A review by rouver
Magic Bites by Ilona Andrews

4.0

A solid supernatural book w/ a strong female protagonist that doesn't get all hot & heavy w/ the romance. Just the kind of book I enjoy.

Ilona & Gordon drop you right into the middle of Kate's story & slowly parse out details as they go along. Normally, that's ok, but Kate has suffered the sudden loss of her godfather/guardian, and since we don't know anything about him, I didn't really care. While we learn more about him & their relationship, it doesn't appear that it was an especially deep one, so I never got emotionally invested in the loss...and since it's the Big Event that triggers the entire book, I feel like maybe I should have. It didn't break the book, but it left a hollow space that was a missed opportunity.

Katie is a merc, who, as previously mentioned, just lost the last member of her 'family.' She lives in an alternative earth where tech was TECH'ED SO HARD that magic came back. It comes in waves. When magic is present, tech (mostly) doesn't work. ...meaning that....skyscrapers crumble? (this didn't make much sense, honestly. Magic 'eats' big buildings or something?) and then when magic wanes, "tech" (cars, guns, electricity) works again. I'm just not going to think about it too much.....

Her guardian worked for the local equivalent of Magic Police Department (that's not *quite* accurate, but it's close enough.), so after his death, she agrees to work for them and assist in helping solve his murder. She was wary of working for them on a permanent basis because of her BIG SECRET that requires her to keep a low profile (we don't really find out what that is, in this first book). As part of her investigation, she has to work with the local vampires and were-animals....both of whom have had members go missing and are blaming the other for her guardian's death.

Spoiler of course it was neither of them, but some weird undead creature that will have sex with anything & makes all these gross animal/human hybrids w/ low intelligence. To create a truly sentient offspring it must mate w/ someone w/ a lot of magic mojo...which of course would be Kate.


It was a solid first book & I'm looking forward to reading the next.

The one thing that I hated was the 'bonus' short story from the POV of the werecreature's leader. It was written by Gordon & I have to say...it is an EXCELLENT thing that he has a writing partner. I just hated how overly misogynistic & arrogant it was. If the entire book was written like this, I don't think I would have finished it.