Review: The first of the Magic novellas
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 05 27, 2011
In "Magic Mourns", which is a 90-page novella in the anthology "Hell Hounds", we get a POV from Andrea, Kate's friend as Kate is in the background due to the climax of Magic Strikes and Andrea gets to deal with the Order's problems as Kate's replacement. Andrea has not been able to get much outdoors action due to certain issues which were focused upon in Magic Burns [2nd Kate Daniels book]. She gets a call from out of town to investigate a three headed dog that seemed to be chasing a Pack animal.She jumps onto this chance and on further investigation it turns out that the creature in question is none other than Ralph [the were-hyena who is smitten by Andrea]. The reason for him being chased has something to do with his mother Aunt B. the current Alpha for the Hyena clan & her mate. The tale then expounds as to what might be happening and why a certain three headed dog [whose mythological background you can easily guess] is hell bent upon his stay at a certain place.This novella is set in the timeframe after the events of the third book and is a nice departure from Kate and we get to see more of Ralph & Andrea who seem to be another crazy couple in-the-making. The mythological aspect discussed in this tale is again a new one. The authors are doing a swell job of concocting their tales and utilizing different mythos to power their stories and yet developing links to enmesh them cohesively as a part of this series.This novella serves as a nice sidebar to the Magic series and preferably will have to be read before the 4th book "Magic Bleeds" as some characters and the tale's ending bears minor ramifications in the next Book. Overall an "A" effort and a story not to be missed by fans of Ilona Andrews.