Listening to the audiobook I got from the library is pissing me the fuck off. Why does my iPod skip chunks of text, going from chapter 4 skipping to chapter 6?  FFS! Then  I can't go backwards or forward in the proper sequence and it's so bloody frustrating. It's ruining my reading and listening experience! wah. I, however, also have the book. I bought the book at a second-hand shop after I got the audio download from my library because I love reading and listening to a novel. The narrator is so darn good too. It's Renée Raudman.

I felt the story was missing a lot of background information. Kate Daniels is an adult now and she presumably has a crush on her Guardian Greg. He dies right in the beginning so I felt kind of at a loss, not knowing much about him and her relationship with him. There were many things I didn't understand in the beginning like why did everyone know who she was? Obviously, it is a paranormal/Urban fantasy world and there were a lot of characters and it was quite hard to keep up with them all. I feel Kate Daniels is a very fearless and strong female who can handle things on her own. She's tough in other words. I'm struggling with it so far. In Chapter 4 but I like it.

UPDATE: I'm finished. It was ok. 2 stars Appearing in Magic Bites were teams of supernatural creatures that I'm not sure I understood how they came to be. Kate Daniels world is a scary place and I don't understand the magic with all it entails and all its entrails lol

The heavy round head rolled to the dirt in a gush of blood.

When I was only a few chapters in I felt that the author (or authors because I understand it's a husband and wife team) was trying to be almost paranormal noir?  Is that even a thing? 

Anyway, upon finishing, I still had that feeling and that was okay, Didn't mind it at all.  I liken this book to a bowl of chips with some dip.  Really good snack food.  Nothing overly deep but a lot of fun.

I'm not a paranormal fan usually, but with this first installment of Kate Daniels' adventures I found myself quite enjoying the characters. That's a biggie for me.  That's 3/4s of the author's battle right there.  Kate is a bad-ass.  You are never left in doubt of that. I found it very entertaining and not annoying at all.  It can be, but not in this case, or not yet.  And we don't really know alot about Kate even by the end of this first book.  I feel like I've just scratched the surface and it's a very um... misleading surface. 

One problem I had with the book is that there are no other female characters of import.  A couple of bad guy girlfriends, a couple of receptionist types, one pack leader but I don't even thing she has a line of dialogue.  I hope there are more in the books to come because if not, I'm going to end up losing interest.  The world created can be populated with important women just as it is with important men.

Speaking of the men.  We meet Curran, the Beast Leader, shapechanger extraordinaire and all things sexy.  So alpha that he's the alpha of alphas.  You know he's destined for Kate.  And that's okay, that's how the trope rolls.  Now for a while, I thought we were being set up for another romance angle with a human doctor - made me think of the Stephanie Plum books and I was worried.  But nope, appears not, so I let out a sigh of relief.  I also don't think Kate is going to go the way of Anita Blake, which is a blessing. 

All in all, I think my fave characters were actually Mahon - the Executioner of The Pack and Eddie, young wolf shifter.  I hope we're going to see more of the latter, that's not a given as I read things.  He could fade into the background, but Mahon will be around for a while unless he gets killed off in a coming book which is highly possible.

Anyway, I did enjoy my read and will continue the adventure with Kate and the guys.  I'm told by a few people that the series only gets better as it goes along. 

Yikes. I forgot how much I didn't like Curran or how Kate was portrayed in book #1. I really wanted Kate to take a fire extinguisher to his head and beat him to death. At one point he grabs her by the throat and tries to beat her cause she disobeyed him. How did I forget this??? The world building wasn't that great either. Things jumped around too much and did I mention I hated Curran? Like a lot. 

"Magic Bites" is the first book in the Kate Daniels series. I know that I ended up reading this book back when I was in Iraq and I think I started reading the other two books after this while in Afghanistan and when I was permanently stay side. I don't know why I kept with them since the re-read brought back all of my disgust with the  first book in the series. 

Kate Daniels is a mercenary who starts investigating when her guardian is murdered. Kate who resisted being part of the Order or Knights of Merciful Aid. Now she is taking on a job in order to see justice done. Bodies are piling up on the People's side (humans who navigate vampires) and Shapeshifters side (the Pack led by the Beast Lord Curran). Kate isn't doing a great job navigating that mess and also seeing about dating a random guy she meets named Crest. 

Kate is  not the Kate that I am used to in this one. She stumbles around and tells people things they shouldn't know and or taunts them. She also seems to be a barely functioning alcoholic at times depending on the scene. We see glimpses of the Kate we are used to when she's working along side Derek or using her knowledge to fight. We don't know what secrets Kate has, but it seems big enough for something big and ugly deciding that it plans on taking her against her will. We know that her guardian and his ex-wife were close to her father and mother. But then again a lot of things said in this book doesn't match with what I know now, so part of my brain started to hurt trying to track all of this. 

Curran is an asshole. He purposely tries to intimidate Kate, puts his hands on her, and then accuses her of liking attention when she refuses to do what he says. I wanted someone to beat the mess out of him. 

The Derek in this one sucked. He tells Kate that she needs a stronger man to tell her no. And talks about how not pretty she is. How did Kate not murder everyone?

We get our first glances at Mahon (who is not written consistently I am seeing from this book through the rest of the series) Jim, Dr. Doolittle, Ghastek, Saiman and others. And even Kate's reactions with these people isn't how we have seen her in the books in the rest of the series. Mahon is freaking reasonable which made me laugh. Dr. Doolittle si the same though at least in personality so that was nice to see. I still don't like Jim, but that's nothing new. 

The writing was just okay in this one. Not a lot of things make sense due to the world building not being that clearly defined. We had dialogue, a murder mystery, and then you would read about power words and wonder where did they come from. I think the biggest issue is that Andrews hid stuff from the readers that made it hard to know what was going on with Kate and why Curran was so interested in finding out. 

The ending has Kate on a slightly new path with her being a friend of the Pack. I would have passed on that last thing. 

Wow. I forgot how much I disliked Curran in book one. The world building is not that tight in this one either. Probably because we know that Kate is hiding something, but she hasn't told the reader yet.

Reading this one for this square: