Review – Magic Rises (Kate Daniels, Book 6) by Ilona Andrews (5/5 stars)

Reading Level: Adult
Genre: Urban Fantasy
Size: 368 pages
Publisher: Ace
Release Date: July 30, 2013
ISBN: 978-1937007584
Stand Alone or Series: 6th book in the Kate Daniels series
Source: Bought
Rating: 5/5 stars

This is the sixth book in the Kate Daniels series. It feels like it’s been awhile between books and I was very excited to get back to reading about this world and about Kate and Curran. This was an absolutely wonderful read.

Kate and Curran are sick of dealing with the increasing death of shapeshifter children who are going Loup. The problem really hits home when Julie’s best friend goes loup and Kate wants to do something about it. There is a medicine that helps those who start to go loup and reverses the process, but it is only available from the European shapeshifters and is hard to come by. Then the perfect (too perfect) opportunity arises, the European Shapeshifters want Curran to arbitrate a dispute among them and in payment they will give him the highly sought after medicine.

This was a wonderful read and had a couple delightful surprises that totally broadsided me and left me with my mouth hanging open and then yelling OMG! All our favorites are in the story Andrea, Rafael, Curran, Kate, and others. Jim is left at home to mind the pack, which it’s rumored the next book will be about Jim, so I am guessing that’s why he was left behind. Julie is also left behind at the Keep.

Kate continues to develop as a character. In this book she struggles a lot with the fact that she is human (mostly) and everyone around her is a shapeshifter. She kind of has a pity party about all of the things she can’t do as a human that they can do. I was a bit peeved at her lack of faith in Curran, but really they were both at fault for a lack of communication.

We get to meet a new and disturbing kind of shapeshifter in this book. I enjoyed watching both Curran and Kate travel out of their element and meeting completely new shapeshifters in a new region. It was fun to have a change of setting and it was all very well done.

Unfortunately because of the twists and turns mentioned above there are a whole series of characters and plot points I can’t discuss without spoilers. Let’s just say Kate’s past comes to haunt her in a big way.

The action scenes were incredibly well done and breathtaking. I loved how there was the main storyline of Kate and Curran getting a cure for the kids going loup and that this was nicely resolved. However the storyline involving Kate and her past also made a lot of progress in this book and I am dying to see where that goes in the next book.

This whole series has been very well written and is such a pleasure to read. The world is wonderful and absolutely intriguing. The characters are easy to engage with and interesting. I love that there is both a contained story and a story that continues from book to book.

Overall a spectacular addition to this series. I loved it! Highly recommended to all fantasy and urban fantasy lovers out there.

This book goes towards the following reading challenges:
– 100 Books in a Year Reading Challenge
– 150+ Reading Challenge
– Paranormal Reading Challenge