Magic Triumphs
Kate Daniels, Book #10
By Ilona Andrews
ISBN # 9780425270714
Author’s Website: www(.)ilona-andrews(.)com
Brought to you by OBS reviewer Omar
SPOILERS
Summary
Mercenary Kate Daniels must risk all to protect everything she holds dear in this epic, can’t-miss entry in the thrilling #1 New York Times bestselling urban fantasy series.
Kate has come a long way from her origins as a loner taking care of paranormal problems in post-Shift Atlanta. She’s made friends and enemies. She’s found love and started a family with Curran Lennart, the former Beast Lord. But her magic is too strong for the power players of the world to let her be.
Kate and her father, Roland, currently have an uneasy truce, but when he starts testing her defenses again, she knows that sooner or later, a confrontation is inevitable. The Witch Oracle has begun seeing visions of blood, fire, and human bones. And when a mysterious box is delivered to Kate’s doorstep, a threat of war from the ancient enemy who nearly destroyed her family, she knows their time is up.
Kate Daniels sees no other choice but to combine forces with the unlikeliest of allies. She knows betrayal is inevitable. She knows she may not survive the coming battle. But she has to try.
For her child.
For Atlanta.
For the world.
Review
Magic Triumphs starts nine months after the events of Magic Binds and we see Kate Daniels give birth to her and Curran’s son, Conlan Dilmun Lennart. Thirteen months later, we find Kate and Curran settling into the life of parenthood. Kate wakes one morning to a pounding on her door, Curran has been away on a hunting trip, so it is just her and Conlan. Her guest is Teddy Jo, the avatar for the God Thanatos, who is there for her help with a problem that he has. After leaving Conlan with his aunt George and getting Derek, Kate arrives at a settlement outside Atlanta where all the people of the community, almost two hundred, disappeared from their homes. The group finds their remains in a puddle of flesh and clothes nearby, Teddy cannot help their souls move on, giving that all the remains are mixed together. They come to the conclusion that this is the work of an elder power who was able to teleport all the members of the community and leave only a puddle.
The settlement massacre is not the only problem Kate has, the Pack informs Kate and Curran that Roland has started to move his forces and is planning to attack Atlanta soon. Also, Roland’s assassins have been spotted in the city and Conlan is their main target. War is building is the horizon, and it has increased with this mysterious Elder power that wants to conquer and kill everything in his path. The secret to defeating this new villain might be in all Atlanta working together and allying themselves with those who hurt them in the past.
Kate and Curran’s main object is the safety of their family. They will do everything they can to keep each other alive, even if it means asking for help and coming into contact with divine beings.
I love the Kate Daniels series, I have been a fan of this series since I read the short story, Magic Tests, in the anthology An Apple for the Creature; since then I have read all the books in this series and followed the adventure of Kate and Curran as they try to survive the magic dystopian world that they live in. This time, it took me almost 10 hours to read the whole book, it was great that it was a slow day at work and nobody noticed me reading.
As a fan of the series, I’m happy and sad that we finally got to the end of Kate and Curran’s journey, they have been through a lot since they met in that abandoned building all those years ago. They are finally getting their happy ever after (HEA), or their version of HEA that exists in a world that is in a constant battle between magic and technology.
What better way to end their journey than starting their longest and most fun adventure, the best act of love between them, parenthood. I loved Conlan, he is the best combination of Kate and Curran, he was a delightful and the most fun character. To add a child to the main couple shows a different side of them for the reader to meet, he keeps them on their feet and alert. Reading other characters interaction with him was even better, he seems to capture everyone’s heart. The things that he can do and will be able to do in the future have no limits.
“‘As I was saying,’ Erra continued, “there has never been a child of the Wild within our bloodline. I was hoping that the Wild wouldn’t manifest, but it did and now it coexists with our powers inside his body. The might of our magic fuels him. I fear for my grandnephew, for he may be capable of terrible things.’”
Like the other books in the series, Kate and the characters in the book have funny scenes or one lines that light up the mode and make the reader laugh. At one point there’s even a funny shout out to Dungeons and Dragons that fits so perfect with the plot line of this story. Kate’s sarcastic and funny thoughts still predominate in the narrative, and now that she has Conlan it seems that she has new ammunition to use against other people.
“About fifteen minutes into the drive, Conlan gave up singing the sad song of his people and fell asleep.”
Over the course of the story, we get small battle scenes that make the narrative even more interesting and exciting for the reader. My favorite mini battle is Kate fighting a group of assassins. But the last battle was one of my favorites of all of the books in the series, it was a combination of many characters coming together to defeat a greater evil that otherwise left alone would have killed them all.
Like many other final books in the series, in Magic Triumphs there are some loses. Some characters go to war and don’t come back, they die protecting their freedom and love, knowing that they are making the world better for them. Some of these deaths were shocking but they help the story and making their sacrifice meaningful. There was one character that died, he is a little sneaky, so I’m not quite convinced he is dead, but who knows.
Like with the other books in the Kate Daniels series, I love the magic that the characters use. In this story, we get a variety of magic users and more magic. There are a couple of scenes that use magic in a way that I would never have guessed they would defeat an enemy like that.
“To the left Phillip’s clear voice commanded, ‘Prepare amplification spheres.’ Magic shifted. The line of students raised their arms. A transparent sphere formed above each of them, three feet wide and shimmering like hot air rising from the pavement, and spinning.”
We finally get to the end of Kate and Roland’s confrontation. Roland, Nimrod the builder of towers, the immortal wizard has found his match with his daughter Kate Daniels, the sword of Atlanta. Their fight was always meant to happen, Kate works hard to find a solution that would actually kill her father, only to take him out of the board game. I liked the ending to this battle between them, Kate has come to love her father, but she loves her family more and was able to outsmart the Great Wizard.
“‘Don’t do it,’ I told him. ‘Don’t, Father.’ His voice rolled through the battlefield. ‘Surrender, my daughter.’ He’d betrayed me. I’d known he would. I had expected it, but it hurt so much.”
I liked that time has come for Kate’s self-imposed breaks to come off, the stakes are high, and she needs to use all her power to stop the threat to Atlanta. In Magic Triumphs, we get many scenes of Kate not caring who sees her true self or how much magic she has. I loved these scenes and the different reaction other characters had when they see her.
If you are a fan of the Kate Daniels series, or of the work of Ilona Andrews, then I recommend you Magic Triumphs. The last battle for Kate and Curran has arrived, the stakes are high, and the enemies are powerful, it’s going to take everything in their power and the citizens of Atlanta to triumph this time.
*OBS would like to thank the publisher for supplying a free copy of this title in exchange for an honest review*
