“I pulled out my submachine gun… On the barrel, pretty white letters spelled out PARTY STARTER.”

Gunmetal Magic is a story about Andrea, best friend to Kate Daniels aka The One the Series Is Named After. Goodreads summarizes the story thusly: “After being kicked out of the Order of the Knights of Merciful Aid, Andrea’s whole existence is in shambles. She tries to put herself back together by working for Cutting Edge, a small investigative firm owned by her best friend. When several shapeshifters working for Raphael Medrano—the male alpha of the Clan Bouda, and Andrea’s former lover—die unexpectedly at a dig site, Andrea is assigned to investigate. Now she must work with Raphael as her search for the killer leads into the secret underbelly of supernatural Atlanta. And dealing with her feelings for him might have to take a back seat to saving the world…”

This is a pretty accurate summary. I’d always liked Andrea from Kate’s point of view; the two work really well together and have complementary personalities. They’re very alike in that they both are great fighters, acquit themselves admirably in tough situations, and are generally quippy and a little sarcastic. Both are also deeply informed by their experiences growing up, but while both ended up similarly skilled in violence, Kate’s background is in rigorously aggressive training, while Andrea’s is rooted in scrappy self defense. Conflicted by her resentment and hatred of the shapeshifters she grew up with versus the love and loyalty shown to her by the shapeshifters of the Pack — Kate’s clan –, Andrea is all sharp edges and obstacles. Kate’s journey in love was hindered by her desire to protect others from the certain threat that chases her and those close to her, but Andrea’s barriers are necessitated by self-preservation. It’s an interesting contrast between women who initially seem very alike, and it’s those subtle differences that help elevate the series as a whole.

All that said, for some reason the action sequences in Gunmetal Magic seemed a bit more clunky than I’m used to for the series, and it made them a little harder to get into. Generally the fight scenes flow very smoothly, but here I felt a bit more as if I was reading the book equivalent of shaky cam. That didn’t detract too much from my overall enjoyment of the book, though, and I particularly loved the scene where Andrea fully comes into her own, leaves all her f*cks to give at home, and embraces her shapeshifter nature. I also enjoyed the relationship dynamic between Andrea and Raphael, although not as much as Kate and Curran’s, but that could simply be because the latter two had the benefit of several books of tantalizing slow burn to hook me before they got together. All together, this is a worthy companion novel to the series, and I wouldn’t mind reading more from Andrea’s perspective in the future.