| Magic Bites (Kate Daniels, Book 1) | 
 enlarge | Author: Ilona Andrews
Publisher: Ace
Category: Book
List Price: $6.99
Buy New: $1.49
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Avg. Customer Rating:  126 reviews
Sales Rank: 1783
Media: Mass Market Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 272
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.3
Dimensions (in): 6.6 x 4.1 x 0.8
ISBN: 0441014895
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.6
EAN: 9780441014897
ASIN: 0441014895
Publication Date: March 27, 2007
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: MASS
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Product Description
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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| Customer Reviews: Read 121 more reviews...
 Great story November 19, 2008
This book has a great story involving a great main character, living in a magical version of the present world. First and foremost this book is a mystery investigation. It would be similar to an updated Alfred Hitchcock story line, if Angelina Jolie played the sword wielding investigator. The main character is bold, mysterious and borderline psycho, which makes for excellent reading.
There is alot of killing and death involved in the story and this book has couple of curse words here and there, but nothing your kids havent heard from your own mouth =-)
If you have read the book Dhampir by Barb Hendee then you will love this book as well.
Magic Bites is Great!! November 14, 2008
Magic Bites (Kate Daniels, Book 1) This debut book is an excellent beginning for this author. I just hope that she can write these books at light speed! I really enjoyed the fatasy world overseen by a council, wracked by waves of technolgy and magic and one that has its own version of magicians, vampires, werewolves and other creatures. I like her almost as much as Jim Butcher. They are both excellent authors. Ilona, please keep Kate Daniels coming!
 Disappointed in main character November 3, 2008
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
I picked up this book because of it's high reviews. I read the first few chapters.. and then started skimming, hoping Kate would be less irritating. Strong, confident heroines are my favorite sort of protagonist but Kate was.. too bitchy, too kickass, too independent, too awesome at wielding her named phallic symbol. Too much of a stereotype. It feels like she's trying too hard to be an anti-hero and ultimately, just coming across as false and smug.
The alcohol, sex, and gore all seemed rather forced in an attempt to be edgy and raw.
I love fantasy/paranormal/scifi literature and I'm glad that so many people enjoyed this book -- I really wanted to find a new author and series to follow but it just didn't work out for my personal taste. Perhaps the high reviews skewed my expectations -- I thought it would be old school Blake, Harrison, Briggs, maybe even a female Butcher's Harry Dresden.
 Not as good as it could be November 1, 2008
This story is about Kate Daniels. She is a mercenary in a magic infested Atlanta. She learns that her guardian is murdered and she sets out to figure out who did it. Along the way, shape shifters are turning up dead and blaming the vampires. Vampires are ending up dead too and are blaming the shape shifters. Kate thinks that it is someone trying to start a war between the two groups and tries to stop that.
I found this book slow and dragging. There were a couple times while reading that I almost put it down and not picked it up. There were a lot of areas that I didn't know what was going on and it was not resolved. For example, Kate is supposed to have a lot of magic. This is hinted at several times and one reference was she probably is not all human. But there is nothing to go into this further. It's just left hanging.
It might be a rough start to a series, I have seen several of these. But I have no desire to was my time and money on the second book to find out.
Angieville: MAGIC BITES November 1, 2008
I tossed MAGIC BITES into my last Amazon order, mostly because of the Patricia Briggs quotes on both front and back covers as well as several positive blog reviews I'd read. One of the most fascinating things about this book is that the author's name, Ilona Andrews, is actually a combination of Ilona and Andrew Gordon's first names. They are the husband and wife team who create the Kate Daniels books. That is to say, together they come up with the characters and plot, then Ilona writes the book, and finally the two of them wrangle over editing/general clean-up. Awesome, no?
I have to say what I liked best about this first book is the crazy, psychedelic Atlanta it takes place in. This alternate city is saturated in daily waves of magic that doggedly eat away at any signs of civilization and/or technology. The city's skyscrapers are no more than dwindling piles of granite and steel. Magic and technology are basically anathema in this world and the inhabitants of Atlanta live a sort of refugee-type half life. Having adapted to the dark surges when the electricity and cars stop working and people take to horse-drawn carriages and camp stoves. During these times the supernatural rules and mere humans get by. It reminded me vaguely of the gritty, post apocalyptic world Robin McKinley created in Sunshine. The vampires share a few common characteristics as well, their extremely gruesome appearance being at the top of the list. It's nice to see someone else bucking the current beautiful and seductive trend. Not that I have anything against your run-of-the-mill sparkly vampire. It's just fun to see the ubercreepy version as well.
The reader is dropped into Kate Daniels' life without a by-your-leave. Being the somewhat cantankerous reader that I am, I like it when a book challenges me to keep up, grabs me by the throat, shakes me once, and says, "Immerse yourself or be left in the dust!" In this world where humans exist side by side with creatures straight out of mythology and nightmare, it was a treat to attempt to navigate it without having everything spoon fed to me. I like Kate. She does share some characteristics with Briggs' Mercy Thompson. She has a sense of humor and she ruthlessly guards her independence. Kate's a bit rougher around the edges than Mercy. She's had a rough past, undoubtedly, but one of the strokes of genius in this series is that the reader doesn't know what Kate is. We know she's something. But we don't know what. And Kate is determined not to tell anyone. Not even the reader. Oh, we'll find out eventually. But I'm all tingly with the mystery of Kate and her powers.
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