Magic Claims – Ilona Andrews

It’s always a pleasure to see (and promptly read) another book by Ilona Andrews. This one is identified as Kate Daniels #10.6 - and as the numbering implies, you will enjoy it if you have read the previous 10+ books in the series. This would be a poor place to jump in: You will care about the characters if you cared about them in earlier books. You will know who is who if you knew about them from earlier books. Conversely, if you are a fan of the Kate Daniels books, you will probably be pleased to see them continue.

The first series follows Kate from her start as an apparent nobody to her rise in power and importance. There was too much power and too much importance for a normal family life, so she and her family left and settled elsewhere. This doesn’t work for long. The previous book in this second series has Kate trying to be ordinary. It works about as well as a lioness pretending to be a gazelle and hoping that wearing dark glasses will enable her to pull it off - for similar reasons. “Magic Claims” is something of a middle book: Kate realizes that she has to get involved again, and is assembling a team. (There is a conflict, as she rescues a town from a magical threat, but there isn’t much tension. She brings better magic and better fighters.)

Bottom line: If you’ve enjoyed recent Kate Daniel books you’ll enjoy this one.