Ilona Andrews – Magic Gifts

A Kate Daniel’s novella, book 5,5. A special Christmas Gift from the author to their readers.

What is this? This is that novella we kept promising you. It’s about 35,000 words long so about a third of a book and it’s yours free.
This novella takes place at the same time as Andrea’s book, right after MAGIC SLAYS, and the two stories intersect.
Synopsis:
A dinner date after a hard day at work sounds heavenly. Of course, when that date is between the Beast Lord and Kate Daniels, things don’t go as planned. Before you know it, undead are running amok, heads are being chopped off, lawyers are deployed and used with extreme prejudice, and drunk Vikings are calling people out.
Read at your own risk.
This novella is available only for a limited time. You have two weeks from today, December 24th, to download it.
http://www.ilona-andrews.com/magic-gifts/
After some negotiations with our publisher, it was determined that MAGIC GIFTS will appear as a bonus in the back of GUNMETAL MAGIC, Andrea’s book. You get both Andrea’s story and Kate novella under the same cover.
Now we must ask you for a favor. We can’t upload this file eretailers – it would take too long for Amazon and BN to mark it as free and for the upload to go up, and our agreement with the publishers gives us only a two week window in which we can make it available. We ask that you spread the word. Not all Kate fans read our blog.
Please link to this page, retweet, and spread the word on Facebook





So, I read a review of this novella on some one’s blog, and immediately went over to Ilona Andrew’s website, and downloaded it. What are you waiting for? It’s free for only a few days more. Or I can always email you a .pdf, it is a free story after all, meant as a thank you to the fans.

If you want to read this, you are in for a treat. A fast paced novella, in which almost all the usual characters make an appearance. Curran is asking Kate out for a nice dinner after a long day at work. Just the two of them, and she happily agrees. Ofcourse, dinner for him is a large roast or something, while Kate is a vegetarian. They decide on a restaurant Curran likes, which should be nice. But outside, two vampires are chained, meaning there are some necromancers inside. And that could of course be trouble.
Two young necromancers are inside, members of The People Kate does not recognize, totally engrossed in each other. But when the young man gives his girlfriend a gift, everything goes wrong. The gift instantly kills the young woman, making the vampire she was controlling get loose. And as the young man looses it as well, so goes his vampire free. And they only want one thing: fresh humans. It only takes a second for Kate and Curran to step in and kill the vampires, saving the other diners. Kate calls her favourite navigator, Ghastek, to come over and clean up the mess.
A strange, not human woman, her husband and young son soon enter the restaurant as well, claiming to be the dead woman’s parents. The husband is captivated by the necklace, but the woman quickly intervenes, shutting it around the boy’s neck, condemning him to death. How can a woman choose between her husband and her son, so coldly and calculating? Curran and Kate take the boy with them, trying to safe his life. For now, the necklace has fed, so there is still some time for the boy. But finding the solution to his problem is not easy, and Kate and Curran has to face some dangerous creatures.

Kate also has to deal with the Guild. It has been masterless for a few months now, and things are becoming dire. All the interested parties are looking for her to intervene, to mediate. But Kate really does not want to. She is not interested in playing the politics required to manage the Guild, and she knows it would fall to her.

In the end, more Andrea, and this promises to be so good in the next novel! Looking forward to that with eager anticipation!


A great novella, and I did not expect anything less. What to say? I love the main characters, I love the secondary characters, I love the story, the plot, the new additions to the world. There is nothing I dislike.

So, as it is a novella after all, 9 stars.