Blood Heir (Kate Daniels World, #1)

by Ilona Andrews

[EBookObsessed]

I am so happy to be back in the magical world of Kate Daniels.

Julie Olsen was once a street kid until Kate Daniels found her and gave her a home. A blood bond between her and Kate made life complicated and when that bond between them broke, Julie was left feeling hollow inside. So eight years ago, once Atlanta beat back Roland and was safe, for now, Julie took off to be with Kate's Aunt Erra, who she now calls Grandma, and together they built the Kingdom of New Shinar in California. Julie's magic was growing and broadening with training from Erra, her uncle Hugh d'Ambray and even from Roland, and New Shinar was becoming a bright jewel on the west coast.

Everything was wonderful for Julia until she received a call from the Sienna, the witch oracle in Atlanta, who told her that Moloch, the Child Eater, a God who enjoyed burning children as sacrifices, had become a human avatar and he established his new Kingdom in Arizona. Sienna had seen that Moloch would feel crushed between the Kingdom of New Shinar and Kate's Kingdom of Atlanta and he would eventually go to Atlanta to kill Kate. She also saw many visions that if Julie warned Kate and if she even saw Kate, then Moloch would win and Kate would die. From that moment, Julie's sole focus was to destroy Moloch and his priests. Julie goes to his kingdom and battled Moloch, losing an eye in the fight, but managed to destroy Moloch, cut him in pieces and threw his body in the fires but not before she took some his magic, by way of his eye, and absorbed it into herself.  As Julie's body absorbed Moloch's magic, it changed her...or maybe rebuilt her would be a better term.  Since the face she sees in the mirror is no longer that of Julie Olsen, she has renamed herself Aurelia Ryder.

A new look, a new scent, and a new name is helpful when you have to return to the city your grew up in and everyone knew you but you need to stay under the radar. You see, Julie still can't go home because Moloch's greatest power is regeneration. It has taken time, but Moloch has reanimated and he is even more determined to kill Kate and take her Kingdom of Atlanta, and now he is also determined to have Julie by his side.

Sienna has called Julie once again. Something has killed a beloved Pastor and Moloch's priests are in Atlanta looking for something. Aurelia Ryder has come to Atlanta and is investigating the death of this Pastor, and in returning to Atlanta, she stumbles upon old friends who have all changed in the last eight years. Some of them will recognize her and some won't; and those who don't aren't trusting of the stranger who has shown up in their city filled with strong magic and a lot of secrets.

In returning to Atlanta, the heart of the Kate Daniels series, Julie will come upon some of her mother's friends such as Nick Feldman, Ghastek and Luther Dillon, but as you would expect from a spinoff series featuring the next generation, Julie spends more time stumbling into her contemporaries from the prior series such as her brother, Conlan, Ascanio Ferara, now the Bouda Clan's beta, and Julie's first love, Derek Gaunt who was also back in Atlanta under an assumed name of Darren Argent. When Julie left Atlanta, she didn't tell Derek, torn between the fear that he would ask her to stay and she would or that he wouldn't ask her to stay and it would break her heart to know he never loved her like she loved him, and sometime during the last eight years that Julie was away, Derek/Darren had also left Atlanta and is now the beta of the Ice Fury pack from Alaska, the largest shapeshift clan in the United States.

Kate was mostly alone in her story arc learning to use her blood magic.   In comparison Julie has been trained by her Grandmother (Erra), her Uncle Hugh and her Grandfather, Roland.   So right from this first story, Julia comes out as a powerhouse using blood armor, blood weapons and power words that took Kate half the series to work out.   In some ways Julie with her own magic might be even more powerful than Kate.  We also get a glimpse of ten year old Conlan who has his father's shifter abilities and alpha stare and his mother's blood magic.  I can only imagine how unstoppable grown up Conlan will be.    Roland, while trying to take over Atlanta, was a villain and tyrant.  Roland, in his magic prison, visits with his grandchildren and is excited to act as a mentor for them, training them in their abilities and giving wise council.   I think setting him free would simply make him the next battle to be faced, but captive Roland is a powerful ally and kind of cool.  It reminds me of the father/son dynamic in the TV show Prodigal Son, where the father, a serial killer known as The Surgeon, is now is a mental hospital and consults with his son, a profiler with the NY Police.

I loved being back in the world of Kate Daniels with all the magic-created creatures, the humor and the exciting battles.  I loved that the authors dedicated this book "To the fans of Kate Daniels World who refuse to let get."  It's true, when the characters and the world building on a series is so good, who wants to walk away from it.   I was so happy to get this story from Julie's POV.  For those who weren't aware, during the pandemic Ilona and Gordon Andrews began writing this story and dropping sections and entire chapters on their blog almost daily as a way to entertain fans and distract them from their troubles.   Then sometime over the summer, they realized this was turning into a true novel and took it down to finish and fine tune  the story to sell later.  For anyone who was was reading along, but hasn't begun the completed novel, I was a little disappointed to see that I was 50 percent through the book before I came to new material.

The good news and the bad news is that this appears that Blood Heir is beginning of a new series.  Goodreads has this noted as book #1 of the Aurelia Ryder series and Amazon has it noted as Kate Daniels' World Book 1.  Of course, I just saw a note from the authors when asked if this will be a series, they stated probably.  Probably?   There are too many open issues for a probably!  I thought this was going to be a standalone, fun addition to the Kate Daniels series which started and finished in this book.   As excited as I am that we will be returning to this world and these characters, I wish I had realized that before I started this story then I would not have been surprised that we did not get answers to all of our questions.     Fans of Kate Daniels will remember that the romance of Curran and Kate didn't even begin until book 3 or 4, and although Roland was spoken of often, the first few books were all about staying under the radar so her father would not find her.  So like Kate's arc, there are burning questions that will not be answered before the end of this story.

We get a reunion of sorts between Julie and Derek when they yell at each other for disappearing but no grand gestures of romance even though we knew they had feelings for each other. We know what happened to Julie but we get no answers as to why Derek left Atlanta or how he ended up with Ice Fury. We also get no answer of what happened between Ascanio and Derek that caused such bad blood.  We get something about a fight but there had to be more than that to go from competitive to nearly enemies.   There is a big battle at the end of the story but not with Moloch.  Not everyone realized who Julie/Aurelia was so we still need to have those reunions and who will have hurt feelings that she didn't trust them with that information. Since there was no final battle with Moloch, that danger still exists. Therefore, Julie still can't go home and see her mother and Curran, and she's feeling very homesick.

There is still so much to discover in this spinoff.  I was ticking down the days until this book released and don't even want to think about how long (years!) it will be before we will get all our answers to these burning questions finally answered.    I have made notes of my predictions and assumptions and I will beginning counting down the days until I find out if I was right or wrong.  I have wanted to do a re-read of the Kate Daniels series and I think I will make that my Winter project.

I wouldn't recommend stepping into this world from this point but if you don't want to start the Kate Daniels series first, I would at least recommend picking up the short story Magic Stars  which features Julie and Derek and free on the Ilona Andrews website The King of Fire prologue to this story.

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