Review: excellently paced, a perfect balance between romance and danger
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 06 26, 2012
Now, if the line "a tale of darkness, desire, and werecats" doesn't make you guffaw and totally want to check this novella out, I'm not sure what I can say to convince you, but I'm going to try. Because, dear friends, Magic Dreams, easily captured the roll of my favorite novella thus far in this series. Maybe it was because I was coming off of a couple of fairly mediocre reads and Magic Dreams totally picked me up, but more than that I think it's because it was a fresh and unique look into this world I've come to love.In Magic Mourns, I was excited for the change of perspective from Kate to Andrea. I love Andrea, but I'm not going to lie, I was even more excited after experiencing the switch to Dali in Magic Dreams. Kate and Andrea had different voices, and are very different women, but at the same time they're both incredibly strong women who get paid to kick butt and take names. Dali is completely different, and much more relatable to the average woman. She is incredibly intelligent, but also lacking in the confidence department. She's blind (What up homegirl? Wanna compare perscriptions?), sucks at fighting to the point that blood can make her puke (though we did see some killer magic skills in the area), and her own mother doesn't think she's pretty. We all know it's pretty impossible to think you're pretty if your own mother doesn't see it. As a result, she fails to recognize her utility, even as she seeks to prove it. When Jim, who she's completely in love with but also completely convinced would never look twice at her, comes to her for help only she can provide, Dali will go to every length imaginable to save his life.I loved being in Dali's head, even if she was a bit frustrating and defensive at times. Who among us hasn't been there when we're trying to convince ourselves we don't suck? I loved an insider's view on her dopey disorientation when she first shifts to her tiger form, as it usually takes her a couple of minutes to remember what's going on and in the meantime is very easily distracted by smells. The way she reacts to Jim was adorably hilarious to me.Also, I feel like because Dali's more academically minded, and because she comes from a family with a long history of magic, we got a better explanation of just how today's dilapidated Atlanta came to be.  And finally, we learn a very interesting tidbit about Kate and her magic's affect on technology while Dali attempts to explain the situation.The plot was, as ever, excellently paced, a perfect balance between romance and danger. The mythology used this time was all Eastern Asian, largely Japanese, and I ate it up. I would love to see more of this!I highly recommend this novella for fans of Kate Daniels, like I said, it's been my favorite so far. Now here's hoping Ilona Andrews will write a Derek novella at some point!