I've not read the books, but I've binge listened to the Graphic Audios and for some reason, I don't know why, this is Kate Daniels in my minds eye.
I don't even think they sound similar so I'm not entirely sure where I've made the connection.
I'd be interested to hear/see who you guys imagine when you think of Kate Daniels - or any other character for that matter.
TKWNKM was my intro to Ilona Andrews and now, of course I am going to read everything they’ve ever written, starting with Kate Daniels.
I came across this sentence in Small Magics and it stopped me in my tracks! The soap-making bandits of Kair Toren were in Atlanta!?
I have started making soap again for fun.
It's been over ten years and three house moves since I last enjoyed this hobby.
I have really nice soap now, Clover would definitely consider it refined and worthy of the best households. 😄
Has anyone else had any unlikely outcomes of their TKWNKM obsession?
Does anyone else wish the narrator had switched Reynald and Ramond's accents?
I was so enjoying the Scottish brogue and now feel bereft.... which is how Maggie feels, I guess.
In looking through all of the current International Hidden Legacy covers I have found a few that I feel conflicted about or frankly probably should have made the worst covers list. Many of these are interesting nonetheless and I'm curious where everyone else lands on them.
Without further ado - here is the list.
Covers 1-6 - Original Japanese covers. I find these original covers fascinating because of how you can see the marketing of the covers change over time. Nevada's trilogy was released in the late 2010s and the covers are decidedly Harlequin and cheap looking then after a gap, they get to Catalina's books in the 2020s and you can see a radical shift to marketing the series as romantic detective fiction with a completely different cover style. The choice to market each subtrilogy completely differently is a fascinating choice and if I had to speculate its because the publisher might not have fully understood the genre of these books in 2017 and only realized after the first trilogy that it wasn't a straightforward harlequin romance. It's possible they only paid attention to these nuances in the genre after the series had gained some initial success and could do well in the romantic mystery market. IA's books often baffle international publishers this way because they can be hard to classify neatly into romance, fantasy, mystery etc. You can tell the publisher quickly realized this disconnect between the series's marketing because only 1 year after Ruby Fever was published in Japan they started their redesign of the entire series which resulted in the minimalist flower and gemstone covers I featured in the last two posts. The manga style cover of Ruby Fever was only on the market for 3 years before being changed. Some part of me would love to have seen them do new covers for Nevada's trilogy in the style of Catalina's books.
Covers 7-10 - New French covers. The identity crisis of this series is also reflected in the French publisher's choices for the series. The first 3 books in France were also published with dramatic Harlequin-esque covers (that I put on my worst list), but presumably as the market or their understanding of the series genre changed they decided on a design pivot for Catalina's trilogy. These covers are decidedly very artistic and were designed by experienced graphic designer Mikhail Bakunovich (who apparently has an affinity for fire imagery). I would quite like them in an art gallery, but I wouldn't pick it up at the store and they don't feel like they convey the vibe or content of the series at all. The art is also not very distinctive or eye-catching a -nespecially since all the covers look similar enough to one another that my brain struggles distinguish them. The Harlequin-esque covers for books 1-3 are also still being sold, so getting at 6 individual books would result in a very mismatched shelf. These didn't make it into the worst list because I feel conflicted between respecting the art and hating it.
Covers 11-13 - Hebrew alternate covers. As we can all tell by now, the Hebrew publisher loves this series and at some point made these illustrated alternative covers. But I don't like the art in this case. This is one of those incredibly rare occasions where a photoshopped cover with a person on it looks better to me than hand-drawn art. These covers look much plainer, and as is always the risk with hand-drawn art for me the style doesn't work and the human features just don't feel right to me. This might be a highly individual issue, but it leaves me unsure how to classify these.
How do all of you feel about these? And for the Japanese and French covers which of the styles would you prefer on your shelf?
After this post I have no more HL covers I haven't posted on here (until new ones come out). I hope you've enjoyed the tour and my relentless posting on this topic!
My previous posts on other hidden legacies covers can be found here:
I am a good fantasy fan since teenagehood (Lotr, Eragon, HP, twilight, hunger games, La passe miroir, etc) and then I fell into romantaisy (fourth wings Acotar, Powerless, Ades and persephone, Gold, and many others... ) but I have kind felt like turning around cercle and some of it was just badly written. I am no longer a YA or a teenager...
And then I have decided to read This Kindom Will Not Kill Me ... and then finally in more then a year ! A plot, a universe that is build and seems solid with many characters that are interesting... No Show off or too simple trope...
I was wondering if the rest of Ilona Andrews series was worth the shot ? Please let me know #help #book hungover
PS: on the books that I have mentionned above, I did not liked all of them. I was just proving that I have tried to find something good
PS2: the books that I did liked : The Thrones of Glass, Acotar, Forth Wing 1, La Passe Miroir, LOTR, HP, the Witcher
Ps3: the ones that I did not liked: quicksilver, Gold, the wolf king
More cover appreciation, this time for Diamond Fire and Catalina's trilogy! Compared to the original HL trilogy, few foreign publishers have gotten to the second trilogy of Hidden Legacy, but of the ones who have, here are some of the highlights! If you want to see the covers from Nevada's trilogy again here's a link to my post about those last week. Tomorrow I also hope to do a post about some other, less-good covers for the HL series that haven't come up yet, including the original Japanese covers, which made some... interesting choices 😅.
So without further ado, here are some of the best covers for Catalina's trilogy and novella (plus more covers at the end for Nevada's trilogy that I became aware of right before my last post and couldn't fit in).
Cover 1 - Bulgaria continues to knock its cover design out of the park. This is a very recent release and I am dying to see what they do for the rest of Catalina's trilogy because I am lowkey obsessed with this one. I can't find info on when the rest of the books will come out, but I might actually stalk the publisher to find out at this rate 😂. I also want to know who's designing these covers even more than I did earlier.
Covers 2-5 - German covers. I can see that the German covers remain controversial and I don't entirely disagree because they tend to play fast and loose with title translations and cover model choices. Nevada's cover model had the wrong hair colour, and they do better with Catalina's books except the person on the Ruby Fever cover for this trilogy looks different than the model for Sapphire Flames and Emerald Blaze *sigh*. I still think the ink in water aesthetic is still beautiful and the entire series looks cohesive, but I feel like their biggest weakness is not visually distinguishing between Nevada and Catalina's series well enough since I easily get the image files mixed up when doing these posts. Also on the topic of odd translation choices, it was interesting that the German publisher changed Diamond Fire's title to "Cold Fire" since I've noticed a trend in international publishers using that title for their translations of White Hot. Given the fire theme of the book names in this series that's not out of the blue, but it bucks a broader trend I've observed. This sub-trilogy is also probably the German series translation that has stuck closest to the English names overall since they tend to rename things a lot.
Covers 6-8 - Hebrew Covers. As noted in my image comments I don't like these Hebrew covers as much as the ones they designed for Nevada's trilogy or other IA series. Something about the photo editing is just not as great for me. But these covers still have great series-specific details like Catalina's blade and getting her general appearance right. Unfortunately, the cover for Ruby Fever has earned it's place of dishonour in the worst cover post almost solely due to an incredibly egregious blouse which I can't bring myself to forgive despite it also having a hot version of Alessandro with a shotgun (please do argue with me if you think I should have forgiven this sin, but I simply couldn't do it...). Also, I do unabashedly love the wedding cake imagery for Diamond Fire and the fact that they also translated the novella!
Covers 9-11 - Japanese covers. It seems I might be the minority in liking the minimalist Japanese cover redesigns, but I honestly do. I much prefer the flower theme they used on Nevada's trilogy, but I still like the simple impact of these. This style will certainly not be for everyone and seems very keyed towards Japanese cover tastes, but I think the combo of the titles and the covers adds a certain mystery and allure to these books. I also like what Japan has been doing with the name translations (when I decide to look them up). "Sapphire Siren" for Sapphire Flames is a great hook-y title that conveys the type of magic she has and the stylized English text on the cover is quite pretty (in Japan a lot of translated works keep part of the English title because this often signifies 'sophistication' to readers there).
Covers 12-14 - Bonus Hebrew Nevada covers - These covers are listed on the publisher's site as a limited edition modern cover version of the series. As you know, I'm not opposed to minimalism and find these quite nice. I also like the camellia and other subtle imagery mixed in, but actually find myself preferring the original Hebrew covers. I'm not entirely certain when these came out because the publisher's site only lists the initial publication date of the standard edition, and it is not common practice to assign Hebrew books ISBNs (which makes edition tracking and finding good images a massive headache). But after some digging I found that these are pretty recent - probably 2024 - and that apparently the original HL trilogy was a massive foundational success for the publisher that led to them eventually creating this limited edition hardcover.
Let me know what you think about these! I'm planning to do a final HL cover post tmrw about some of the weird and less good ones I've found for HL.
Are any of the BDH in London? Do you guys want to meet up?
Nimrod had his mother’s body ensconced in Mishmar. When Kate expressed displeasure about this he said it was to “prevent her trying to rise”.
Which… for us the reader, in the non magical world is easy enough to kind of dismiss. Semiramis is an old ghost at best. Powerful, definitely….but able to rise again? We dismiss it out of hand. Or at least, I did….until I was brushing my teeth and suddenly….pause.
Wait. In the world of Kate Daniels, It *could* happen.
Look at what Curran did. He sacrificed godhood and brought back not one, but TWO people. And it wasn’t about the relative power or age of the people brought back, as one of them had originally been thousands of years old.
It makes me consider that Nimrod moving his mother’s body and surrounding it with prisons, traps, mazes, and hundreds of vampires wasn’t as much to keep her in place herself….but to keep other Powers from trying a similar resurrection stunt on her.
One can hope that once she was presumably taken “home” (and hidden well). That she then rested quietly in peace. But….. she is still a Power. And to say the family has a willful streak is like saying water is wet.
Imagine that! A living Semiramis.
Hey Horde!
I've been looking for some new booktubers and came across this one with a recent video about the Kate Daniels books. 😃 Nice to see the series being recommended by a guy! The channel is Andrew's wizardly reads in case the link doesn't work
Also, drop me any booktubers you like. My algorithm over there has been crap lately
Wondering what everybody's favorite quote is from TKWNKM.
Considering making a custom deskmat for my desk at home with something, but I cannot think of something punchy!
I might just be being very dense, but I'm a little confused about reading order -- should Iron & Magic be read before Magic Triumphs? I've been speeding through the Kate Daniels series, but my library has MT but not I&M so I'd have to wait a bit before finishing the series if so.
Iron & Magic isn't listed in the reading order list on HA's site, but it comes before Magic Triumphs in the complete book list/by publishing date -- would it add to the reading experience of the Daniels series to read it before Magic Triumphs, I guess is what I'm asking?
Thanks so much!
Just finished Ruby Fever. (5th go round) And I got an Easter Egg. Sort of a delayed action Easter Egg Or a message in a time capsule >!So Beast Business takes place before Ruby Fever. At Bern and Runa's wedding, we're getting a run down of the guests. At one table we're told that Cornelius, Matilda, Diana, and Blake are there, "...and surprisingly, Augustine Montgomery"!< That's a direct quote. So that happened. Could it be romantic foreshadowing?
But wait. Off topic, I just checked it and confirmed from a Ilona andrews source, that Beast Business takes place around 2 months before Ruby Fever. This brings up an interesting point though. >!we know that Matilda bonded with Kitty at the end of BB. The question is, where is he?. All I can come up with is that he's still too young to be apart from his mother!< That makes sense.
Anyone know when we might get Blood Heir Book 2?
I'm hoping someone on here who's more diligent with reading the blog etc might know where we are in terms of BH Book 2?
Thanks!
TikTok just randomly showed me a video of a special edition of This Kingdom Will Not Kill Me.
I think it is the >!Moonlight!< edition
I just received the OC edition which is absolutely GORGEOUS!
I have to admit that I like the OC edition more, but will still get this one. I am very curious about the endpapers 😊 What do you think about this edition? Which one do you find more appealing?
potential spoilers ahead:
I think there may be other book readers like Maggie who’ve been pulled into this world. I’m speculating that >! Matheo !< may be a reader like Maggie who has been pulled in since >! he too can predict things and is a seer of sorts.!<
Perhaps >! Silveren !< is also a book reader pulled into this world >! since he too can regenerate/ revive after death and he is able to appear and disappear as he wants. I‘m also speculating that he may be Latour himself? !<
I NEED book 2. I haven't felt this strongly about a book in years. I literally don't feel like reading anything else
I finished this book around 3 weeks ago and I'm already on my 4th reread 😭
I love Maggie. She's become one of my all-time fav FMCs. Same with the MMC. I love each and every single side character. The found family vibes in this are so wholesome. I love how much depth each character has and how natural all the interactions are (no forced dialogue)
I've read most of Ilona Andrew's catalogue and this is by far my absolute favorite book by them.
Does anyone have any other recommendations for political fantasy with a strong romance (and slow burn) subplot?
so, in Magic Bites we discover that only bone can kill an upir, and we go through a bunch of hassle to steal the dragon bone the eventually kills it.
but eventually we learn that Kate's sword is actually made from her grandmothers bones... does that mean it would have killed the upir all along??? Or, does all the magical transformation and "metal"-like quality of the bones of her grandmothe mean it would count as metal and be ineffective? Thoughts?
She’s an expert swordsman, of course. But every time she duels, she wins 2 out of 3 bc she always loses to Hugh. 💀💀 This is without me even touching any of Hugh’s skills. Sooo funny.
I recently finished my 5th re-read, and desperately need a new book. My go to is the Hidden Legacy series, but when I check my local library every single IA book has an agonizingly long waitlist.
I’ve tried eight books so far, and nothing has grabbed me. Would love some suggestions, because I think this is the worst book hangover I’ve ever had.
