author : Ilona Andrews

Rose Drayton lives in the Edge, a between-place, separating the worlds of the magic-free "Broken" and the magic-full "Weird". Abandoned by her family, she is bringing up her younger brothers, making ends meet by working as a minimum-wage office cleaner in the Broken. But she has a valuable power, being able to "flash" white, which makes her potential breeding stock from the bluebloods in the Weird. So when Earl Declan Camarine turns up, she is naturally hostile. But then a powerful evil seems into the Edge, and she and Declan must work together to defeat it.

This is a standard fairy tale / romance tale (no prizes for guessing how it ends) with some mildly interesting set-up of the "Edge", a place where outcasts and non-people struggle to make a living, belonging neither to the Broken nor to the Weird. There are some good set pieces, but it soon becomes all too predictable, and Rose caves in much too quickly. Also, the name of the Power, "flashing", leads to some unintentionally hilarious sentences nearly every time it's used (maybe the word doesn't mean the same thing on the other side of the pond?)

In a near future world where technology is constantly disrupted by flares of magic, Kate Daniels is a magic mercenary for hire, cleaning up people's magic problems. When her guardian is murdered, she insists on investigating, and discovers that someone seems to be attempting to stir up a war between the shapeshifters' Pack, and the vampire-controlling Masters of the Dead. And Kate has her own secret brand of magic to conceal.

It's an interesting world, with the decay of technology all around. Kate's investigative technique is, as she puts it, to annoy enough people until the murderer tries to kill you. Actually, she eventually annoys people enough that they all want to kill her, which makes it hard for her to spot the bad guy. It takes a while to get going, but once the slam-bang action takes off, there are bodies flying in all directions. Good mind candy.

Magic mercenary Kate Daniels is back, in even bigger trouble that before. Ever-stronger magic flares are allowing more powerful creatures to manifest, and people start calling in old debts. Pretty soon she finds herself guardian of a young girl being hunted by the minions of a minor Celtic deity, whilst simultaneously being plagued by the hero companion of another minor deity.

This sequel is better than the first, in that the action starts straight away, and essentially never lets up. There are also some extremely weird characters and situations (what's with that tortoise?), lots of great slug-fest, and some interesting character developments. Kate's life is getting quickly more complicated.

Kate Daniels is back in the fray. Her werewolf friend Derek is left half-dead by the Reapers, a group of dangerous pit-fighters, as a message to the local Pack. She and her werepanther friend Jim are hiding this fact from the pack leader Curran, and she's not sure which is more dangerous, the reapers or Curran. But she's about to find out that the real danger lies in her past, which is about to catch up with her.

Another load of slam-bang action with some good set-piece fights (although a few of them do seem to be a bit too easy for the good guys), with a few great scenes in between. I particularly enjoyed the part where Kate goes to pick up her adopted niece Julie from her school in a way that will give Julie's bullying tormentors something to think about. So, great action, and we get to see more of Kate's past, and how that's going to be a real problem for her soon...