Magic Dreams by Kate Daniels

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The next novella for the Kate Daniels series by Ilona Andrews is Magic Dreams. This is listed as 4.5 and was also included in the Hexed anthology. I read this as part of the Kate Daniels readalong hosted by Stef, Heather and Megan. I also was able to use this for the prompt orange on the cover for Fall In Love. It also covered the Bang in the Night Bingo prompts howlin' for you, who you gonna call?, I put a spell on you and CSI: crime scene investigation. I also read this during the Paranormal Romance Readathon and used it to cover the prompts part of a series, fated mates, ghost, novella and shifters.

For this novella we get a shift in perspective again. This time we get the POV of Dali. She's a blind, clumsy, vegetarian white tiger shifter. She's been crushing on Jim, the alpha of clan Cat. She arrives home after racing and finds Jim asleep on the floor of her bedroom. He's investigating some shifters that went missing and ended up getting dragged into it as well. It's up to Dali to use her magic to save Jim.

This was so fun! I loved seeing Jim loosen up a bit and not his stone-face that he uses with Kate. I also really enjoy Dali and how unique she is. We once again get to see more mythos incorporated into the world. Dali is Indonesian and the ghost then end up fighting is a Yokai, from Japanese culture. I loved getting to see more of the Asian mythos and had such a fun time. At the end we also see Dali end up rescuing someone that has something to do with Dragons. I'm sure he's not just a throwaway character, but I want him to show up again. Plus, is he a dragon shifter or does he just have dragon magic? I need to know. I can't wait!

This was such a fun and sweet novella. We get to see Dali and Jim finally admit their feelings for each other and start building a romantic relationship. I am 100% a cat person and love seeing cat shifters. Yes Curran is a great hero and is a primordial cat shifter, but there's something very alluring about Jim to me. I can't wait to see if future novellas are from Dali and Jim's POV and hope to see their relationship progress in the background. These novellas are so great for giving me the craving for more in this world, but also not getting into the heaviness that Kate deals with. So good!

Have you read Magic Dreams?

Bookishly Yours,

Stasi🍎

STATISTICS: Magic Dreams, Ilona Andrews, 4-stars, 0 days, eBook, 86 pages, published in 2011

Curran POV Collection by Gordon Andrews - Part 2

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The final bit of reading for the Kate Daniels readalong for October is the associated Curran POVs. There are ten total and the first nine are available in a collection that's free on their website. The POVs are written by Gordon Andrews, one-half of the husband and wife writing duo Ilona Andrews. I previously read the first three, but the six remaining in this collection all correspond to this month's reads. The readalong is hosted by the lovely Stef, Heather and Megan. I was able to apply this collection to the prompt cover without people for Fall In Love. This also covered the howlin' for you, #squadgoals, black cover and CSI: crime scene investigation prompts for Bang in the Night Bingo. This also covered the prompts part of a series, fated mates, novella, indie published, shifters and black cover for the Paranormal Romance Readathon.

Once again, we are going to do quickfire reviews for the different shorts. This is going to be part two of the POV collection. Now we are going to go over the ones that fit in with Magic Strikes and Magic Bleeds. Let's get to it!

The fourth story in the collection is Midnight Games. This is a little bit of a mash up of scenes from Curran's POV throughout the Midnight Games portion of Magic Strikes. We start with him trapped in the loup cage and when he forces his way into the team that's going to fight. This was super cute to see, especially with his interactions with Julie.

The fifth part is Hot Tub. This POV, oh boy was it good. This is one of my favorites and we get to see Curran's thoughts and reactions to Kate when they are in the hot tub at the Midnight Games. They do end up kissing and seeing Curran really fight against pushing Kate for more and to open up was such a great perspective.

The sixth part is called Kate's Origin. This is set between Magic Strikes and Magic Bleeds I don't really know how to feel about this. We see a meeting with Jim and Curran. He's compiled a file on Kate and we see them both discuss Kate and her parentage and how she was raised. It was fun seeing parts that Kate hasn't talked about before too much, like the gladiator fights throughout South America. I did wish that this happened after Kate and Curran opened up to each other. It also made me a little frustrated with Curran and Jim and how they treated her later.

The seventh story, Naked Dinner, also takes place between Magic Strikes and Magic Bleeds. In Magic Strikes Kate's big mouth gets away from her and she challenges Curran. If he finds her within three days, she owes him a naked dinner. This is the longest of the stories in this collection. We see Curran dealing with the murder of a shifter and dealing with the Pack. He ends up getting injured and misses the dinner. I can't remember 100%, but we either see Kate's POV here or in the epilogue of Magic Strikes. I mentioned this in my review of Magic Bleeds, but this is one short story that I think should be read before. Timeline wise it's set before, but I feel like knowing this story helped me not get as angry with Curran during that book.

The eighth story was Conclave. This takes place during Magic Bleeds when Saiman and Kate go on the agreed "date." This is a super quick and short story that shows his thoughts when he gets to the restaurant for the meeting with the People. I do wish it was a little bit longer so we could see parts of the meeting with the People and his thoughts before he chases Kate and Saiman.

The last story in this collection is Awake. This takes place at the end of Magic Bleeds when Curran wakes up from his coma. We get to see him reprimand the alpha shifters for constantly challenging Kate. This was a sweet story and good way to wrap up the collection.

The Curran POV "series" has one more story, but that is the Prequel to Magic Shifts, the 8th book in the Kate Daniels series. I really enjoyed reading these stories and getting more insight to both Curran and Pack. I'm really excited to see more of our shifter characters. This was such a great option to do for a bind-up of the stories they've released on their website. I love little additional things like this that authors do, especially when it's a fantasy or there's a lot of world building.

Have you read the Curran POV Collection?

Bookishly Yours,

Stasi🍎

STATISTICS: Curran POV Collection, Gordon Andrews, 4-stars, 0 days, eBook, 157 pages, published in 2013

Magic Bleeds by Ilona Andrews

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The fourth book in Ilona Andrew's Kate Daniels series is Magic Bleeds. I am reading this series, finally, thanks to the lovely Stef, Heather and Megan. They are hosting a readalong with a couple books and/or novellas discussed a month. I was also able to use this for the Bang in the Night Bingo covering the prompts howlin' for you, I put a spell on you, #squadgoals, a shocking twist! and CSI: crime scene investigation. Magic Bleeds also covers the prompt published before 2021 for Fall In Love. I also read this during the Paranormal Romance Readathon and it covered the prompts part of a series, fated mates and shifters.

Kate gets called to a new case at a bar. When she arrives she finds someone being eaten alive by a disease and immediately works to block the magical contaminant. There's someone new in town that has power over diseases and Kate needs to step up. They also seem to have the power to cause shifters to go wild. Kate goes about trying to solve the case while avoiding the Pack. Not only does she not want to see those she's gotten close to go wild, but she's been avoiding Beast Lord Curran.

First off, I highly recommend reading the parts of Curran POV before reading this book. It gets laid out pretty well, but I really recommend it. There are several stories that cover both scenes in Magic Strikes as well as a couple short stories that are between Magic Strikes and Magic Bleeds. I ended up reading it this way because I wanted to read more Kate Daniels, but it was already late. I decided to see which stories from Curran POV I was able to get to so far.

I really enjoyed this book. We finally get to see Kate and Curran break the tension and get steamy! We get a little bit of Saiman, but I did want more. The way that the series is evolving is really well done. I love that we get more Derek and Jim, although I wanted more. We also see Andrea, but she kind of disappears at the end. I did get a little frustrated with both Curran and Kate. They both were so wrapped up in their feels and weren't thinking of the other so much. It helped before going into this that I had read about the misunderstanding, otherwise I think I would've been more frustrated with Curran. While they kind of work things out, I wanted there to be more realization from Curran of how deeply he hurt Kate. However, as I keep saying, this is an Urban Fantasy with romance. If the romance isn't quite perfect, okay. Just with the fact that he's alpha and wanting to care for Kate didn't quite fit with him not realizing she was hurting emotionally.

I'm super excited to continue the series and can't wait for more. I mentioned this in my Paranormal Romance Readathon wrap up, but I'm not sure if I can wait until next month to pick up the next assigned reads. I though about picking up one of their other series but I don't want to be jumping around too much. I know that they should differ enough I wouldn't get the worlds mixed up, but I think I'll just hold on. I'm certainly going to continue to read their books though. I really need to get caught up on the Hidden Legacy series as well. Maybe that'll be my next plan for Ilona Andrews before the next book comes out, hopefully next year!

Have you read Magic Bleeds?

Bookishly Yours,

Stasi🍎

STATISTICS: Magic Bleeds, Ilona Andrews, 5-stars, 2 days, eBook, 349 pages, published in 2010

Paranormal Romance Readathon Wrap Up

 Happy Monday!

I hope you enjoyed the first full week of October! Now, before we get too much into my wrap up I do have a little announcement. I mentioned it before, but for the time being I am going to be switching to three days a week. My reading is really slowing down here lately. There may be more posts added from time to time, but I will at least have posts Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays moving forward. On to the wrap up!

This past weekend was the Paranormal Romance Readathon! It was hosted by Jess, Lacey and Lisa. I didn't get too much time to read, but I was able to reach my goal of 3 books. Granted 2 were on the shorter side. I also wanted to branch out, but I ended up just reading more Kate Daniels as you'll see below. I was pretty busy this weekend, but my mood has been a little off lately. The only thing I wanted to read was Kate Daniels, so that's what I did. Below is my completed bingo board. I'll link to my reviews once they are posted!

1. Magic Bleeds by Ilona Andrews - Covered the prompts series, fated mates and shifters

2. Curran POV by Gordon Andrews - Covered the prompts series, fated mates, novella, indie published, shifters and black cover

3. Magic Dreams by Ilona Andrews - Covered the prompts series, fated mates, ghost, novella and shifters

I am so happy to be reading more of Kate Daniels and don't know if I can wait until next month to continue the series. I do need to try to tamp down on some of the books for the Fall in Love and Bang in the Night Bingo challenges, but we'll see what happens. Hopefully next year it'll run a little longer and I can get more varied reads in!

Did you participate in the Paranormal Romance Readathon?

Bookishly Yours,

Stasi🍎

Paranormal Romance Readathon

Update: Wrap Up is posted!

The Paranormal Romance Readathon is back! It's hosted by the lovely ladies that also do the Historical Romance Readathon, Jess, Lisa and Lacey! I participated in this readathon last year and really enjoyed it. This year they are following suit with the Love in the Night Readathon and hosting for just a weekend as well. It'll be next weekend, October 8th-10th. There is a mini bingo board (below). I actually have plans that weekend on Saturday and Sunday morning, so I might start it early on Thursday and maybe run through Monday. It all depends on if the plans come to fruition (family is potentially coming in from out of state).

Since it's a smaller board and novella is the center, I'm hoping to read at least two books, one a novella that would also cover at least one other space. Heck, maybe I could cover almost all of the prompts with one! Below is my idea list and hopefully I can get to a couple of them! Now, I have active tbr/idea lists for Fall in Love, Bang in the Night Bingo and the Love in the Night Readathon. There are a few duplicates between those three, so I'm going to try to list something different here, but any of those books could also work for these prompts. Also, since I stuck to mainly shifters for the Love in the Night Readathon, I'll try to go with other paranormal creatures here, although a shifter or two may sneak their way in!

🎃 Jen, The Book Refuge, has a discord and hosts a buddy read. She took a couple months off, but is back this month. She did a poll and the book that won was Hollow Heathens by Nicole Fiorina. I have never heard of this book before, so I do want to try to read it this month.

🎃 A novella I heard a lot about last year was Halloween Boo by Sarah Spade. It sounds super cute and I feel like there aren't too many ghost romances out there.

🎃 A new find for me is Frozen by Meljean Brook. Another pen name for her is Milla Vane, the author behind one of my favorite fantasy romance series. I want to read books under this penname from her and hopefully can get a chance to get to this one soon. It looks like it incorporates Norse mythology, so I'm not sure if it's paranormal or fantasy, but I'm certainly intrigued.

🎃 A series I haven't started yet but want to try out is the Dark Sorcery series by Cheyenne McCray. It's a witch based series and used to be called Magic. I guess the books were re-edited or something and the series retitled.

🎃 Another new to me series is also a new series that started earlier this year by Susanna Allen. The first book is A Wolf in Duke's Clothing and is both a historical and paranormal romance!

🎃 Another series I haven't started yet but have heard good things about is Kristen Callihan's Darkest London. This is also a historical and paranormal romance series and the first book is Firelight.

🎃 A new release that came out at the end of September is The Ex Hex by Erin Sterling. I've heard its a lighter and fluffier paranormal. It's also a second chance romance, which I'm not the biggest fan of, but the blurb sounds cute.

🎃 Finally, I have another Molly Harper book. I know I've mentioned her a lot lately, but one book I haven't mentioned is her stand-alone Better Homes and Hauntings. I still haven't read it yet and it also has ghosts, just not as a main character.

Another weekend readathon and another long list. There's just too many paranormal romances I want to read. When used to read back in high school and college, outside of my romantic suspense phase, I mainly read paranormal if I was picking up a romance. There was a lot on my tbr at that time, and having kind of moved away from paranormal there is quite a bit that I still haven't gotten to or missed completely. I feel like next year I want to try to spread my reads across genres a little better on a monthly basis, but I'm mostly a mood reader. We'll see what happens!

Are you participating in the Paranormal Romance Readathon?

Bookishly Yours,

Stasi🍎