Magic Bites

Magic Bites gives its heroine a city that breaks its own rules, then makes her solve a murder inside it.

I am usually suspicious of a first volume that introduces a whole supernatural pecking order before I have learnt where the heroine keeps her keys. Magic Bites won me over by making its disorder useful. Kate Daniels cannot rely on a stable world, so the book never lets her rely on a stable plan. I liked watching her improvise. I liked watching her mouth get ahead of her judgement slightly less. Slightly.

Ilona Andrews published this first Kate Daniels novel in 2007. The name on the cover belongs to a writing pair, Ilona and Gordon Andrews, a detail worth getting right because the book's best quality is its sense of collaborative timing: the mechanics are brisk, the exchanges bite and someone always seems ready to interrupt a solemn moment. I finished it wanting more of Atlanta, not merely more of a potential couple.

The premise (no spoilers past Kate taking the case)

Atlanta lives through unpredictable shifts between magic and technology. When magic rises, spells work and monsters appear, while guns and cars can fail; when it recedes, ordinary machinery returns. Kate Daniels is a mercenary who handles the mess. After her guardian is murdered, her pursuit of the killer puts her between the Masters of the Dead, necromancers who control vampires, and the Pack, a powerful group of shapeshifters. The factions blame each other for killings that may be tied to her guardian's death.

That is the early contract. A personal loss sends Kate into a political quarrel she cannot solve by choosing a side on sight. The city's alternating rules mean that even familiar tools have to be treated with suspicion. The premise is busy, but the motion is clean: find the killer before the factions settle the question with more bodies.

What works

The magic shifts are a splendid source of practical trouble. Fantasy often gives its heroine a set of powers and then spends pages explaining where each fits in the hierarchy. Here the ground itself is unreliable. A car may be useful until it is not; a monster may become the immediate problem while somebody is still arguing about jurisdiction. I found that instability much more vivid than a glossary of magical terms. It makes every choice provisional, which suits Kate's wary temperament.

Kate is built for conflict without being invulnerable to it. Her profession gives her a reason to enter dangerous places, and the murder gives her a reason to ignore easier work. She has a tongue sharp enough to start a fight in a room already full of weapons. That could become tiresome, and occasionally does, but it also gives the dialogue velocity. I would rather watch a heroine make a bad call out loud than stand silently while everyone else explains her world to her.

The factions are memorable because they are not interchangeable. Necromancers controlling vampires are a different kind of threat from shapeshifters organised as a Pack, and Kate has to read the interests of both. Andrews uses that rivalry to keep the investigation moving. Each conversation feels like it might produce a clue or a fresh reason for someone to kill the person asking. It gives the novel the pace of a scrappy detective story wearing fantasy's coat.

Curran Lennart, the Beast Lord, helps too. He does not stroll in as a finished romantic answer. He is another centre of power Kate has to negotiate, and their friction carries a hint of future possibilities without asking the murder plot to step aside. That restraint was refreshing. A long series can afford to let two people be difficult first. Perhaps especially these two.

What's polarising

The opening can feel crowded. Names, allegiances, creatures and rules arrive fast, sometimes before their importance has settled. I had moments of looking back a page because a faction had entered with the certainty of an old acquaintance while I still considered it a stranger. If you want a patient tour of the city, this book hands you a sword and points vaguely toward the trouble.

Kate's defensive banter also has a cost. Her readiness to challenge almost anyone can flatten distinct encounters into the same test of nerve. I understood why she uses it, but I wanted a few more beats when silence would reveal more than another sharp line. The most satisfying moments are those in which she has to assess, not merely answer.

And romance readers need a fair warning: the relationship with Curran is a spark, not the fire, in this volume. The investigation dominates. The series' reputation for Kate and Curran can make Magic Bites sound like an immediate courtship, which sets up the wrong expectation. I would not ask this first book to do the work of later ones.

The Curran of it

Curran is interesting because Kate does not meet him as an abstract attractive man. She meets a leader whose authority has practical consequences for her case. I enjoy the way their exchanges refuse to separate personality from politics. His status does not make Kate less inclined to challenge him; her independence does not make him less dangerous to cross. That is a sturdy foundation for a slow burn, even if this particular instalment keeps it mostly at the foundation stage.

I also appreciate that the book leaves room to dislike him. Powerful men in fantasy romance often receive early credit for merely turning up with command. Curran has to become worth Kate's attention in a story where she has urgent work elsewhere. For now he is a complication with excellent timing. The murder does not pause so he can brood more attractively, and neither did I.

Spice and heat

Heat: 1 of 5, glimpses and kisses by Romance.io's scale. There is no open-door romance between Kate and Curran in Magic Bites. Their dynamic is a suggestion of later heat, not a payoff here. A contemporary review also describes the book as focused on fantasy, plot and Kate's place in the world rather than romance.

The content is sharper elsewhere: Kate's guardian has been murdered, the factions investigate bizarre killings, and violence is part of the city's daily danger. The vampires here are controlled by necromancers, so do not expect the elegant, flirtatious sort. The low heat rating describes intimacy, not the book's general gentleness.

Who it's for

Read Magic Bites if you want a heroine who has to work through a case in a city that keeps changing the terms of evidence. Read it if you can wait for romance while a good urban fantasy establishes its bones. You may need a little tolerance for early series bustle and a heroine who sometimes argues when she should listen.

I would give it to a friend who likes mystery as much as attraction. Then I would ask which faction they trusted first, purely to learn how long they survived in imaginary Atlanta. I have my answer. It is not a reassuring one.

Books like Magic Bites

• Moon Called by Patricia Briggs, for a practical heroine navigating dangerous supernatural loyalties.
• Skinwalker by Faith Hunter, for a hunter pulled into a violent vampire problem with her own skills to rely on.
• Three Parts Dead by Max Gladstone, for a clever investigation in a world where the magical rules shape civic power.

The last pick wanders furthest from the romance shelf and may be the most revealing. What I want more of after Magic Bites is a speculative city whose problems can be investigated, argued with and occasionally solved by somebody competent enough to keep asking.

Finished the book and not ready to leave? Curran Lennart is waiting on Fictora.

Talk to Curran Lennart