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From: Lynn McGuire <lynnmcguire5@gmail.com>
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
Subject: "Gunmetal Magic" by Ilona Andrews
Date: Fri, 3 Jan 2025 15:55:02 -0600
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"Gunmetal Magic" by Ilona Andrews
    https://www.amazon.com/Gunmetal-Magic-Ilona-Andrews/dp/0425256138/

Book number one of a one book dark fantasy series.  This book is a 
spinoff of the very successful ten book Kate Daniels series.  I read the 
well printed and well bound MMPB published by Ace in 2012.  I look 
forward to future novels in the main series and this spinoff series. 
Note that “Ilona Andrews” is the pseudonym for a husband and wife 
writing team.  The book also includes a free 108 page Novella in the 
back called "Magic Gifts".

Kate Daniels's universe sucks.  Forty years ago, the tech world crashed 
over the entire Earth and was replaced by the magic world in the form of 
a magic flare.  Guns don't work, cars don't work, electricity and phones 
do not work.  But magic works.  Good magic and bad magic.

After a week, the tech world came back to a drastically changed world. 
And radically fewer humans.  And the magic world came back after a 
while.  And the tech world came back after that.  And so on and so 
forth.  Each world can last a few weeks or a few hours.

Andrea Nash is having a bad year.  She was outed as a hyena shapeshifter 
when Kate Daniels aunt attacked Atlanta and Andrea changed in public. 
Then the Order of Knights threw her out of the Order.  Now the Pack 
wants her to join or leave Atlanta.  And she just broke up with her 
boyfriend, alpha of the Bouda clan of the Pack.  Not quite the Hallmark 
movie.  Maybe a really dark Hallmark movie.

I liked everything about the story.  I especially liked the very clear 
distinction between the tech time and the magic time.  I had never 
thought about it that way.  The series may be inspired by "Ariel" by 
Steven Boyett and "Dies The Fire" by S. M. Stirling except those never 
interchange the tech time and the magic time, they just transitioned to 
the magic time and never went back.

The authors have a active website at:
    https://www.ilona-andrews.com

My rating: 5 out of 5 stars
Amazon rating: 4.6 out of 5 stars (4,213 reviews)

Lynn