Magic Burns (Kate Daniels, Book 2)
by Ilona Andrews
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Book Reviews of Magic Burns (Kate Daniels, Book 2)
Book Review: Burns is an understatement!
Summary: 5 Stars
Atlanta may be a strange and magical place, but it is nothing like it used to be. Now, Kate Daniels anticipates the ebb and flow of the magical energy that shuts down technology like a switch - everywhere. It's her job as a mercenary to clean up the mess after the magic, and now that it appears that a flare is coming - a time when the magic's energy comes more often, stronger, and somewhat unchecked - her work is cut out for her. On what is supposed to be an easy retrieval, she encounters a stray which - knowing Kate - she can't help but take in. This doesn't help her situation because it would seem that a lot of the higher magical powers converging during the flare seem to want something powerful, and Kate is quickly narrowing it down to the stray she is trying to save. Can she save the world and get a decent meal before the next magic wave hits?
As usual, Kate manages to jump into situations with both feet without knowing she's jumping in the first place. In this case, she's agreed to help the shapeshifters find their stolen maps, not realizing that in doing so she's tied their case to the young girl, Julie, whose mother is missing. Julie's mother is a witch who has disappeared into the chaos of the flare. Amidst this is a man with a crossbow who is able to disappear/reappear into the mist at will - a talent no one has ever seen before. Not knowing who he is working for, Kate assumes he is one of the bad guys and keeps going on her merry way until she realizes he is the thief. Picking and choosing her way carefully through the multitude of characters, Kate sifts through the clues and centuries of mythology and fantasy to come up with an incredible race for power and control unthought-of before now.
Awesome is the word that comes to mind when I think of this work. I wish that they would write faster. I love the byplay of the characters, the humor included in the work, and the eclectic historical references. A lot of it is quite far-fetched but within the bounds of human nature. The tortoise is great. I wish I could think of a better word, but nothing quite covers it. And the sexual tension that Kate is emitting has me gritting my teeth - definitely can't wait for the next book.
Book Review: It sucked me in and wouldn't let go; I loved every minute of this book
Summary: 5 Stars
Plot Summary: Kate has settled into her new job at the Order, when the Pack asks her to track down some stolen survey maps. She takes the job, despite her reluctance to ever see the Pack's alpha, Curran, again. While finding the maps, Kate also finds an orphaned teenage girl, whose mother was part of an amateur witch coven. The entire coven has disappeared, and Kate keeps finding clues that these wannabe witches may have opened the door to earth for something hugely powerful and not so nice.
I inhaled this book like a ravenous dog treated to a sausage. By the time I had finished, my eyes were blurry from focusing on small print for too many hours nonstop and I had a monster headache, but I have zero regrets. Since there was no way I was going to bed until I finished "Magic Burns," I must assign it my top rating. I think it's safe to say that this series has captivated me completely.
Does this mean that Andrews added a real romance to the plot? Sort of. The small sign posts Andrews had posted in book one regarding Kate and Curran have turned into big, blinking road blocks that shout, "Warning, Romance is Eminent." Maybe by the next book they'll get somewhere, but to be honest, I am in no hurry. Courtship does not come easy for characters like these, and I fully expect that hell will freeze over before Kate submits to any of Curran's alpha-driven demands. Someone is going to have to bend over backwards to make this relationship work, and I can't wait to see who it will be.
All the characters we met in "Magic Bites" are back in Kate's life, and the story moves along at a good clip since Andrews doesn't have to build everyone from scratch. This book closes with an awesome battle between the Pack and a freaking god no less, which resembles a battle scene from "Lord of the Rings" in my head. If I could have see this on the big screen, I would have been jumping up and down, throwing popcorn, and having a fabulous time. It's kind of hard to do all that while reading 200+ words a minute, but you get the idea. This story absorbed me like an amoeba eating its dinner. Go buy it now, so you can be amoeba food too.
Book Review: Crazy Magic
Summary: 5 Stars
The gigantic flares of magic that engulf Atlanta do plenty of damage. The downtown skyscrapers are piles of junk - like tinker toys that will never be right again.
For those such as Kate Daniels who have magic in their blood the flares can be invigorating or overpowering, and it's hard to know which will happen until the flare hits. The surge of magic did come in handy when fighting the demons making their way from a dark, forbidding pit onto the earth placing ordinary folks and even those not so ordinary in peril.
In Magic Burns, the second book in he Kate Daniels series Kate willingly risks her life to save that of a child who has a secret sort of magic of her own. Julie is alone in the world. Her mother has disappeared and the only other person in her life is a feckless teenage boy who leaves her in the lurch. Fortunately Kate steps in and promises Julie she will help find the missing mom. Their only clue is that Julie's mother had recently joined a coven of witches. But there is no trace of the coven. Every member has disappeared. Someone used bad magic and demons have been unleashed. It's soon apparent that Julie is their target. They appear unstoppable. Even Kate's strong magic doesn't seem to be enough.
Coming to the rescue, is Curran, pack leader of all shapeshifters, and an Alpha male of the heart-stopping hunk variety. Whenever they are together he and Kate have a continuing repartee guaranteed to irritate each other, but it is sharp, witty, funny, and part of the enjoyment of reading this book. The heat between these two can only get hotter. The story line winds and twist and fascinates every step of the way. Book three, Magic Strikes, will be published in March 2009. I can't wait.
Postscript: There are vampires in the alternate reality, but none would ever make the hero of a romance novel. Here is how Kate describes them to Julia: "Look, you have to remember that vampires are mindless like cockroaches. They are just vehicles for the Masters of the Dead. If you see a bloodsucker and ti's not ripping everyone to shred, there's an actual human being riding that vamp's mind...."
Book Review: Merc Saves an Orphan
Summary: 4 Stars
Kate is back and as before is up to her neck in problems of the magical monster variety. Magic is increasingly irratic and approaching a flare. Someone keeps stealing valuable maps from the pack of shapeshifters. A local coven of witches may have been worshiping questionable deities and unleashed more then they bargained for. And in the midst of it all Kate encounters Julie, a thirteen year old who's fallen in with bad company. Desperate to care for Julie and stop magic monsters from overruning the city, Kate sets out to solve the mystery of the deity and her misguided followers.
This book was significantly better then the first in my oppinion. Before, I really struggled to understand and like Kate as a character. In this book, a lot about her is revealed to make her far more palatable. She shows a troubled past and present loneliness. She has a good heart and a solid sense of humor. Her unshakeable moral code is admirable. I liked that she began to show real connections to the people around her--Curran, Julie, Andrea, etc. And she's strong in so many ways that it's hard not to cheer for her.
I also found the plot and mythology much more intriguing in this book. Witches, celtic gods, powerful objects--all much more to my liking then the monsters of book one. And I found it interesting that here and there the authors managed to comment about things like class, hierachy, and power. For example, there is talk about poor people volunteering to have their bodies made into vampires (mindless killing puppets) in exchange for their family being paid a marginal sum.
My complaints are mainly that both the world build and character development still seem to be dragged out. The romance reader in me can sense relationship drama coming on, and I wish it would happen sooner. I understand spanning these things over several books for sales reasons, but I'm not a fan of sequel baiting. I want each book in a series to feel complete all by itself, and this one didn't quite accomplish that.
Overall, this was a very good book and I feel much more willing to continue with the series. 4 stars.
Book Review: MAGIC BURNS is is so good it's on FIRE (bad pun, true statement)
Summary: 5 Stars
The second book in a series is incredibly important, especially when the first book was a debut novel. You pick it up wondering: was that first great book, MAGIC BITES, a one-off? Can the author sustain that kind of strong character development, dynamic tension, tight plotting, and great writing? Will these books get better and better, or will they fizzle and fall apart?
Well, I am thrilled to say that MAGIC BURNS fulfills all the promise of MAGIC BITES and more. It's fantastic.
The novel opens as Atlanta buckles down for one of the most dangerous phenomena in the post-Shift world - a flare, when the balance between tech and magic goes out of whack and magic surges through the atmosphere with frightening intensity. Past flares have always left a wake of death and destruction, and this one promises to be no different.
Protagonist Kate Daniels is trying to solve several seemingly unrelated cases: someone has been stealing precious maps from under the very sensitive noses of the shapeshifters, a street urchin calls in a favor and asks her to guard a girl with some very special powers, and a coven of poorly-trained witches have vanished into thin air. Eventually, all these subplots converge on one gigantic problem.
Kate, as a character, has only gotten better - fiercer, funnier, smarter, and kinder. Characters we met in the first book pop up again, most notably Curren the Beastmaster, Ghastek the necromancer, and Saiman the guru. Sparks fly between Kate and Curren, and a wise werehyena makes the reader wonder what Curren's intentions really are. Kate makes a new friend in Andrea, a Knight of the Order with a big secret, who I hope we see a lot more of.
The worldbuilding is stellar. Andrews has created a unique, fascinating alternate reality, and in this second book in the series she fleshes it out with mythological creatures, bodily fluids, the power of faith, and a few tantalizing hints about Kate's mysterious origins. All in all, MAGIC BURNS was an incredibly satisfying read, and I'll be waiting impatiently for the next book.