The premise: plucked from the authors' website: Atlanta would be a nice place to live, if it weren’t for magic . . .

One moment magic dominates, and cars stall and guns fail. The next, technology takes over and the defensive spells no longer protect your house from monsters. Here skyscrapers topple under onslaught of magic; werebears and werehyenas prowl through the ruined streets; and the Masters of the Dead, necromancers driven by their thirst of knowledge and wealth, pilot blood-crazed vampires with their minds.

In this world lives Kate Daniels. Kate likes her sword a little too much and has a hard time controlling her mouth. The magic in her blood makes her a target, and she spent most of her life hiding in plain sight. But when Kate’s guardian is murdered, she must choose to do nothing and remain safe or to pursue his preternatural killer. Hiding is easy, but the right choice is rarely easy . . .

My Rating

Give It Away: close to worth the cash, but I've been told the second book is better, so maybe I was predisposed to read with caution. And don't worry, I'm reading the second book whenever I get my hands on it. Despite some of the odd plot problems and some confusion on my part regarding the world-building (and a heroine who needs lessons from Miss Manners), I was entertained by the story, which moved at such a fast pace that I pretty much finished the book in 24 hours. One note of warning to potential readers is that this urban fantasy is more dark fantasy than not, and if you're more in the paranormal romance camp, you'll probably want to stay away from this one, because it is NOT paranormal romance, and has more horror than you may care for. It didn't bother me, but after reading some reviews on Amazon, I learned it bothered others. The world-building is pretty solid and original, and I hope later books get into it more. There's a lot of promise here, so I'll be happy to read the second.

Review style: As far as plot goes, it's a rather simple story and for that matter, a short book. Spoilers are inevitable for this one, so if those bother you, then there's no need to click the link to my LJ below. But if you've already read it and/or spoilers don't bother you, then swing on by! As always, comments and discussion are most welcome. :)

REVIEW: Ilona Andrews's MAGIC BITES

Happy Reading! :) ( )

This book is an interesting futuristic urban fantasy. However there are quite a few loose ends and things left unexplained, so hopefully the next book in the series will help fill in the blanks. ( )

Kate Daniels is a mercenary in the magically fluctuating city of Atlanta. When she learns her guardian and closest thing to a family has been murdered while performing an investigation Kate takes it upon herself to find out why and exact a bit of revenge. Her path leads her to both vampire puppeteers and the shape shifter king, Curran, and into the ongoing conflict between them.

This story, for all that it really isn't that long, took a long time to get started. With urban fantasy I understand the need to lay history and introduce characters but it really dragged for me. The idea of a world in which the magic comes and goes unexpectedly and people have learned to live with it by having two sets of everything from lights to cars, is interesting. It is just in this case the interesting bits along with all the character introductions at the same time were too much and too dragged out. The characters were enjoyable and I liked them, particularly Curran and Derek. The lead seems to be the stereotypical urban fantasy heroine, a tough girl who is critical of her own looks (despite the fact all the guys want her), goes around fighting and is abrasive to everyone around her. Kate's saving grace (IMHO) is that she does make mistakes and is able to drum up a bit of humility as a result. Once we got about two-thirds of the way through the story did get much better and I actually enjoyed the last couple chapters enough to toss around the idea of picking up the sequel.

Generally this was a fairly midline urban fantasy with some interesting plot points and well thought out characters that got much more interesting as it went along. If I hadn't read so many of these before, I'd probably have liked it a bit better. ( )

This one got off to a slow start and I did keep putting it back down for a while, but after a few stops and starts I finally settled into the book. One criticism is the oblique references to Kate's own blood and no explanations of why it's so important, although you will get some suspicions nearer to the end of the novel. The blood issue is something, I'm guessing, the autor is building up to in the next book (or three).
Overall not a bad opening book, if you can stick with it beyond the first couple of chapters. Once it gets going, it's a good read. ( )

Cool new series featuring a mercenary in a futuristic Atlanta overrun by magic. ( )