Guest Review: Magic Bites by Ilona Andrews

Posted September 16, 2014 by Whitley B in Reviews | 0 Comments

Publisher: Ace, Jove, PenguinGenres: Urban Fantasy

Magic BitesWhitley’s review of Magic Bites (Kate Daniels #1) by Ilona Andrews

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 a series of 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 realizes she’s way out of her league—but she wouldn’t have it any other way…

I’ve been hearing about this series for ages and I have no idea why it took me so long to get around to reading it. It’s a solid, entertaining start to a series. The only complaint I could possibly make (and even that’s just personal preference) is that it’s…rather perfectly typical of the genre. It does all the common themes and tropes of paranormal romance practically perfectly, but then again, there’s no deviation from the common themes and tropes. For me, I found that a bit dull. For others? Well, it may very well be the perfect cherry on top.

I really liked the setting of this book. The varying periods of “magic” and “technology” interplayed well together, and I enjoyed the adaptations that humans devised for it. I usually dislike the idea that magic and electricity are antithetical to each other (I have my reading-between-the-lines reasons) but in this case it was done with enough thought and purpose and flair that I found myself pulled along quite happily. There were plenty of fun little details in the world to keep me entertained, but even better, they had enough big-picture context to make sense and work together to make a rich whole. Too often I see books where the fun details are all you get, but this book sidesteps that trap nicely.

The characters and plot, as I said, are pretty staunchly stereotypical. Kate as the cynical, snarky badass, vampires as vaguely metrosexual deviants, shapeshifters as butch and territorial, etc. While there’s really nothing new in here, there’s also a distinct lack of anything bad. It’s so easy to turn vampires necromancers and werewolves lions into caricatures of the different personality types, to the point of being insulting in one case and abusive in the other, but this book took a nicely toned-down approach to both and managed to make me (me, if you know me, this is a big statement) actually enjoy a macho-aggressive werewolf lion character.

Overall I think the book was more promising than it was knock-your-socks-off. There was a subdued, typical feel to it that I think is to due to its position as “first in a series” than anything else. So much time was given over to establishing things that we don’t really dive into any of the characters, and Kate suffers most from this lack. On the other hand, there’s potential for all sorts of shenanigans and nothing bad in this book that will prevent me from enjoying said shenanigans, so I’d still count that a win.

Rating: 4 out of 5

This title is available from Ace Books.  You can purchase it here or here in e-format.


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