Magic Rises by Ilona Andrews

Links to Order Magic Rises:
Amazon / Barnes & Noble / Kobo / The Book Depository

Description:
Atlanta is a city plagued by magical problems. Kate Daniels will fight to solve them—no matter the cost.

Mercenary Kate Daniels and her mate, Curran, the Beast Lord, are struggling to solve a heartbreaking crisis. Unable to control their beasts, many of the Pack’s shapeshifting children fail to survive to adulthood. While there is a medicine that can help, the secret to its making is closely guarded by the European packs, and there’s little available in Atlanta.

Kate can’t bear to watch innocents suffer, but the solution she and Curran have found threatens to be even more painful. The European shapeshifters who once outmaneuvered the Beast Lord have asked him to arbitrate a dispute—and they’ll pay him in medicine. With the young people’s survival and the Pack’s future at stake, Kate and Curran know they must accept the offer—but they have little doubt that they’re heading straight into a trap…

Review:

Magic Rises is the 6^th book in Ilona Andrews’s Kate Daniels series.  This is one of my favorite series, with a super heroine, awesome hero in a fantastic urban fantasy world.

Kate and Curran are one of the top couples in the current literary scene; she who has magic and he who is a lion shifter.  An unlikely pair, but an awesome couple.

Andrews has a super secondary recurring group of characters that make each book even better.  Kate though magical, is human, and she has overcome many odds to become part of the pack, even if she technically doesn’t belong, as she is not a shifter.  But Kate is very strong, stubborn and powerful, and she is rightfully the second in command behind Curran, the Beast Lord, as she is his Consort.

Magic Rises begins with some of the pack children getting the dreaded ‘Loup’, which causes insanity and forces them to change into monsters.  Those that turn loup have to be killed.  When a close young friend of Julie, comes down with the loup, Curran accepts an offer to go to Europe to help protect a pregnant shifter between two warring packs claiming ownership of the unborn babies.  The payment for Curran and gang to go on this dangerous trip is a large supply of panacea, which will save the babies and cure the loup.  That alone is worth the danger they will face.

Because they know they are heading into a trap, Derek, Aunt B, Andrea, Raphael, Mahon and many others all go along to help their master.  What follows is an exciting story, with much danger, death and betrayals, as the truth of why they were asked to help becomes more then they bargained for.  The action was non stop, and at times very stressful.  I loved when Kate, who was looked down upon by the European shifters, managed to surprise them with her strength, toughness, and savvy.  They didn’t know what they are messing with in Kate Daniels.

Though there is one person, who is more or equally as powerful as Kate, who does know who she is.  Kate learns more about her father, and also about the man who brought her up and trained her to be the best.  She and Curran not only must survive the other packs, but Kate’s nemesis makes it that much harder. The last half of the book is totally mesmerizing, as I couldn’t put the book down until I read the last page.  The battle that ensued, was amazing, with some unexpected twists, and surprises.

The relatioinship between Kate and Curran is always the best part of this series, but in Magic Rises, there were so many times we felt Kate’s emotions, as she tried to rise above some difficult moments.   Kate, who has some of her powerful father’s blood and magic, comes on her own a bit more, as we learn that  her power is still untouched as to what it can be.  There is so much to go (we hope) in this fantastic series.  If you have not read Kate Daniels, I suggest you start from the beginning and read your way through when Kate and Curran become a couple. You won’t be sorry.  Magic Rises was the best one so far, in this great series by Ilona Andrews.

Reviewed by Barb