, leaning toward the other man. “Am I going to have to send you home?”
“You’re not my father … or my brother.” That last was said with a lot of heat. Did Ethan have a problem with Julian dating his brother?
Julian leaned back a little, his head to one side as though he’d just thought of something new. “We’re not going to air our private business in front of anyone, no matter how charming. But if you can’t deal with this assignment, then I’ll call Adam and the two of you can change jobs. He won’t have a problem with Meredith being here.”
“He doesn’t have a problem with a lot of things,” Ethan said, and the heat was very clearly directed toward Julian.

Uggghghghg. Shut up. Why is there SO MUCH BICKERING in these books? AND THIS WHOLE ARGUMENT is between two side characters! It’s just so annoying and tedious to read this same sort of thing chapter after chapter after chapter. JUST BECAUSE NONE OF YOUR CHARACTERS CAN GET ALONG DOES NOT MEAN YOU’RE CREATING INTERESTING AND CREATIVE TENSION IN YOUR STORIES, LKH.

A lot of the time her scenes of characters arguing feel like sitting down watching your parents, or two of your best friends argue. You know you can’t do anything to stop it, you just have to let it play out until everything is better again, but it’s SO GODDAMN UNCOMFORTABLE for anyone who has to deal with this. This is not how you make your readers excited to read your work! This happens SO OFTEN in your writings that I dread reading future novels because I KNOW I’ll have to WADE THROUGH THIS BULLSHIT time after time after time.

It was never the sex in these novels that turned me off. It was always how poorly all the characters interact with one another. Stuff like this and the last chapter do not make for interesting scenes, not at all. When I, someone who doesn’t mind reading these stories, GETS ANNOYED BY THE SLOG, you know you’re doing something wrong.

Ugh anyway Ethan continues being a bitch and he calls all the sidhe "non-humans" just as Maeve Reed enters the room, BECAUSE OF COURSE THIS HAPPENS. The chapter ends with Maeve standing in the doorway, looking less than pleased and telling Ethan that perhaps it was a mistake when she employed his agency.

Characters Introduced:

Julian Hart – one of Ethan Kane’s business partners at Kate and Hart, along with his twin brother Jordon. Wears shoes without socks. GAY GAY GAY GAY GAY.

This is another thing I hate about these books. LKH will always use awkward, cutesy spellings of names. I hate her character names. I HATE THEM. JordON? I WILL NEVER NOT PRONOUNCE THIS JORD-ON. Dude's totally got a jordon for Merry LOLOLOL fucking christ.

A Caress of Twilight - Chapters 7 and 8