Magic Gifts is a novella included as a bonus at the end Gunmetal Magic and was offered as a holiday gift last Christmas. It has a timeline crossover with Gunmetal Magic, which puts it in an awkward position as far as reading. That said, my recommendation is to read Magic Gifts first because the spoilers for Gunmetal Magic are only in the beginning and will make the tension higher for that scene because you’ll have had Andrea’s short recounting to Kate and be dying to see how it really played out. Everything else that comes to play in the novel is a matter of backhanded mentions while you’d know the full details of what happened.

The key phrase in that tangled summary above is “dying to see.”

As usual, Ilona Andrews (a husband and wife team) has put together a story that captivates and entices. Kate and Curran have not magically transformed into the perfect couple, nor has Kate settled smoothly into her alpha role. They squabble, fight, misunderstand, and learn more about each other and themselves, a process that is beautiful to watch.

And lest you think this is a contemporary romance with paranormal fantasy trappings, they do all this while fighting a ticking time bomb with a child’s life in the balance. They face both diplomatic and physical challenges in that unique way they have, assisted by Jim’s, at times unsubtle, hand.

Magic Gifts was a delightful treat, and a return to Kate and Curran in a novel based on Andrea for those who would feel the absence too sharply. Well worth the time to read…even if I think it would have been better done in the opposite order.

You’ll have to wait for next week to see what I thought of Gunmetal Magic, but I’ll give you a hint…Ilona Andrews knows how to tell a tale.