Summaries and Customer Reviews are supplied by Amazon.com

Average Customer Rating:

Promising new heroine	Customer Rating:
I really enjoyed this book. The author creates a believable world which includes fantasy in everyday life. I think the writing is good and it makes me want to know more about Kate and her friends (and enemies.)

Great story

Customer Rating:

This book has a great story involving a great main character, living in a magical version of the present world. First and foremost this book is a mystery investigation. It would be similar to an updated Alfred Hitchcock story line, if Angelina Jolie played the sword wielding investigator. The main character is bold, mysterious and borderline psycho, which makes for excellent reading. There is alot of killing and death involved in the story and this book has couple of curse words here and there, but nothing your kids havent heard from your own mouth =-) If you have read the book Dhampir by Barb Hendee then you will love this book as well.

Magic Bites is Great!!

Customer Rating:

Magic Bites (Kate Daniels, Book 1) This debut book is an excellent beginning for this author. I just hope that she can write these books at light speed! I really enjoyed the fatasy world overseen by a council, wracked by waves of technolgy and magic and one that has its own version of magicians, vampires, werewolves and other creatures. I like her almost as much as Jim Butcher. They are both excellent authors. Ilona, please keep Kate Daniels coming!

Disappointed in main character

Customer Rating:

I picked up this book because of it's high reviews. I read the first few chapters.. and then started skimming, hoping Kate would be less irritating. Strong, confident heroines are my favorite sort of protagonist but Kate was.. too bitchy, too kickass, too independent, too awesome at wielding her named phallic symbol. Too much of a stereotype. It feels like she's trying too hard to be an anti-hero and ultimately, just coming across as false and smug. The alcohol, sex, and gore all seemed rather forced in an attempt to be edgy and raw. I love fantasy/paranormal/scifi literature and I'm glad that so many people enjoyed this book -- I really wanted to find a new author and series to follow but it just didn't work out for my personal taste. Perhaps the high reviews skewed my expectations -- I thought it would be old school Blake, Harrison, Briggs, maybe even a female Butcher's Harry Dresden.

Not as good as it could be

Customer Rating:

This story is about Kate Daniels. She is a mercenary in a magic infested Atlanta. She learns that her guardian is murdered and she sets out to figure out who did it. Along the way, shape shifters are turning up dead and blaming the vampires. Vampires are ending up dead too and are blaming the shape shifters. Kate thinks that it is someone trying to start a war between the two groups and tries to stop that. I found this book slow and dragging. There were a couple times while reading that I almost put it down and not picked it up. There were a lot of areas that I didn't know what was going on and it was not resolved. For example, Kate is supposed to have a lot of magic. This is hinted at several times and one reference was she probably is not all human. But there is nothing to go into this further. It's just left hanging. It might be a rough start to a series, I have seen several of these. But I have no desire to was my time and money on the second book to find out.