Review: Ilona Andrews’s “Magic Tides” and “Magic Claims”
by Miles Raymer
Since they were released around the same time and are both very short, I decided to write just one review covering my thoughts on Magic Tides and Magic Claims. I’m going to assume that readers are already familiar with the basics of this series, so if that doesn’t apply to you, do yourself a favor and go read Magic Bites, the first book in the original Kate Daniels series. I promise you, you won’t regret it.
After the original series ended in 2018, I didn’t think I’d get another chance to return to this world––at least not with Kate front and center. So imagine my delight when my wife told me there’s not one but two new books that seem to be rebooting this series! The fiction gods are loving me this year.
To sum it up, Magic Tides and Magic Claims recapture all the essential elements that made the original books so great, and also hint at some new territory the series might explore. All the familiar beats are here: awesome worldbuilding, witty banter, memorable characters, steamy sex scenes, horrific murders committed by magical baddies, and epic fights written so crisply that you can see every sword-slice and claw-swipe in your mind’s eye. Ilona and Gordon Andrews clearly haven’t forgotten how to write a proper Kate Daniels romp.
The most noticeable change to this tried-and-true formula is that, instead of telling the entire story from Kate’s point of view, we get occasional first person sections written from the perspectives of her husband, Curran, and their son, Conlan. These sections add something fun and fresh but don’t show up as often as I’d like, so I hope the authors continue to develop and expand this part of the narrative. Curran is a paragon of prosocial masculinity who perfectly balances dominance and restraint. For his part, Conlan is an intriguing mixture of his parents’ qualities and seems poised to become more interesting as he gets older.
The main theme of these books is that you can’t run from who you are. Like it or not, Kate loves killing and can’t abandon people in need. And like it or not, Curran was born to lead a Pack. So even though they want to settle down and raise Conlan in peace, their unique powers and ironclad ethical commitments will always pull them back into conflict with the many evils of post-Shift life. Apparently this means that Ilona and Gordon will keep thinking of new ways to get them into trouble. Lucky us!