As with the first book of this series, this sequel took quite some time to reel me in and get me interested. However, once it managed to do it, I was left feeling that I may just want to try out the next one as well.

In our second foray into the alternate Atlanta we find Kate fitting readily into her duties both with the guild, as she is off hunting a renegade wizardly type, and with the order in her duties as a guardian when she happens upon a 13 year old waif looking for her mother. Things get more complicated when the here and gone magic of the city starts flaring, causing great disruption with the magical denizens, including the shapeshifters and Kate.

I think the thing I like best about this story is Kate's relationships with those around her, including Derek the werewolf, Bran the mysterious archer, Andrea the weapons expert, Julie the lost little girl and, of course, Curran, King of the Beasts. The problem I find is that for whatever reason I seemed to lose interest halfway through the book although I can't put my finger on exactly why. I think it just may be that I read too much urban fantasy and can't seem to stop myself.

I do think this book was more enjoyable than the first. Even though there were quite a few characters, both old and new, I didn't have too hard a time keeping up with them and they all seemed interesting. Overall pretty good, even if not one of my faves. ( )

This second book in the series is better than the first, I think because the protagonist, Kate Daniels, is less detached, and more layered in this one. The action doesn't stop - something happens, then before the denoument of that scene finishes, the action for the next starts. The story is the quest interrupted by detours for other quests.

It all starts when Kate is given charge of a pre-adolescent girl, Julie, and starts looking for Julie's mother. This leads to a clue about other weirdnesses happening in Atlanta, and so on. This is a time of magic flares, when waves of magic and tech crash through the city on a fast cycle. ( )

I like the second book as much as the first - got to find out the answers to the Crest question and was actually glad about the way things turned out. Too bad Red turns out to be such a loser. Can't wait to see where the story goes from here. ( )

Kate Daniels is a powerful magic-user in a world where magic has returned, intermittently. Sometimes the tech rises, so internal combusion and electricity etc. works, and sometimes waves of magic hit, so it’s magelights and enchanted water engines. Magical creatures exist all the time, but are stronger during magic waves. Kate has only ever seen airplanes in pictures; I loved the detail that cellphones sometimes work during magic because, since most people don’t understand how they work anyway, they’re fueled by belief rather than tech. Kate has a deadly secret—the source of the power in her blood—and a freelance job solving magical problems for people. In the first book, she investigates the murder of her mentor, and ends up caught between the People (necromancers) and the shapeshifters, who are the major competing power blocs in her area of what used to be the US. In subsequent books, her troubles continue.

Basically, if you liked Guilty Pleasures--even if the thought of Anita now makes you want to hurl—I recommend these books. Kickass heroine with difficult superpowers, matched with plausibly hard-to-beat foes; palace intrigue; frustrating and hot guys. So you get stuff like this: “To get clear of two hundred enraged shapechangers I’d need a case of grenades and air support. There was no reason to weigh myself down with extra weapons. Then again, maybe I should take a knife. One knife, as a backup. Okay, two.” Andrews occasionally trips a warning alarm on my gender politics sensors in terms of overbearing guys who think that’s what sexy is, but it’s been okay so far. As she’s set it up, rogue shapeshifters—loups—are really into rape with their cannibalism, so sexual violence comes up regularly, though without explicit depiction. ( )

I have a much deeper connection to Kate in this novel which always improves my enjoyment of a novel and I immediately started the next book, also a good sign! I think what I liked best about this were the small, poignant ideas that were scattered through. I particularly liked Kate’s example of her morality – if you’re being chased by wolves, and you find an abandoned baby do you save the baby or save yourself? Just a quiet moment, but it tells us so much about her as a character. ( )