Title: Magic Rises
Author: Ilona Andrews
Series: Kate Daniels #6
Rating Out of 5: 5 (I will read this again and again and again)
My Bookshelves: Dystopia, Paranormal fantasy, Shapeshifters
Pace: Fast
Format: Novel
Publisher: Ace fantasy
Year: 2013
5th sentence, 74th page: He tossed the limp body aside.
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…
Kate and Curran are truly tested in Magic Rises. This is the most heart-stopping and gut-wrenching tale of the Kate Daniels series so far. At least for me, I cried at multiple points throughout the tale, and just couldn’t put it down until I had read it from cover to cover. Part of that was also the very frustrating relationship between the two primaries – a few times I was even torn between throwing the book across the room after Curran and Kate’s pigheadedness, and ripping through to the next page to hope that they would fix up their many blunders.
Magic Rises leads to the first big conflict between Kate and her Father’s people – it’s a conflict that has been a long time coming, but still, it was a serious surprise. The gradual increasing of the potency of Kate’s enemies is subtly and intricately done. Likewise, the stakes in Kate’s life continue to increase, she’s slowly carving out a family and a life for herself, away from her past and parentage. Although, this tale does help to reveal even more insights into her more-than-slightly obscure upbringing and father-figure.
Children are always a great driver for a storyline – they are the innocents that everyone (well, almost) will battle to protect, regardless of their political and social affiliations. It’s no different for The Pack. From their writing, you can tell that Daniels understands the love for a child and the potential pain of loss. This, in combination with a supernatural flavour helps to indicate the extent to which people will go to save their young, both current and future.
Earth and Skye 
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