Couldn't Wait For Paper!
While I enjoy all the different books this amazing writing (and life, as they are married) team puts out, its Kate & Curran I'm a sucker for and this newest book just pushes that love to the sky! I couldn't wait for the paper version to arrive (although I DO now have it in paper as well as unabridged audio) and I'm so glad I didn't. The story answers some of the most difficult uncertainties Kate struggles with while opening up a whole new bag of worms to tackle in the future. And as for the future... well. A path is clearly visible by the end, but open to radical changes as always.
Plenty of action to soothe a readers swashbuckling soul, but this book also allows more growth in the characters. Not as action driven this time, instead the book opens - and keeps as a steady thread - with the constant nightmare humming in the back of all Shifters hearts & heads : what if my child goes loupe? That terror drives all Shifters and those they love. Its been a tiny note in all the Kate & Curran books but only just touched and allowed to simmer away quietly until this book allows it to explode out into the true driving force. Its what will make Kate & Curran go across the sea, it drives Aunt B to fight for her future grandchildren. It motivates all the Shifters.
While the political dancing is a large part of this story as well as fight scenes to make a gal giddy (gonna dance around and only give a slight spoiler - there is one fight at the start that makes it clear Kate isn't all that worried about dolphin safe tuna fishing.... But the whole scene is glorious. Brutal? Yes. But once again an idiot finds out that threatening a shifters mate is just a messy one way ticket to meet your maker!) the overriding push of this book is the desperate lengths good people will go to in order to save and protect their children. Even when the bottom drops out her world (repeatedly. And in some cases, literally) Kate runs always forward. To protect. To love. To care for. For children born and children yet to be. For HER future, she stays.
It is simply a glorious next chapter in what I hope will be a very very long book series. The team that makes up Ilona Andrews have the magic touch - not only is thew newest book wonderful and something to be devoured, but after its read, the need to go back and reread all the ones that came before, to catch the backstory threads AND to just relive it again. Thats a rare gift to have, and its one they have in all their story telling.
My only complaint is one big character death. I understand why. I can let that character go because it IS right in the thread. Doesn't mean I didn't cry like a baby over it. I'm hoping there will be one of their famous side stories one day addressing it more and tying up the fallout, so I won't growl too much over a grave.
Read the book. Better yet? The whole series. And when you are done, go over to the iTunes store and download the unabridged audio versions of all of the books. I have all of them (no attachment to the authors, readers, or getting a kickback from iTunes for this, but wouldn't THAT be nice!) and they are stellar additions to long car rides, workouts, or even just a long walk.