By Ilona Andrews
*****
“Fortune favors the brave," I told her. It also kills the stupid, but I decided to keep that fact to myself.”Another great entry in the Kate Daniels series! I'd heard rumors that this was the final book, which made me incredibly sad, but that's not quite the case. According the the author's note, while this entry does sort of complete the 7 book arc, the books aren't over yet (there will be 3 more!). Roland turned out to be too big to wrap up in one book. I'm glad - I'm not ready to be done with Kate and Curran's world (even though I'm also enjoying Andrea's spin-off series, I want them BOTH).
― Ilona Andrews, Magic Breaks
A note on the cover art - I'm super pleased that this series finally got a hardcover edition! Up until recently, the print books were only released as mass market paperbacks. I don't care what format the book's in, as long as it's good, but some people are picky (or snooty) and won't try a mass market for whatever reason. Also, there's a bit of "a book has made it if it's hardcover" and it's about bloody time this series was given that particular "honor." That being said, as much as I think this is a great looking cover, and the cover model is gorgeous, I don't think she has the mature look that the last model had. I'm sure this lady could kick some ass, but I'd believe it more on a YA novel - she just looks too young for Kate. The woman on the old covers looked like she could not only kick your ass, but she'd enjoy it, too.
So, back to the story. I'm going to try to be spoiler free here... Kate and the crew are back in Atlanta after an exciting trip overseas and are now waiting for the inevitable attack. Which comes, but not how they were expecting it. Hugh does a thing and Kate has to scurry to keep everything from blowing up on her own since Curran is out of town. Bad stuff happens, people are hurt, Pack politics make things even harder, and eventually Kate gets a face-to-face with Roland.
The face-to-face was not at all what I was expecting, but in a good way. Kate has to make some hard choices, but they make complete sense and suit how the character has grown over the course of the series. And Roland was more than the baddest-baddy-to-ever-bad. He was interesting, even a little quirky, for all that we know he's an evil bastard. He's actually fairly charming, and that last little bit in the epilogue? That was kinda priceless. I'm really excited to see what happens next!
A final note: at the end of the book is a short story written from Julie's perspective that takes place before the action in this book. Kate takes her to a new school, one for kids with magic, and Julie doesn't want to go - she wants to stay with Kate. But to Julie's surprise, the school is hiring her to help find a missing girl and Julie's intrigued enough to take the job. And so Julie get's her own baby-mystery and I LOVED IT. I would read the hell out of a Julie-centric YA series. It would be AMAZING. According to Ilona Andrews's Goodreads page, someone asked if they'd be writing more, and it sounds like we could maybe possibly hopefully get more Julie short stories. Finger's crossed!
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