Review: Magic Shifts by Ilona Andrews

Magic Shifts

Author: Ilona Andrews
Publisher: Ace
Series: Kate Daniels #8
Pages: Hardcover, 342 pages
Genre: Urban Fantasy
Release Date: August 4th 2015

Summary:

In the latest Kate Daniels novel from #1 New York Times bestselling author Ilona Andrews, magic is coming and going in waves in post-Shift Atlanta—and each crest leaves danger in its wake…

After breaking from life with the Pack, mercenary Kate Daniels and her mate—former Beast Lord Curran Lennart—are adjusting to a very different pace. While they’re thrilled to escape all the infighting, Curran misses the constant challenges of leading the shapeshifters.

So when the Pack offers him its stake in the Mercenary Guild, Curran seizes the opportunity—too bad the Guild wants nothing to do with him and Kate. Luckily, as a veteran merc, Kate can take over any of the Guild’s unfinished jobs in order to bring in money and build their reputation. But what Kate and Curran don’t realize is that the odd jobs they’ve been working are all connected.

An ancient enemy has arisen, and Kate and Curran are the only ones who can stop it—before it takes their city apart piece by piece…

Review:

Sigh. So I love the series. I went on a Kate Daniels binge a few months ago and read EVERYTHING I could get my hands on. Really EVERTHING.
So needless to say, I was anticipating Magic Shifts with high expectations.
And to some degree I got what I wanted. Buuuuut also not.

Ok shall we get the bad out first?
One of the things I love about the series is Kate's interaction with the pack. The relationships between the cast- the character building in the series is always great. And don't get me wrong. I am still totally into Kate and Curran- they still gotz it, man! But for some reason I felt like the character building fell a bit short. I found most of the new cast a bit flat and one sided. Roman was - well too normal? - though I am sure there is plenty more to come there, I felt it was kinda sidetracked. Then my favorite sidekicks got really little exposure to start with-and when they did, it was all bit been there done that. I compare to the previous book it's just a bit lacklustre.
And I strongly feel that the character building was hugely overshadowed by the plot. Well, at least by all the fight scenes. Cause let's face it: when you look back - what happened that was of real significance? Not much, well except a hell of a lot of battling. I love the action in the series- but at the end I felt exhausted by it. It was just too much.

I listened to the audio of this and in my opinion Renee Raudman can't do any wrong. It's the best way to enjoy an Ilona Andrews novel, seriously. Except for a tad little problem, there was no whispersync available for this instalment. Besides the fact, that I do get a discount on buying both the ebook and the audiobook with that feature, I love it for that fact that I can switch between the audio and ebook seamlessly. Since I didn't get that option I decided to only get the audiobook, which meant it took me several days to finish this.

Now to the good:
Well Kate is still kickass- Curran still awesome sauce.
This is still really really well written- And frankly I am being probably quite harsh.
There some interesting new storylines in the making. So I am having high hopes for the next one.
And then there a scenes that are so exquisitely well written- the earring scene for example- just those would justify a gazillion more battle scenes.

SO though not my favourite it's still a fab series!

Rating: 

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