Magic Bites

By: Ilona Andrews

Narrated by: Renée Raudman

Length: 9 hrs and 5 mins

Publisher's Summary

When magic is up, electricity dies, cars stall, and skyscrapers tumble; when it's down, phones and guns work, and defensive spells can't protect your house from the creatures who stalk the streets. Equally dangerous are the competing factions of The Pack - a highly organized and military clan who governs Atlanta's were-bears, -wolves, and -hyenas - versus the Masters of the Dead, power and knowledge-hungry necromancers whose minds control hordes of blood-crazed vampires.

This is home to Kate Daniels, a mercenary who investigates when things get out of hand. Kate likes her sword a little too much and has a hard time controlling her mouth. But when her guardian is murdered, she must choose between doing nothing and staying safe, or pursuing the dangerous entity who killed him. Kate is way out of her league; but who ever said the right choice was easy?

©2007 Ilona Gordon and Andrew Gordon (P)2009 Tantor Audio

i really enjoyed

both the story and the narrator. Kate is an awesome character who combines sass and intelligence.

9 of 9 people found this review helpful

Difficult to Get Through

Magic Bites is a typical Urban Fantasy that ticks most of the boxes, but I just didn't like it. The first half is plain boring. Kate learns that her guardian was killed, and yet we get very little context with which to understand the significance of Greg's death. Did he take over legal guardianship when she was 16, but never lived with her? Had he raised her since she was 6? Would have been nice to know! Many scenes dealing with his death lack emotional death and impact -- the conversations with his ex-wife have no emotion at all. That's part of what makes it hard to connect with Kate early on in the story.

The next problem is that the book has too many minor characters with small roles and little impact. No other character really becomes important until Kate meats Curran halfway through the book. I get that Kate is a loner, but it would have been nice to have a rival, or a frienemy, or someone for her to play off of during the first half of the book. I forgot a lot of character's names because they were so unimportant.

The second half gets more interesting and exciting, as the author actually develops the relationship between Kate and some other characters (Curran, the wolf, and the doctor guy.) The plot also picks up, as the clues start to come together and we actually get some idea as to what is going on. This almost saves the book, but it's too little too late.

I was going back and forth on whether or not to abandon the book, and then the little things caught up to me, because I wasn't that attached to Kate. It was the sullen, pessimistic air and the rapey atmosphere that finally pushed me over the edge. What do I mean by "rapey atmosphere?" Well, the author could have had bad werewolves go mad and kill people, but no, they also turn their daughters into sex slaves. Vampires? In this book they are just rotting corpses controlled by a necromancer. And yet, certain types are rape crazed too. A bad guy leaves Kate a severed head and a threatening note. In that note, he feels the need to brag about having sex with "half-breed" women. Does every bad act in this story have to come with a demeaning/violent comment about women and sex? Even the good guys make comments like this when trying to "distract" the bad guys. And The Pack "tests" Kate by calling her a whore, propositioning her, and then trying to grab her. During Kate's dinner date, count how many times she comments on men checking her out, or women checking her date out, or women checking her bodyguard out, or her date checking her bodyguard's date out. The cloying sexual fixation in every situation, good or bad, combat or dinner date, really annoyed me. And it's almost completely negative/unhealthy/creepy. I'm moving on.

7 of 7 people found this review helpful

Great Start to a Paranormal Fantasy Series

I actually read most of the books in this series years ago and wondered how they would hold up later on and in audio format. I was pleased to confirm that this is still a great paranormal series. I particularly liked the world-building because the authors put in more detail regarding the setting (magic vs. tech), characters and their abilities (were-animals, vampires, power words, etc.), and other paranormal elements (weapons, methods of transportation, etc.). There's also a lot of foreshadowing of information and events that don't get revealed or come to pass until much later in the series. The story has substance and keeps you engaged from beginning to end. Kate is a pretty likable female protagonist in that she is a sassy badass who holds her own but isn't infallible. This book begins as she starts to realize there's more to life than just what you do to pay the bills, and it's interesting to witness her character growth as she forms various types of relationships with others and sometimes is successful while other times she utterly fails.

Although this book is still good in audio format, the narration is far from stellar. The narrator is able to do fine with pacing and interpretation, but she's pretty bad with accents and pronunciation at times, which I found pretty distracting. She's also not the best with character differentiation when multiple characters are involved, which is this whole book.

I solid recommendation to fans of paranormal fantasy.

12 of 13 people found this review helpful

Fantastic Series

I saw this series on audible and it had so many good reviews I bought the first two books so that I could start at the beginning and I was not disappointed. This series is incredible, Kate is a badass but one you like, you never know what is going to happen. You stay at the edge of your chair or in your mind waiting to see what will happen, you can't guess. It keeps you enthralled. Kates father is several thousand years old, (Spoiler Alert) He killed her mother and tried to kill her at birth. She has in essence in the first book been in hiding so that he can't find her but events come into play that out her. She is friend to the pack, The largest group of shape shifters in the country. The world in in upheaval, it fluctuates between magic and tech and the people never know when it will change. She meets Curran the beast Lord and boom chemistry. But they have alot of animosity towards each other. He gives her Dereck to act as a body guard. He turns into a wolf. But Kate has her own remarkable traits, she can make her blood turn into body armer or a weapon. She has been trained all her life as a warrior so that one day she can go against her father. I loved Kate, Curran, Dereck, Julie, Angela, et.al. they are like a family. You will never know what is going to happen. Read this series, you won't be sorry.

10 of 11 people found this review helpful

Extremely slow to begin

I almost returned this a few times but stuck with it. I did not love this book. It was just ok and hope the second is better.

9 of 10 people found this review helpful

Fun story, questionable pronunciation

I'm a long-time Ilona Andrews fan. This book was just as entertaining as their others, though it seemed like they read several Anita Blake books just before writing it and borrowed heavily from that style. The narrator's accent was inconsistent, but that wasn't the worst part. For the love of god, please make sure your narrator can say the word "wolf" before giving her a book predominately about werewolves, or you'll have a book about "werewoofs" instead.

17 of 20 people found this review helpful

A brilliant start to the series

Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?

I've been a huge fan of the Kate Daniels series for years now and it honestly gets better and better with every book. There aren't many series that I reread on an annual basis but this one is always top of that list.

Kate is a brilliant main character, she starts out as quite a loner but quickly gains friends and allies as the series continues. I love that she's fierce, determined and incredibly protective of the people she cares about. This series also has some of the best side characters you'll ever come across, they're all so vivid personalities that it's impossible not to care about them.

This series is full of action, Ilona Andrews is constantly finding unusual mythologies to dip into to add depth to her world building, there are plenty of humorous moments to lighten the tone when the story turns darker and the characters are absolutely fantastic.

What does Renée Raudman bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?

I'm still fairly new to audiobooks so this was the first time I've listened to this book (even though I've read my print copy 4 times previously!) but I enjoyed Renee Raudman's narration and liked hearing the characters brought to life.

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

I tend to get easily distracted when reading audiobooks but this one held my attention from beginning to end. I was making excuses to find activities where I could spend time listening to the story.

7 of 8 people found this review helpful

Ok... I'm hooked!

First off, I absolutely LOVE the reader. she has such a variety of voices and they mesh well with each character, bringing them to life. you can picture each one as if you've met them with their unique personalities. Then the author.... not enough words can describe how I feel about them! this book has got me hooked and I'm eager to see how it plays out. On to the next one!

4 of 5 people found this review helpful

thrown out of story by narrator

Something about the way Ms. Raudman pronounces her "s" , her vowels and the rhythm of her narration isn't soothing to my ear and the slight irritation of each element combines to make the book unpleasant to listen to for me. I have tried a couple times as it comes highly recommended to me but I am planning on returning it. I may try to read it to completion in the future but cannot finish the audio version.

1 of 1 people found this review helpful

Never gets old

I've read the book several times and I have to say it's still one of my favorites. Being able to listed to the story and hear the narrators interpretation of the voices gives the story that much more life. There are a few times where the pronunciations for certain words don't match how I hear them in my head, but over all I can definitely see myself listening to this multiple times.

1 of 1 people found this review helpful

Hard work to begin with but well worth the effort

Ilona Andrews is a new author for me but I will certainly be listening to more of her work

This book is the first of the Kate Daniels series and has a few problems to begin with - its almost as if you had missed a book and started with book 2 and I found it hard to follow - in fact had to go back and re-listen to the first couple of hours before I really got it and still feel like I missed some bits, but then the book gets going and its hard to put down.

Our heroine is a great character who really grew on me. Starting as a loner but she gradually bonds with a few others who will doubtless feature in future books. I have high hopes for the series being a good one.
Similarities to Jane Yellowrock or Mercy Thompson are definitely there

I liked the narration which seemed well suited to the book and I loved the story, it wasn't at all clear how this was going to pan out until well into the book but was gripping once the action really started.

Different take on Vampires in this book - definitely they are different creatures to the normal ones in this genre.

The book itself is a complete story but obviously there are more books in the series and I will be downloading book two shortly to see where this this takes Kate and hope I have found a new series to keep me going for a while

3 of 3 people found this review helpful