Summary:

Mercenary Kate Daniels knows all too well that magic in post-Shift Atlanta is a dangerous business. But nothing she’s faced could have prepared her for this…

Kate and the former Beast Lord Curran Lennart are finally making their relationship official. But there are some steep obstacles standing in the way of their walk to the altar…

Kate’s father, Roland, has kidnapped the demigod Saiman and is slowly bleeding him dry in his never-ending bid for power. A Witch Oracle has predicted that if Kate marries the man she loves, Atlanta will burn and she will lose him forever. And the only person Kate can ask for help is long dead.

The odds are impossible. The future is grim. But Kate Daniels has never been one to play by the rules…

Goodreads

Thoughts:

Oh gosh, this book was so much fun. I literally chuckled out loud while reading it a few times. Luckily I was alone and didn’t get any weird looks for that. 😉

First of all, I just want to say how much I love this series overall. I used to read a lot more urban fantasy than I do now and I think some of these long-running series get a little hard to sustain after a while–I’ve noticed many tend to peter off after book five or six in quality. That’s definitely not the case with the Kate Daniels books. The authors do a really great job of balancing the constant powering up while also keeping our characters grounded in reality and knocking them back a few pegs to keep things interesting.

So many things that I loved about this book. The relationship between Kate and Curran is always a highlight. Here we see them preparing for their wedding. But the realness between the characters, the way they’re there for each other, but still sometimes have those doubts about where they stand with one another and not wanting to disappoint the one they love…this was so well written. I felt a lot of empathy with Kate’s character and the way she kind of wanted to keep certain things from Curran only because she was afraid she might lose him. But also when she realizes that keep secrets are no way to sustain a relationship. Yes girl, I know exactly how you feel right here. Truth is always the best way to go. Throughout the series, watching their relationship grow to where it has become now, a family with Julie and some of the members of their oddball crew…I just love how far they’ve come and how they’re each other’s foundation.

As usual we get to revisit a lot of our favorite characters here and I think most of them got the right amount of attention. I continue to love the overall crew, their complicated relationships with one another, and how they come together as a team under Kate and Curran’s leadership. The characters are so much fun! I love the dialogue and banter. I loved Roman in wedding planner mode and Andrea as a new mom. Derek and Julie continuing to be ‘the kids’ of the family brings a lot of fun to the story as well. Julie especially is an interesting character. She wants so bad to be a mini-Kate and Kate has very complicated feelings about that, especially Julie puts herself in harms way. I think Kate’s struggle of being over-protective but then trying to let Julie be her own person also rings really true here for their mother/daughter relationship.

The pace of this book is lightening fast. The plot just zips along super fast. Kate is going from point A to point B, doing a few side-quests in order to get things she needs to fulfill her main goal–not let the future vision of her father killing Curran and razing Atlanta come to pass. And in the midst of all that chaos–wedding planning. That was hilarious and kept the story from straying too far into dark territory. It was a good balance of action and humor overall. I also enjoyed the few quiet moments we get, like Kate having a beer with her father (relationship=it’s complicated).

Magic Binds is such a fun book and a great addition to an already great series. Very much looking forward to the next one. 5/5 stars.