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India Press Store - Magic Bites (Kate Daniels, Book 1)
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List Price: $6.99
Our Price: $1.99
Your Save: $ 5.00 ( 72% )
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Manufacturer: Ace
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Average Customer Rating:  
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Binding: Mass Market Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.6
EAN: 9780441014897
ISBN: 0441014895
Label: Ace
Manufacturer: Ace
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 272
Publication Date: 2007-03-27
Publisher: Ace
Studio: Ace
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating: 
Summary: Now this is magic!
Comment: Imagine. Living in a time where magic surrounds a whole city, where paranormal activities are common part of life. Electric bulbs explode, phones don't work and fluorescent feylamps have been invented to cope with the hard fluctuation caused by magic. Imagine a time when a horse is a more reliable form of transportation as cars refuse to start due to... yes, magic. Welcome to futuristic Atlanta. And welcome to Kate Daniels' world.
Kate is a mercenary who gets dragged into a dangerous game of cat and mouse when her guardian is savagely murdered, thus severing the last link she has with her family. Now completely orphaned, she vows to fight the scum that killed him. However in order to do so, she must seek the help of the Order of Knights of Merciful Aid, in which her guardian was a divine knight. As if going back to the society that Kate once turned her back on weren't bad enough, she finds herself involved with the Pack dealing with the Master of the Beast when her investigation leads her to the possibility that the killer is a shapeshifter. The plot thickens as more of these otherworldly creatures are introduced. I believe that this is where the strength of the story shines. The characters are well thought of, fleshed out and provide a whole new dimension to this labyrinth of magic, gore and mayhem. They are not cardboard-like, seemingly miscast with no purpose.
Kate is a strong character who has her shares of vulnerabilities. One of them is her secret longing to be part of a family. But fear not as we don't see her wallowing in self-pity. She knows she has a job to do and does everything in her power to fight the monsters even if it means ruffling some feathers... or fur in the case of the Pack leader. Her interaction with Curran, the Master of the Beast, hints at a possible romance. Let us hope that the author doesn't take the same path that Hamilton did with Anita Blake.
Another fantastic aspect of the book is the concrete world-building. Ilona Andrews creates a believable futuristic Atlanta. She takes the reader in an adventurous, bumpy and terrifying ride as we see vampires and other monsters fight for supremacy in this magic-enfolded city, where people like Kate and the lycanthropes come together and battle it out with said monsters.
What a way for this author to start the series! The plot is well structured and filled with tension. The characters are well thought of and serve their purpose, adding to the magic and mystery which this book is brimming with. Magic leaps off every page and the reader actually feels transported to a whole new realm as you are sucked into this fantasy world of vampires, lycanthropes, witches and other fantastic creatures.
In summary, this was an impressive debut by Ilona Andrews and a real magical treat for dark urban fantasy readers albeit the slow start.
Customer Rating:
Summary: I couldn't put it down
Comment: This first novel in the series as well as the next was spellbinding. I so enjoyed the characters and the plot that I read them back to back. I can't wait for the next book.
Customer Rating:
Summary: The book's cover doesn't do the story justice
Comment: This book sat on a shelf for a long long time...I detested the book cover..it made it seem like it was going to be a really average book.
However, I was pleasantly surprised..though it took a retry to actually get into the story because the beginning was a little slow..
It's a great story! Loved the main character, a chick who seems to be in constant never ending cycle of having one bad day follow another, sort of all on her own, tracking down (or trying to) a killer.. And the Lord of the Beasts was a very frisky guy..though some sexual tension between the two, there was no sex.
Really splendid world building too..different twist on vampires...and shape shifters.. Entertaining dialogue as well.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Unique, gory urban fantasy
Comment: _Magic Bites_ is an exciting urban fantasy with a unique premise and detailed world-building, somewhat marred by an unsatisfying twist in the story's central mystery.
I give Andrews a lot of points for creativity here. In _Magic Bites_'s near-future setting, magic and technology come and go a bit like the weather; when magic is working, tech isn't, and vice versa. The shifts are unpredictable, but it can be assumed there will be several per day. Andrews does a great job of exploring all the aspects of this situation and the ways people find to cope with it (magic-powered light bulbs to back up electric ones, horseback travel, etc.). I loved the well-thought-out explanation for why telephones occasionally work during a magic phase. Especially haunting was the image of downtown Atlanta, its skyscrapers crumbling away with every onslaught of magic.
Also laudable is Andrews's use of mythological creatures. As a fan of urban fantasy, a trend that saddens me in many recent novels is the fixation on vampires and werewolves to the exclusion of everything else. World folklore gives us a lot of "things that go bump in the night" to play with. In _Magic Bites_, there are vampires and werewolves (of course) but also other beasties, and the central villain is a horrific creature that exists in folklore but that I've never seen used before in a novel.
The heroine, Kate, is part of the novel's uniqueness as well. At first, I didn't like her. She seemed to be yet another of those urban fantasy heroines who constantly make fools of themselves to prove they're tough, and somehow everyone loves them anyway. It turns out, though, that while Kate wisecracks constantly, there are consequences to her abrasive style. Andrews allows other characters to be offended by her heroine, and that's something that's all too rare.
Where _Magic Bites_ lost me was in a brief series of scenes late in the story. There are two characters who might have done something awful; we'll call them A and B. For reasons I never quite understood, everyone becomes convinced that A did the deed. Beats me why they think this. There aren't really any clues pointing toward A. B, on the other hand, might as well have "Guilty" tattooed on his or her forehead. B has been telegraphing guilt throughout the book. Yet somehow no one thinks of him/her until A is exonerated. Then, to confuse me more, the character who was the ringleader in accusing A gets mad at Kate over the whole fiasco, even though it was his idea. I was lost, to say the least. If A was going to be a red herring, there should have been more clues leading in that direction, and B's guilt should have been more subtle.
It picks back up after that, though, and there's a suspenseful showdown with the baddie, and an ending that ties up the story nicely but leaves room for sequels, the first of which is already out.
I should mention that Magic Bites contains a lot of gory violence.
I would recommend Magic Bites to anyone who enjoyed early Laurell K. Hamilton; its blend of mystery, horror, and a tough heroine gives it some of the same "feel."
Customer Rating:
Summary: Very nicely written with fairly fully-fleshed characters.
Comment: I liked this first book, and plan on reading the rest. The author's characters are more "real" than many others in the genre. My only quibble is how she has distorted the vampire legend, making vampires little more than animals who are "ridden' by necromancers, but that imagination works well elsewhere.
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Editorial Reviews:
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Mercenary Kate Daniels cleans up urban problems of a paranormal kind. But her latest prey, a pack of undead warriors, presents her greatest challenge.
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