Review: Magic Bites by Ilona Andrews

Happy New Year!!!!! Wow, its 2011 which means soon its  year 12 for me!! I can’t say I’m excited, since I have an avalanche of homework, which is the reason I haven’t posted anything for a while. A week of nothing but homework and I still have heaps more to go. If this is just the holiday homework for year 12 I shudder to think what actual year 12 is going to be like, it almost makes me want to cry. I have to work extra hard this year which meant it wasn’t the best idea to start a blog……  oh well, so how was your Christmas?

Mine was nice, we couldn’t visit relatives since the train was booked so we stayed home and my mum cooked. She’s Thai so she didn’t know how to cook the traditional Christmas food, so instead we had roast duck, marinated pork, and pork bread with cucumber dressing, chips and a tiramisu cake. Not the most conventional Christmas but really what counts as conventional? The main thing is that my family was with me, that was the best part. For Christmas I got the new iPod touch, I had to pay for some of it so I am terribly in debt, which means no buying books for a long while.

Lately I’ve been re-reading old books and the Percy Jackson series, but I have read a few ones that are new to me. I’ve started reading the Kate Daniels series by Ilona Andrews and I love them! I read the first three and am anxiously awaiting the fourth from the library. So here is my second review of the first in this series, Magic Bites.

Review: Magic Bites by Ilona Andrews

Atlanta would be a nice place to live if it weren’t for the magic….  When the magic is up, rogue mages cast their spells and monsters appear, while guns refuse to fire and cars fail to start.  But then technology returns, and the magic recedes as unpredictably as it arose, leaving all kinds of paranormal problems in its wake.
Kate Daniels is a down-on-her-luck mercenary who makes her living cleaning up these magical problems.  But when Kate’s guardian is murdered, her quest for justice draws her into a power struggle between two strong factions within Atlanta’s magic circles.
The Masters of the Dead, necromancers who can control vampires, and the Pack, a paramilitary clan of shapechangers, blame each other for the bizarre killings – and the death of Kate’s guardian may be part of the same mystery.  Pressured by both sides to find the killer, Kate realises she’s way out of her league – but she wouldn’t have it any other way.

Magic Bites is the first novel of the Kate Daniels series written by both Ilona and Gordon Andrews who go under the pen name of Ilona Andrews. It is set in modern Atlanta, but not the one we know, the city experiences magic waves and flares that eats away at buildings and is at war with technology, and is home to vampires, magic users and shapechangers (oh my). Kate is a mercenary who cleans up problems caused by magic, she works alone and shuns all relationships, but when her guardian Greg is murdered and she is assigned to find who killed him she is unintentionally sucked into a potential war between the vampires and shapechangers. 

I love this type of book, for those of you who like the Mercy Thompson series by Patricia Briggs you will adore this series.

 Kate is tough, sarcastic character who jumps head first and thinks later. Because of her hidden powers she decides that caring about people would be a weakness so she has minimal contact with others, but ends up creating really strong friendships despite herself. Derek, or as she sometimes refers to him as her teenage werewolf sidekick is thrust upon her as a guard but becomes genuinely fond of her and she in turn feels protective of him. 

 Now for Curran *sigh*, Curran is now officially my new book crush. Curran is a shapechanger that shifts into a Lion and is the Beast Lord of Atlanta, meaning he is responsible for all the shapechangers in Atlanta and that they all answer to him. When a problem arises in the pack that they can’t solve without help he reluctantly calls for Kate. Their first meeting results in Kate both insulting him and challenging him which really shows the type of relationship they have. They have a heated not really romantic friendship with both trying to be the dominant one. They have this back and forth snappy dialogue that makes me smile every time I read a scene between them. I love those kinds of relationships in books. 

The plot is really interesting, both vampires and shapechangers have been turning up dead, Greg, Kate’s guardian was investigating them when he died and that’s how Kate gets involved. It’s really fast paced with more action than you could throw a stick at (though why you would want to throw a stick at it is beyond me, that expression always puzzles me). Mysterious, action packed with a hint of romance, this book is awesome! I can’t wait to read more of Ilona’s books. 

Second review finished! As always constructive criticism is welcome though not as much as comments which I love to read and respond to. Does anyone know of books that are similar to this and the Mercy Thompson series? I have a sudden craving for action packed books and would love to receive some recommendations. Hope you all have a great year.