Mihir's Thoughts: Curran Volumes Vol 2.5

So I’m back as B. basically promised that if I didn’t get this review done he would unleash all types of spam-bots on my e-whereabouts. Like the previous post about the Curran Volumes, these were written exclusively by Andrew Gordon (one half of the excellent writing team that is Ilona Andrews). Gordon released two more Curran snippets, one after their character won in a fan voting against that of J.R. Ward a few months ago and recently when an awesome fan mailed them something pretty cool.

With such largesse, all us fans get some truly amazing scenes to read about. Both these snippets are set in the past; the first one is set after the events of Magic Strikes and one week before the events of Magic Bleeds. Read snippet over HERE.

In this snippet, Jim comes to Curran with some dire news about Kate’s past. All of this is already known to us readers as we have been privy to Kate’s thoughts and knowledge of her past through her POV, but it was interesting to see both Jim and Curran digest it. The event shown in the snippet has not been shown in the books. It’s not a big scene, however its importance resonates quite spectacularly as it shows the depth of Curran’s passion for Kate. At the same time we also get to see his foresight as well. As a reader of the books, we often see Curran and his actions from Kate’s viewpoint and so they are colored by her prejudices and her upbringing. So certain things, when viewed from Curran’s sight are not only refreshing but simply exciting. The snippet ends rather quickly and we are left to rue the events that would take place thereby further lengthening the twisted courtship process which takes place between Kate and Curran.

The second Curran POV snippet is set into the latter third of Magic Strikes; read snippet HERE. Once again we get to see events which we have read about but now from Curran’s eyes. This snippet is what the authors reveal to be “smexy”. Gordon’s not overtly comfortable with such scenes and he’s made it clear in the start, “I am not super comfortable with the smexy scenes. However, I was bribed with action figures by Diana G. I did my best to convey the Beast Lord’s thoughts and feelings but we men are simple creatures, not much goes through our head in these situations beyond “Boobies,” and “I got Snu snu” to quote Futurama. The scene where the guys are in pelvic casts, high-fiving each other is pretty spot on. With that said, please take it for what it is, warts and all.”

The scene involves Kate and Curran in a hot tub and we get pretty much what most readers wish for, the twist being that things end up a bit abnormally but considering its Kate & Curran they could be classified as normal. There’s not much I can write about this snippet without revealing what it’s all about. We do however get the depth of Curran’s passion and some might be a bit troubled by it but considering his character, this is pretty much in line. Once he’s set on something, he will do anything to get it done. On a separate note the authors also had to clarify a few things about the scene and one of their inside jokes about their author friends in a post the very next day. I thought this was a bit funny simply because of the level of fan discussion that prompted this second blog post. All things considered Ilona Andrews do have a very active and vociferous fanbase and sometimes they really do voice their thoughts to the extreme.

In all, these Curran snippets and scenes are very much appreciated and both Bastard and I hope that we get more of them along with the books. Lastly, this year sees the release of Andrea Nash’s solo book (titled GunMetal Magic) and a Kate Daniels novella (more info HERE). The book’s cover is different from the look of the Kate Daniels series and some info about it can be found HERE.