Reviews - Gunmetal Magic | The StoryGraph

594 reviews for:

This was my first read by Ilona Andrews that didn't feature Kate Daniels as the main character. I wasn't sure what to expect as I had felt somewhat ambivalent towards this main character, Andrea Nash, in her previous appearances in the novels.

I was pleasantly surprised. Andrea is much different than Kate. While she's a strong and flawed character like Kate, she isn't a carbon copy with names and details shifted about. I was reallly impressed with how a change in perspective, in the same world and with the same characters, was done so well. Everything felt a little different reading from Andrea's perspective and it added to how realized this story world is.

The storyline was as good as any other in the series and when I finished the book I found myself hoping that Ilona Andrews would write more of Andrea's story.

lili_darknight's review against another edition

5.0

Na túto knihu som pri poslednom re-readingu akosi zabudla. O to viac som si jej čítanie teraz užila. Stále zastávam názor, že Andrea v úlohe rozprávačky sa mi zdala miestami až podozrivo podobná Kate, ale inak jej nemám veľmi čo vyčítať. Možno len to, že som jej fialovo-kobercové umelecké dielo nemohla vidieť aj naživo.
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4,5
Už som zabudla, akí sú Rafael a Andrea zábavní a podarení :D

arij's review against another edition

3.5 stars

reader44ever's review against another edition

4.0

Second read-through, November 1-6, 2016
I might have some additional thoughts to share, but later. For the time being, my review from after my first reading should suffice nicely:

Review after first read-through, September 6-7, 2015:
It's a real credit to [a:Ilona Andrews|21748|Ilona Andrews|https://d.gr-assets.com/authors/1219436898p2/21748.jpg] that their books and stories seem very different depending on who is narrating them. Kate's books seem to have me smiling at random moments and probably at intended-for-smiles moments. Andrea's books and stories, not so much. Andrea's short, "Magic Mourns," was really wonderful (partly because Raphael was so very wonderful). But I struggled with her narration for this longer book.

Ironically, Kate - in one of her rare appearances in this story, and thank God and IA for them - nailed what I didn't like about this book on the head, though I didn't realize it at the time. On page 236, in Chapter 12, we have this exchange between Kate and Andrea about Raphael:

Kate leaned toward me. "When I was little, Voron took me to Latin America. TV still ran regular programming back then, and they had this really dramatic love story on during the week. It was full of very pretty people..."
I pointed my fork at her. "Are you implying that our relationship is like a Spanish soap opera?"
"I'm not implying. I'm saying it."

And that's it, exactly. This book reads like a soap opera - and not just the scenes with Raphael, either. Some of the "scenes" were rather long, so it took me awhile to realize this, but eventually (around about Chapter 13 or 14) I realized it. Perhaps Kate's earlier comment put the gem of this idea into my head, but once I realized how right she was...Well. I never liked soap operas on television.

There was plenty of action - even good action, great action, fascinating action! - in this story, but Andrea is not Kate. I think her narration was drier? Whatever it was, it just wasn't as enjoyable for me as Kate's stories are.

I LOVED the "Magic Gifts" novella at the end of this book. And I was very relieved to find out that it took up a nice chunk of the latter part of the book. By that point, I was very worried that Andrea's story was going to somehow drag on. Instead, it ended where it should have and we were gifted with a Kate-narrated novella. :-)

I do wish that I had read the novella before I read [b:Gunmetal Magic|13050840|Gunmetal Magic (Kate Daniels, #5.5)|Ilona Andrews|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1331230653s/13050840.jpg|17264774]. The two stories were happening in Kate's world simultaneously, but I think I might have enjoyed Andrea's narration better if I had known going in where Kate was in her side of things when she popped in.

Gunmetal Magic introduces us to new-to-Kate's-world mythologies and monsters. (So does "Magic Gifts.") In GM the main "big bad" is part of

Egyptian magic and beliefs (an Anubis-type "god" that I was a bit confused about - was he really Anubis? - and Apep, a snake god of the river. As if the "gods" weren't enough, Apep has venomous snake people for followers. We also meet a Viking undead, who also appears in the novella, as does a dwarf (technically, he's a dvergr). :-)

Mostly what I loved about Gunmetal Magic was the fact that Andrea finally

accepts and is comfortable with her beastkin self. And boy howdy, when she decides to accept it, she doesn't hold anything back. :-)

It was also really nice to see her

and Raphael work through their issues and become mates again. And I loved that she not only joined the Pack and the Bouda Clan, but that she became beta to Aunt B.

Kate's few appearances, sometimes with Curran, were pretty great, too. :-)

We also got to see more of Ascanio, always a fun prospect. ;-)

So in sum, I really liked Andrea's book, but it pales when compared to Kate's stories. I give it four stars, for very good/really liked.

The novella, "Magic Gifts"? I give it five stars. Perhaps part of its amazing-ness was simply that I was so very relieved to have Kate narrating again, but then, I love Kate so I tend to really (really) love her stories. ;-)

book_grinch's review against another edition

4.0

3,5
I liked it. I just didn't like it as much as i liked the other stories of the Kate Daniels series.
I like Andrea. I won't say that i like her more than Kate. Because they're different characters, and to which one their strenghts, and then, there are some storylines which i prefer above others. Unfortunately, this wasn't one of them. That is my main problem with this story, i just wasn't all that interested in it.

I like the characters, but the storyline wasn't a favorite...
Well maybe, i can just blame it on the snakes....way too much snakes, for my tastes!! :)

And then on the "romance department" i still prefer Kate and Curran "sitting on a tree", to quote Andrea, to this one and Raphael.

I like the way Andrea's strenghts and frailties are portrayed in this story. One would never know how much the past still haunts her...
Even though she started her life as a victim, through the years, with all the choices she made, she has made everything in her reach to never be one again. She's loyal to those she considers her family, and friends. She loves guns, she REALLY, loves guns _ lol _ and then there's Raphael. Her estranged mate.

The scenes where this two bicker and banter away, were amongst my favorites. But then, after a while i just felt like saying: Get on with it!
I think i would have liked reading a few chapters in Raphael pov. That would have helped me connect a little more with this character.

As always, with Ilona Andrews team, the secondary characters are as "grand" as the leading ones. And this one wasn't an exception. The scenes where Roman the black vohlv, appear were also amongst my favorites. So i will have to say that i'm looking forward in "seeing" him again in the "Kate Daniels" world.

errantdreams's review against another edition

5.0

Gunmetal Magic is a great close-up look at the Bouda. All of the Bouda seem to have a spark of insanity, and frankly with that added to the eerie hyena cackles I’d be more afraid to be chased by a Bouda than by a werewolf. Andrews does a fantastic job of portraying this. So far, Andrea hasn’t joined with the Bouda clan because she’s beastkin–her father was a hyena before he became a shape-shifter rather than the other way around. Shape-shifters traditionally kill beastkin. The local weres tend to be a bit more enlightened than average, but Andrea has additional reasons for fearing and hating other Bouda, reasons that are rooted deep in her childhood.

I love getting to see and hear everything through Andrea’s eyes, and she definitely has that little spark of insanity that is so much fun in Andrews’s novels. We do get to see a bit of Kate and Curran, but this is really Andrea’s story. I found it easy to identify with Andrea as a character and to get pulled into her story. There’s plenty of tension and danger, and I couldn’t wait to find out what happened. We also find out a bit more about how ‘gods’ work in this world of magic vs. technology.

Magic Gifts: At the end of Gunmetal Magic, there’s a novella in which Kate is the main character. A child is slowly dying due to a magical device that Kate and the shape-shifters can’t remove without killing him. They’ll end up having to chat with nearly every mythological badass they can find to follow the device back to its creator. If anything, I got even more wrapped up in this novella than I did in the rest of the book, which is definitely saying something. I can’t go into much detail because it’s relatively short, but I can say that I found it engrossing and tension-building and could not set it down until I’d finished.

I believe anyone who enjoys Ilona Andrews’s Kate Daniels novels will love Gunmetal Magic.

For a longer review including a couple of fun quotes, join me at my site: http://www.errantdreams.com/2015/03/review-gunmetal-magic-ilona-andrews/

julie_kcwbc's review against another edition

5.0

There is something that always appeals to me about reading a series from another point of view. This story especially appealed since Andrea is one of my favorite character in the Kate Daniels Series. When I started Magic Rises, something was missing. I knew there had to be a short story that would fill in the gaps so I quickly checked Goodreads, found out about this entire book, and visited Barnes and Noble to pick this up.

Basically, Andrea has become an investigator alongside Kate and we follow her as she tackles a new case. She goes at it at a different angle than Kate would which was a nice change of pace for me in the middle of this series. While I adore Kate, I like Andrea's police/military training and how she approached this situation. Andrews had established Andrea as a strong character before, but I loved having a whole book to see her in action. It was also very interesting to get her story from her own point of view. Her backstory isn't something that would be easy to share so getting it in her own words seemed right.

We get even more background, characters and monsters in this story. I loved it. It's a fantastic add on to this series. The romantic elements are important to the series and help explain a few things in the next books. However, it doesn't dominate the story. There are plenty of other threads in this story. It's obviously the authors don't enjoy writing the sexy scenes, but I've known that for several books. I didn't expect it to change in this one.

Overall, I really enjoyed this book, but I am anxious to get back to Kate and Curran.