Magic Bites (Kate Daniels #1) by Ilona Andrews

Rated: 5 flaming stars        Recommended to: People who enjoy the Urban Fantasy genre.

Goodreads blurb

When the magic is up, rogue mages cast their spells and monsters appear, while guns refuse to fire and cars fail to start. But then technology returns, and the magic recedes as unpredictably as it arose, leaving all kinds of paranormal problems in its wake.

Kate Daniels is a down-on-her-luck mercenary who makes her living cleaning up these magical problems. But when Kate’s guardian is murdered, her quest for justice draws her into a power struggle between two strong factions within Atlanta’s magic circles.
The Masters of the Dead, necromancers who can control vampires, and the Pack, a paramilitary clan of shapechangers, blame each other for a series of bizarre killings—and the death of Kate’s guardian may be part of the same mystery. Pressured by both sides to find the killer, Kate realizes she’s way out of her league—but she wouldn’t have it any other way…

I had a feeling this would be an awesome read before I flipped the digital pages. I was right, oh boy, was I. I read all kinds of books, I’m not very particular, this series was my  introduction into UF and since then I began leaning in this direction. Only a little bit more that any other.

Kate Daniels is a smart mouthed, kick ass, sword wielding mercenary with a very interesting but still mysterious (at this point) past. When one hears the word ‘mercenary’ usually one comes to the conclusion that their only in it for money, and frankly one would be right, but Kate has a conscience, she’s got integrity, decency and she’s often stubborn, could-teach-a-mule-lessons kind of stubborn and that’s sometimes good and other times … not so good but I like her.

Gunmetal Magic by Ilona Andrews (Kate Daniels World #1)

Cover via Goodreads.com

Rating: 5 stars       Recommended to: Fans of Urban Fantasy, anyone really    Ages: 16 and above, some cussing.

Goodreads blurb

Some people have everything figured out — Andrea Nash is not one of those people. After being kicked out of the Order of Knights of Merciful Aid, Andrea’s whole existence is in shambles. All she can do is try to put herself back together, something made easier by working for Cutting Edge, a small investigative firm owned by her best friend, Kate Daniels.
When several shapeshifters working for Raphael Medrano — the male alpha of Clan Bouda and Andrea’s former lover — die unexpectedly at a dig site, Andrea is assigned to investigate … and must work with Raphael. As her search for the killer leads her into the secret underbelly of supernatural Atlanta, Andrea knows that dealing with her feelings for Raphael might have to take a backseat to saving the world …

Random Word Ramble: Sunday

A month or two ago I’d came up with this idea for a post series called ‘Random Word Ramble’ originally it was ‘Random Word Ramble Tuesday’ then it became ‘Random Word Ramble Wednesday’ because I always end up posting it on Wednesdays instead of Tuesdays. Then I stopped, because I didn’t really have much time to sit, think and then write, that’s why regulars would notice all the re-blogs. What happens is that when I find an interesting word that I’d very much like to use, I make up sentences with it and then it turns into a paragraph and usually leads to something more. I normally round up words from either my own dictionary or Dictionary.com.

So last night I curled up with my Oxford, flipping through I found some really interesting words which I promptly wrote down and made sentences with. My version is the Compact Oxford Dictionary and Thesaurus Third Edition, and it had British spellings and alternate American spelling as well. I found today’s subject word on Page 122 and it happened to be a British word:

• Cagoule /kuh-gool/ noun

- Brit. a lightweight hooded waterproof jacket.

At first this might seem pedestrian enough, but I came up with something that was quite the contrary. Dig my vocab Here goes …