A good while back I read the first book, Magic Bites in Andrews’s Kate Daniels series of Magic verb books. I was not too overly impressed, it seemed like just another one of the endless stream of paranormal romance novels flooding the market. However, some friends recently strongly suggested I give the series another try, so I did. The second book in the series, Magic Burns is better, and I enjoyed it a fair bit. It still has a lot of the tropes of the genre and a fair bit of convenient coincidences, and frankly the plot was like something out of a SyFy movie — but for some reason it just worked for me. Perhaps I was in a more receptive mood, perhaps I don’t remember the first book as well, but I’d say that Ms. Andrews has clearly improved as a writer between the first and second installments. The setting is an alternate near future; magic has returned to earth, and magical creatures have reawakened. In some ways the semi-post-apocalyptic setting reminds me of Kim Harrison’s Hollows series, and having a magic-user protagonist only adds to the comparison. Harrison has better secondary characters, but Andrews’s protagonist doesn’t constantly elicit the urge to yell at her. As to the plot, the stakes are high, the action is constant, and overall the read was a good romp that was more enjoyable than it really should’ve been. I’ll likely keep following the series. Three and a half.