Magic Burns by Ilona Andrews

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Continuing the readalong of the Kate Daniels series by Ilona Andrews, the next book I read was Magic Burns. This is book two in the series. The readalong is being hosted by Stef, Heather and Megan. This is one of their longer running series, so they are doing a readalong focusing on a couple books a month. This Friday is the live show. [I'll link once it's up] I was also able to apply this read to the author duo prompt for Fall in Love!

We pick up shortly after Magic Bites left off. Kate is now the go between the Mercenary Guild and Order of Merciful Aid. There's a magic flare coming that heightens magic. It occurs about once every seven years. It seems a god is trying to manifest during this time, taking out the city of Atlanta. Kate teams up with the Pack once again, but also finds allies in the vampires and Oracles.

There's a lot that goes on in Urban Fantasies, so I feel like my summaries are kind of short. I don't want to go into too much detail and spoil anything, but at the same time there's just so much that happens if I touch on all the main points it'd be longer than my review. This was such a fun book, but I did feel it was a little perpendicular to Magic Bites. While I gave that 5-stars, I like my long running urban fantasies to kick it up a little bit each book and I just didn't get as much as I wanted to move the overall plot along (we know it's there, we just aren't dealing with it directly at the moment). I also loved getting to see more of the Pack. Now I am spoiled a little bit and know that Curran and Kate eventually get together (and apparently it really starts heating up in the next book). 

Another thing I knew was coming was that Kate has a daughter. I was pretty sure Julie, whom Kate saves in this book, was her when we first met her, but I double-checked after the book to see what her name is. It is Julie, so I think this is her. I know that the Kate Daniels spin-off that started earlier this year focuses on her. 

I loved expanding the world and our understanding of how things work. We also get a plethora of new side characters and learn more about the ones already established. It's so magnificently done and Ilona Andrews writing just really draws you in. I think what I didn't like about this book was the big bad storyline was a little convoluted this time and it took longer than I wanted for Kate to figure out what was going on. I just wish that we reached that point a little earlier and then had a little more time after the big battle with everyone. I know that there's a lot more books to come, but I'm sure we're going to jump right in to the next big issue pretty quickly in the next book (as these types of books do) and I wanted a little bit more breathing time for our characters. There is a mention of several months passing and Julie finally finding a school to go to, but it was all so quick it didn't feel like any time actually passed. It just would've been nice to actually breathe along with the characters.

I'm super enjoying my time reading Kate Daniels and can't wait for the live Friday to discuss with everyone. I have one more novella and some shorts to read, but we have time! Also there are some free shorts that are scenes from Curran's POV. There's a bind up of the first nine for free on Ilona Andrew's website. The plan for this month is to discuss the first two books, the prequel novella and corresponding POVs. Also, I'll be doing a review of all three POVs that correspond to this month's books. Since they are so short I'll be combining them. I'm so excited for next month's books as well, but I'll go over those on my last review for this month's selection.

Have you read Magic Burns?

Bookishly Yours,

Stasi🍎

STATISTICS: Magic Burns, Ilona Andrews, 4-stars, 1 day, eBook, 261 pages, published in 2008