Early Review – Magic Tides (Kate Daniels: Wilmington Years Book 1) by Ilona Andrews (5/5 stars)

Reading Level: Adult
Genre: Urban Fantasy
Length: ?? pages
Publisher:‎ NYLA
Release Date:January 17, 2023
ASIN: B0BPN6QR9H
Stand Alone or Series: 1st book in the Kate Daniels: Wilmington Years series
Source: eGalley for review from NetGalley
Rating: 5/5 stars

“Kate, Curran and their son, Conlan have left Atlanta, vowing to keep a low profile, and are settling into a new city and new house…but some things never change! Magical mayhem is about to erupt when Kate undertakes the rescue of a kidnapped youth, while Curran guards the homefront.

It should be a simple retrieval, but with monsters on land and sea, Kate’s got her work cut out for her. Still, she’s never let her blade dull or her purpose falter. And that low profile? It’s about to wash away with the raging tides!”

Series Info/Source: This is the first book in the Kate Daniels: Wilmington Years series, which takes place after the main Kate Daniels series. I got an eGalley of this book through NetGalley to review.

Thoughts: This was a fantastic addition to the Kate Daniels series overall and a great new start to the Kate Daniels: Wilmington Years spin-off. I absolutely adored getting to spend more time with Kate, Curran and their son Conlan. I would recommend reading the full Kate Daniels series before reading this book since there are a lot of references back to that series and it’s an awesome urban fantasy series.

Kate, Curran and Conlan are trying to make a life for themselves away from Atlanta and live a quiet suburban life. This has many consisted of trying to renovate the sprawling house they bought. Then one of their contractors finds out a relative’s child has been kidnapped and Kate gets involved in disbanding a kidnapping ring.

This was short but was also a lot of fun. Kate is as badass as ever and so is Curran. There is a lot of humor here and I really enjoyed getting to meet their son Conlan. There is a lot of action here, an excellent story, some awesome magic and the whole thing was just a huge amount of fun.

I truly hope that this is the start of a new series that the Andrews team plans to continue. I feel like they have had a lot of starts lately and not a lot of completions. For example, I loved the start to Julie’s spin-off series “Blood Heir” but that seems to have stopped since that was published a couple of years ago at this point. I also really enjoyed the start to the Iron Covenant series “Iron and Magic” but that also seems to have stalled since it came out in 2018. The Andrews team is still actively working on their Hidden Legacy and Innkeeper Chronicles series. Maybe they just have too many projects going on at once.

My Summary (5/5): Overall this was an incredibly fun read and I really loved it. The Andrews writing duo writes fantastic urban fantasy and their books are always wonderful reads for me. I hope that this series continues and doesn’t stall like so many other of their Kate Daniel’s World projects have. I would recommend reading the Kate Daniels series before starting this spin-off series.