“Answer me this, did you hesitate at all or did you see the giant, go ‘Wheee!’ and run toward it?”

4.5 stars

Spoiler warning! This is book 8 in the series, and some really big stuff happened in the last book. Seriously, if you haven’t read Magic Breaks yet, there will be spoilers, so return once you’re caught up. If you haven’t read any Ilona Andrews books yet, you should do your very best to change that as soon as possible. They write among the best paranormal books out there, you won’t be sorry.

After a period of adjustment after the confrontation in the previous book, mercenary and magical powerhouse Kate Daniels is trying to settle down and make an honest living, aided by her fiancee, former Beast Lord of Atlanta, Curran Lennart. Being hired for supernatural jobs can be a bit tricky when your partner’s a giant werelion, though, and their money situation is starting to get tight. While neither of them miss the constant need for diplomacy and the complex infighting of running the Pack, it’s clear that being a simple mercenary is also not challenging enough for a man who ruled over a thousand shapeshifters for more than a decade.

When Jim, the new Beast Lord offers Kate and Curran a controlling share in the Mercenary Guild, both of them initially refuse. The many chaotic events in Atlanta over the last few years have wreaked havoc with the formerly quite orderly Guild, making it a bad financial bet. Then they are approached by George, the closest thing Curran has to a sister, asking them to locate her fiancee, the were-buffalo Eduardo. All the trails lead to the Guild, suggesting that Eduardo disappeared while out on a mission. While re-tracing his last known missions, it’s clear that something big and dangerous is rising in Atlanta, a city now under Kate’s protection, and they need to hurry if they’re going to find Eduardo alive.

This is a low-key book compared to the previous one, with an almost mundane search and rescue mission at its heart. Of course, it wouldn’t be a Kate book without horrible monsters to fight , interesting mythological adversaries and Kate throwing herself head-long into danger, without any care for her own safety or mortality.

Full review on my blog.