Magic Tides by Ilona Andrews

Read January 2023

Recommended for Andrews fans

★    ★   ★   ★   

 

Checked email at 10 pm, discovered preorder receipt, downloaded book and finished by 1 a.m.

Fun; a return to good, old-fashioned Andrews fun. Kate and Curran are once again trying to escape Atlanta, moving farther and farther out. They’re supposed to be keeping a low profile, but you know how hard it is to keep them from trying to help others. Kate runs off on a little errand to take on a band of kidnappers.

“Red Horn kills people,” Thomas said behind my back. “Your wife…”
“Will enjoy the exercise,” my husband said. “You know what they say. Happy wife, happy life.”

It did contain solid advice about dealing with management you don’t want to work for:

“Both Jim and Desandra tried to pull him their respective sides, but Keelan proceeded to half-ass every task they had given him and was insufferably apathetic about werewolfing in general and following their orders in particular.”

Nice humor, great action, once again a nice variety of mythologies and fights. I appreciated the way the story seemed to side-step the over-power issue. It did descend into purplish prose at a couple of points, which I found a little disappointing, but unsurprising as it was effusively purple in the latest Innkeeper episode. I would have loved to see that replaced with more character interaction or shift sheer description into a more organic way of noticing the environment.

For those who are new to the series, there’s more than adequate world and character-building (which is a nice way of saying it might feel repetitive to series fans). Still, loads of fun and I’m sure to give it a re-read.

“The woman’s smile gained a slightly plastic quality. That’s right, I’m accusing you of breaching federal law, and the Knight-Protector knows about it. Happy Monday.”