I had a pretty good idea of what to expect coming into Magic Bites: typical urban fantasy in a slightly different version of our own world; tough heroine; sexy alpha male to add a romantic twist. I was wrong--and kind of right--but Magic Bites is something different.

Now, normally I'd write up my own summary of the book, but I'm just not sure how to manage. Magic Bites is complex and dark and, at times, confusing, if not deliberately cryptic. The book left me with a myriad of unanswered questions.

I think the key thing here, is that Magic Bites is urban fantasy. Have you read any of those books with swords and monsters and dragons, and worlds so foreign and vast you can only just begin to wrap your mind around them? For me, Magic Bites was this, in a modern, urban environment. The creatures that inhabit this place are different, and so are the humans. The paranormal beings that inhabit this world are darker, more complex, and complicated than what I've come to expect from this genre. The world's familiar, sure, but so very unlike our own. I had recurring impressions of a low-tech version of Blade Runner (or Marissa Meyer's Cinder) where instead of technology, magic has taken hold, and become the world's driving force. Instead of androids, we have shifters and other creatures we can't quite understand. The magic here is like... real magic, somehow. Dark, twisty, dangerous and sinister. Not evil, but a perversion of the current order--a sentient force stretching out with infinite limbs in all directions, a beast gnawing away at the world we currently live in and recognise. Imagine if technology stopped working--cars, phones, televisions--and was replaced by an equally powerful medium, somehow wild, and not completely harnassable, that could not ever be entirely understood; one that was slowly taking over and changing the way we live.

In the middle of this world is Kate Daniels. An enigma. Equally as mysterious, strange, and well realised as the world she exists in, Kate's a freelance mercenary. Need someone found, killed, or captured? She's your lady... but she's not just any lady. And I really don't know much more than that. The authors are playing their cards pretty close to their chest. Here's what I do know: the girl is a trained warrior. She's tough--really, really tough--and hard as nails. She has a problem with authority. And she's hiding something huge. In Magic Bites we learn she has very powerful magic running through her veins, one that she'll do anything to keep hidden, but we're not told what it is, why it's so important to hide that she must burn anything that holds a trace of her blood, or where it came from. We're given tantalising hints and elusive clues, but this doesn't mean it's unsatisfying.

Kate has a cast of fascinating, compelling men in her life, but she's not a flirt, and no, they're not all falling at her feet. In fact, let me say right here and now: Magic Bites is not a romance. In fact, there's little-to-no romance in it. There is definitely a very faint spark of something that could grow into a romance, but it's barely hinted at.

Magic Bites is, well, kind of incredible. I've never encountered an urban fantasy so dense and complex, and in such a detailed, real world. It's gritty, it's strange, and it's utterly compelling. So basically? Despite an alarmingly ugly cover, Magic Bites is awesome.