The Prestige by Christopher Priest

In 1878, two young magicians clash in the dark during the course of a fraudulent séance. From this moment on, their lives become webs of deceit and revelation. They continually vie to outwit and expose each other.

This rivalry will take them to the peaks of their careers -- with terrible consequences. In the course of pursuing each other's ruin, they will deploy all the deception the magician's craft can command -- the highest misdirection and darkest science.

Blood will be spilled, but even this will not be enough. In the end, their legacy will pass on for generations...to descendants who must, for sanity's sake, untangle the puzzle left to them.

The Prestige (1995)
World Fantasy Award Winner
Tor trade paperback
cover engraving by Giovanni Battista Bracceli
360 pages
my rating : 9/10

A Kiss of Shadows by Laurell K. Hamilton

My name is Meredith Gentry, but of course it's not my real name. I dare not even whisper my true name after dark for fear that one hushed word will travel over the night winds to the soft ear of my aunt, the Queen of the Air and Darkness. She wants me dead. I don't even know why.

I fled the high court of Faerie three years ago, and have been hiding ever since. I ran as far as the land would take me, stopped only by the shore of the Pacific Ocean and the fact that if I'd used my passport the Bureau of Human and Fey Affairs would have been notified, and they would have told my relatives. And my relatives would have killed me. As Merry Gentry, I am a private investigator for the Grey Detective Agency: Supernatural Problems, Magical Solutions. My magical skills, which are scorned at the courts of Faerie, are valued in the human world. Even by human standards, my magic isn't flashy. Fine by me: Flashy attracts too much attention, and I can't afford that. Sightings of the Princess Meredith are now more popular than Elvis sightings.

Rumor has it that I'm dead. Not quite. I am Princess Meredith NicEssus, and if you read that name after dark, you will call down a knock upon your door from a hand that can kill you with a touch. I have been so careful, but not careful enough. The shadows have found me, and they are going to take me back home, one way or another.

The running is over. The fighting has just begun...

A Kiss of Shadows (2000)
Meredith (Merry) Gentry book 1
Ballantine Books hardcover
435 pages
my rating : 5/10