Kate Daniels is a mercenary of the magical kind. She cleans up the messes other people make when they play with magic. A lot can and does go wrong when technology fails and the magic surges. Kate finds this out very soon when her guardian, a powerful mage, is brutally killed and she begins to investigate. Soon Kate is caught between the wills of the necromancers and the Pack and discovers a few mysterious disappearances that just might be related to her investigation troubles.
There’s no denying that there are a plethora of books that tell stories about vampires and werewolves and the other various mystical and magical creatures that generally hitch a ride in these stories. The key for me to reading these books is finding an author who gives these paranormal creatures their own twist. Andrews has succeeded by creating an almost post-apocalyptic Atlanta. The names of streets and buildings are the same, and yet the descriptions reveal the changes that have been wrought on the city as magic and technology battle for dominance. Vampires are not the seductive and dangerous beings created by Anne Rice but rather hybrids of bat and gargoyle that are controlled by a necromantic group called the Masters of the Dead. Even the shapechangers (werewolf, rat, bear, etc.) are unique, since they have banded together and formed a paramilitary like group that is battling for dominance with the vampires in a city that still faintly resembles the Atlanta we know. Finally, there is no doubting Kate’s power, but this reader continues to wonder where it came from and why Kate has so many secrets about its origins.
Give Magic Bites a try if you like stories of vampires, shapechangers, and magic but need a new take. Andrews won’t disappoint as her world is fresh and exciting even as it illuminates its edgy, dark underbelly.
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[...] source for short reviews about a wide variety of good reads or films. In fact they just reviewed a book in the series I finished by Iliona Andrews just before this most recent book that I plan to go over here!). As [...]
[...] Ilona Andrews on my blog post for Jeaniene Frost’s Halfway to the Grave. We had reviewed Magic Bites a few years ago, so I picked up On The Edge (the first of the “The Edge” series). [...]