Kate Daniels

Kate Daniels

Ilona Andrews

Publisher: Berkley Publishing Group

Released Year: 2007

When I Read It: August 2018

Genre: Urban Fantasy, Fantasy, Paranormal, Werewolves, Vampires

Grade: B/ 4 Stars

“Kate’s Speciality: Killing things, with much bloodshed. Talking trash, infuriating authority. Driving Beast Lord crazy.”

― Ilona Andrews

The Kate Daniels Series is about…. Kate Daniels. Kate Daniels is a problem solver in a world that is an alternative version of Atlanta. In this Atlanta magic has disrupted the balance of things and has the effect of making electronic devices only work half of the time. Cars and phones are not reliable. Kate Daniels wanted to live her life alone at her house with no complications. She didn’t want people to care for or a relationship of any kind with anyone, but after the only man who is in any way important to her dies Kate finds herself more wrapped up in the world of the supernatural then she planned in being. Bound on finding the killer of her Guardian, Kate must meet with the People(vampires but cooler) and the Shifters, which causes her to get sucked up into their lives. Of course that wouldn’t be all. Kate is hiding something. Something that people would kill her for if they knew. Kate has been taught her whole life to keep it a secret, but can she while being wrapped into the dangerous life of magic in the alternate Atlanta.

 

For all the urban fantasy and werewolf lovers, here you go. I gift this series to you. Want a bloodier Mercy Thompson story that is still heart warming and maybe a bit more steamy, this is it. Kate’s character is that of the bad ass aunt you wished you had. She will do something just because you told her she couldn’t. No means nothing to her. It’s the gasoline she needed to make her fire go out of control. Kate is strong and doesn’t sit on the back lines letting people do all the work for her. Kate has her own fair share in killing people and getting hurt. Although Kate is the type to want to shut out people, when she cares for people she cares for them deep. She isn’t a shifter but to her pack is pack. If you’re in her pack she will protect you and care for you. Also the insults she throws make you actually laugh while reading. Seriously I want Kate to be my aunt. I want her to be real so she can adopt me into her family.

The series is set up in a fantasy, crime, detective type of book. Each book faces a new problem that arises and within the same book it is solved. There is still a over all major plot happening throughout the whole book. A lot of the little crimes that Kate has to solve all go back to the main plot unfolding and Kate getting wrapped up into it deeper and deeper with each book. Each book has it’s own enemy while the books main enemy gets closer and closer. It also takes a more unique twist on the creatures. The People are like necromancers that control vampires through a connection in their mind(it’s very interesting). The shifters are a huge pack of subpacks of different Shifters ran by the Beast Lord(Who is a giant white striped tiger). The strong shifters can also half shift. (I’ll leave what they look like up to your imagination.) Also a man who can shift into anything he desires, including extremely bodacious women.  

Pros:

• The world is very different and therefore very fun to read. Ilona Andrews takes a very different take on the typical supernatural creatures we all know and make them into something new. It’s refreshing to not read the same vampire and werewolf stories over and over again.
• Curran. Curran and Kate’s relationship throughout the series goes for a ride and once it sails it is what relationships should be. They become a solid unit. They trust each other completely(except for one of the books but there was a reason for that), and when they do fight it might start with some yelling but it always end with them having a conversation on how to fix it. It’s not a relationship full of drama. It’s pure love and respect for each other.
• Kate with Julie and Derek. Kate never saw herself having a love life, much less kids, but she treats Julie and Derek like they are her own and her relationship with the two of them are possibly cuter than her with Curran. Like Curran, Derek would give his life for  Kate.He is with her every step of the way throughout the books. I didn’t count it but I would definitely say over all, for most of the books, Derek is with Kate more then Curran is. Derek is one of the only characters Kate let’s make fun of her and also respects despite him barely being an adult. Then there’s Julie who is the reason I want Kate to be my aunt. Watching how she handles Julie and all of her little problems is definitely different than a normal mother type would do but Kate is also not normal. There has been multiple times of Kate going out of her way to make sure no harm comes to Julie and each time you can see just how much Kate truly loves her. She works hard to even train Julie to be a tough women so that if Kate isn’t able to help her in time she knows that Julie can help herself.

 

Cons:

• Although I love Curran and I love his relationship with Kate, in the beginning it did start a little weird. Curran is an alpha male and he acts like it, even towards Kate in the beginning. He acts like he is trying to push his dominance on Kate at times but Kate doesn’t take it and each time he does it she knocks him down a peg, which is what I love about them. And eventually the dominance does start to get cuter and more like them playing rather than him actually acting like her alpha. Them claiming each other was my favorite part of their moments before they got together, and is when the the dominance starts to stop and they start to become equals.
• It does take a little while for it to fully say what Kate is and what her relation is to what’s going on with everything, but it doesn’t leave you in the dark not knowing anything. Hints and little tidbits are dropped along the way until the point where she out right says it. I know a lot of people just want to know things as fast as possible, so for the people who don’t like waiting to find out the characters secrets this does take a little bit of time. Good news though. The books aren’t terribly long, usually less than 300 pages, and you can fly through them fast and learn her secret quick.
• Some people might find it repetitive since it does follow the style of each book having a murder or something happens and Kate has to stop it. It’s inner parts are different and always have different things happening but it does always start with something bad happening and Kate fixing it at the end. Cliff hangers aren’t really happening with this series, either. The problem is usually solved and might just have some slight foreshadowing as to how the main plot might progress in the next book.

 

I think this book is up there on the Urban fantasy. I’ve definitely found my fair share of horrible urban fantasy books, but this series is one of the best of its kind. Right under Mercy Thompson which is my favorite werewolf/ Urban Fantasy series. I have yet to finish the series completely,(The last book just came out a few days ago) but from the 8/10 books I have read I have gotten to know the series pretty well and fell in love with Ilona Andrews’ character, Kate Daniels. 

“I think you’re confused as to the nature of our relationship. You and I, we don’t get along. You’re a psychopathic control freak. You order me around and I want to kill you. I’m a pigheaded insubordinate ass. I drive you mad and you want to strangle me.”

― Ilona Andrews

*It does have sex scenes but there not too detailed. A paragraph or two. They aren’t having sex every other chapter, more like once or twice within the book once they become a couple. Not for kids, and depending on how old you are maybe not for teens but for the older teens whose parents don’t care what they read(Like mine) it’s ok. Definitely don’t read though if you can’t read anything that features sex. It’s nowhere near a big part of the book, like I said it’s a paragraph or two like two or three times an book, but it does have sex scenes with very mild descriptions of what is going on. If you like your books clean of that this series is not for you. *

“Did those nice church ladies come by again?”

He nodded. “I asked them if a man died and then the woman remarried, and then the three of them met in heaven, would it be a sin for them to have a threesome, since they were all married in God’s eye. And they decided they were late to be somewhere else.”

― Ilona Andrews