Magic Binds
Kate Daniels Book #9
By Ilona Andrews
ISBN # 9780425270691
Author’s Website: http://www.ilona-andrews.com/
Brought to you by OBS reviewer Omar
SPOILERS
Summary: 
The new, “heart-stopping” * novel in the New York Times bestselling series that “defines urban fantasy.” *
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…
Review:
Magic Binds starts with Kate Daniels and Curran Lennart visiting the house of their friend Roman, the black volhv of the god Chernobog, to ask him to officiate their wedding. Roman is overjoyed with happiness given that he has never been asked to do anything of that kind because of the god he serves. Later that night during the Conclave meeting, Nick Feldman, the night-protector of the Order of the Merciful Aid, in hopes of getting rid of Kate and her father Roland, the Immortal Wizard builder of Towers, lets her know that her father kidnaped Saiman from his home and taken him to the house/castle that he is building next to Atlanta.
The next day, Kate and Curran with a small group of mercenaries go to Roland’s castle to ask for Saiman. Kate and Roland talk and he refuses to give up Saiman, Kate tries to make him understand that she will have to steal him back and war will break between them. Roland instead gives her Hugh A’brambry the second in command he is torturing, but still argues with him about Saiman and what he is doing to him; at one-point Roland gets angry with what Kate says and tries to slap her, but she stops him. Kate leaves with the second-in-command and the promise of coming back for Saiman.
The pressure of the impending war and the new connection that she has to the land of Atlanta that she claimed is becoming too much for Kate and she starts to act cold and angrier to her friends and family. Roman visits her with questions about her wedding planning and also to let her know that the Oracle Witch has summoned her. At first, Kate doesn’t want to go, but once Roman tells her that the vision is regarding the future of her and Curran son, she accepts and follows Roman into the deep of a forest nearby. Once down in the cave with a pool and waterfall, the Oracle Witch and the other Coven leaders, show Kate the two futures that await her. First, if she marries Curran, he will die by Roland’s hand and the city of Atlanta will burn; in the second, if she doesn’t marry Curran they have a son and he is killed by Roland and the city also burns.
Now it is up to Kate and Curran and their allies to find a way to win the upcoming war with Roland, and for Kate to do an impossible thing to save the life of the man she loves and their future child.
I loved Magic Binds, it was everything that I expected when I read the summary of the book. I have been a fan of the Kate Daniels series for so long and I’m happy that Kate and Curran are finally getting married and tied to each other. By this point we know that it doesn’t matter to Kate if they get married, being together and in a monogamous relationship with Curran is enough for her, but we know that Curran wants the wedding and to show everyone that Kate is his and have it official, and Kate loves Curran, so she gives in to all the wedding things. But as time has shown us before, their wedding is threatened by Kate’s father, Roland with an imminent war that might destroy Atlanta and Kate’s love, SPOILERS!!! Curran or their future son.
“‘You should come clean,’ Curran said. ‘Whatever it is, it’s done and we can handle it.’
My aunt tore into existence in the center of the room. ‘Hello, half-breed.’
Curran exploded into a leap. Unfortunately, Derek also exploded at exactly the same time but from the opposite direction. They collided in Erra’s translucent body with a loud thud. Derek fell back and Curran stumbled a few steps.
Erra pointed at Curran with her thumb. ‘You want to marry this? Is there a shortage of men?’”
In this book, we see the consequences of claiming the land of Atlanta on Kate. In the previous book, we learned that Kate can consume magic from the land and creatures that live in it knowing that it will harm those creatures. She has started to become a little possessive about the land, and I liked that in the hope of learning to control her new power and the old ones, we got to see a previous character that died almost half the series before, Erra. I also liked that we get to see Julie perform more magic, blood magic, that she has learned from Roland. It was great seeing Saiman perform the new modern magic that he used in Magic Bleeds to get the information again. I never get bored with the magic in this series.
I know that Roland is the bad guy, that he is set in his mindset of a perfect world and will do anything to get, even killing Kate and Curran if it’s necessary, but I never get tired of reading his scenes. Roland is one of my favorite characters in the series, and I loved his scenes in Magic Binds. As we approach the ending, we get to see more of him and a glimpse of the type of person he is and what makes him tick. My favorite scene was of him and Kate having screaming contest only using the power word language.
“My magic shout out of me. All of the anger I’d been trying to keep under the lid boiled out.
‘Which part of “go fuck yourself” did you not understand?’
His power was an inferno. ‘I AM YOUR FATHER. I AM SHARRUM. YOU WILL SHOW ME RESPECT!’
‘Respect? You sent an assassin into my land to murder a baby! What respect? You’re are a child killer.’
‘IT WAS YOUR FAULT. YOU PRECIPITATED THIS THROUGH YOUR STUBBORNNESS.’
God, I wanted to punch him in the face”
One of my favorite things that I liked from this series and the works of Ilona Andrews, is the way magic is used. In this case, magic comes and goes trading its place with technology for unexpected periods of time. In Magic Binds, I started to get the feeling that magic is becoming stronger and more things are appearing in the world, in this book we get to see an avatar of the god Chernobog and other mythical creatures that needed more magic in the past books to exist. Kate is encountering more powerful creatures and we are seeing people perform impressive magic.
Babies!!! Magic Binds has some new baby characters for the readers. SPOILERS!!! One of them is the future child of Kate and Curran that might not survive his first day if Roland gets his hands on him. While Kate is not pregnant yet, this new vision and the one that the Djinn show her in the previous book has already made her love her future son, and she will do anything to protect him. The second baby that we meet is Andrea and Raphael’s baby being born, they name her Beatrice Kate Medrano or Baby B as we will always know her. It was a lovely scene when we meet Baby B and Kate had the opportunity to hold her. Baby B gets more scenes in this book, but I’m going to leave it to readers to read on their own. I would love to see more of Baby B in the future.
Raphael turned. A small bundle of blankets rested in his arms. He moved one of the folds aside, revealing a tiny red squished face and a shock of dark hair.
‘Beatrice Kate Medrano,’ he said. ‘Name after her grandmother and you.’
‘Me?’
‘You. If it weren’t for you, we wouldn’t have met,’ he said.
Andrea opened her eyes and smiled. ‘We’re going to call her Baby B.’
While this is not the final battle of the series, we do get a battle against Roland and his army of Navigators. I take this fight as the preview of what the major battle in the last book will be. We get to see what type of weapons Roland has and the things he might use against Atlanta. Roland is a powerful character, there is a reason he is feared and called the Immortal Wizard, I believe that if Kate hadn’t been there to help, Roland would have crushed everybody with his magic.
In the end, we get the wedding that Roman plans for Kate and Curran, I want to say that he did a good job. If he ever decides to retire as Chernobog priest, he could have a future as a wedding planner. The wedding scene was a beautiful one and it was a great moment for Kate and Curran to get their happy moment. We see that the Witches Oracle gave a Kate a flower crown to wear, and I believe that that crown had some type of pheromone properties because at the end of the book we learn that Kate SPOILERS!!! Is pregnant after a couple weeks of the wedding.
I loved Magic Binds and I can’t wait to read the next and final book in the series. The Kate Daniels series has been a great read and I can’t wait to read what happens next.
If you are a fan of author-couple Ilona Andrews and their Kate Daniels series, then I recommend you, Magic Binds. This time it’s supposed to be Kate and Curran’s happiest day of their lives, their wedding, but outside forces and family members are not letting them be happy. An imminent war is in the future, Atlanta might burn, and Kate’s loved ones might die, but she will do anything in her power to save them even if it means awakening the dead and making pacts with dark gods.
