Thanks to the high praise from my book club, I decided to take on the next Kate Daniels book: Magic Burns. Instead of a tale of personal vengeance, we follow Kate as she works a missing person case for a young girl named Julie. The girl’s mom is a witch and has gone missing after a mysterious spell with her circle. The helpless and malnourished kid only help is her boyfriend, a young wannabe shaman kid from the street named Red. Red did a favor for Kate in the last book, so when he runs into Kate he calls it in and begs her to keep Julie safe.
Even though Kate is tough as nails and shuns attachments, she quickly becomes determined to find the missing witch who seems to have gotten caught up with some powerful crow god magic. She goes home to regroup where some nasty slimey water zombie like creatures called Fomorians break into her house to kidnap Julie. They serve a mysterious god named Morfran. Kate is forced her to reveal some of her hidden magic to hold them off. In the knick of time, Curran and pack appear to offer assistance. The Pack have been plagued by a flirty bowman named Bran who is the servant of a god named Morrigan. He continues to appear out of thin air to all over the steal the Pack’s maps. Kate has crossed paths with this guy as well, which a too much of a coincidence. On top of that, The People are curious these creatures and insuinate themselves in the case.
Kate would much rather work alone, but she’s running out of time to figure out why servants to two rather nasty gods are after Julie. They pool their resources to try to protect Atlanta before this magical flare arrives that allows these mysterious gods to cross over to our realm through a magical cauldron.
I loved this book, so much better than the first entry in the series. I think the other book was a bit slow to get down to solving the big bad for my liking. Magic Burns is more focused on unraveling the mystery from the onset. I also didn’t realize how much I enjoyed the other characters until I returned to this world. Curran is soon becoming one of my favorite characters. It was also great to see Kate kick ass again revealing more of her backstory and her hidden power. I look forward to learning more about how she became this cold mercenary in the next instalment.
Read my other reviews on my blog, including the review of the first Kate Daniels book.