strange coordinates and lines

Hidden Legacy Series, Ilona Andrews

(First trilogy reviewed here. As a quick primer, magic has existed since the mid-1800s, runs in families called Houses, led by the overpowered Primes, and mundane law enforcement mostly refuses to get involved with their feuds).

Diamond Fire

Book 3.5 as it's a novella, and Nevada Baylor, protagonist of the first trilogy, is about to marry billionaire Connor 'Mad' Rogan. But they're two wedding planners down and Nevada's middle sister Catalina has decided she's going to make this wedding work if it kills her, or if she has to kill someone else. The problem is, someone already has killing in mind, a major theft already happened, and prime suspect for that is probably one of Connor's mother's family. So it's shy, brilliant Catalina against a dozen spoiled Spanish aristos.

I like Catalina as protagonist, but I think my favourite character is the utterly irreverent Runa Etterson, a Prime specialising in poisons: "Yes, the frosting is definitely poisoned - everyone grab a spoon and dig in!"

Sapphire Flames

Catalina has now replaced Nevada as head of House Baylor and the Baylor PI agency, on the grounds it's the only way to stop Nevada working herself to death. Summoned on a mission of mercy, to lure a grieving teen off a ledge, Catalina is horrified to discover his sister is Runa Etterson, and that they are the only surviving members of their family after their mother and sister burned to death in a house fire. Runa is convinced it was murder, and as the new head of House Etterson, she wants the Baylor Agency to find out who did it. Meanwhile, her mother had her own safeguard in place, and has hired an assassin to avenge her, an assassin Catalina is horrified to discover is billionaire playboy Count Alessandro Sagredo, subject of her teenage crush. In person Alessandro is arrogant, entitled, and annoyingly, evenly shockingly competent. It's love at first hate. 

Emerald Blaze

"Holster your weapons, and step away from the monkey!"

Nine months on from Sapphire Flames and Catalina is mostly over Alessandro walking out on her in pursuit of his personal obsession. But when both she and her secret boss, the grandfatherly Linus Duncan, aka the scary Warden of Texas, are attacked by summoned creatures, Linus decides that the attacks mean Catalina needs to take point on the investigation of the murder they may relate to. Which is when Alessandro reappears, strangely stripped of his arrogance, humbled even, and swearing to protect her. Which considering the investigation means going face to face with not one, but four combat Primes, the prime suspects in the murder, and a bunch of assassins, might be just as well.

Ruby Fever

A year on from Emerald Blaze and the Speaker of the Texas State Assembly (ruling body of the Houses) has just been assassinated, while someone walked through Linus Duncan's overpowered security to leave him comatose, which means Catalina Baylor, Deputy Warden of the State of Texas at the age of 23, is on her own when it comes to who is running the investigations. But that doesn't mean she's on her own for actually getting stuff done, because she has the full assistance of her family aka House Baylor, and her fiance, Alessandro Sagredo. Plus an annoying Russian prince. And she's going to need all the help she can get, because this time it's war.

Okay, these are David-candy, and I had to ration myself by insisting I read each book twice before moving on to the next, otherwise I'd have blown through the whole double-trilogy in three days. There's a definite pattern to the two trilogies: Book 1, best of frenemies, Book 2, reconciled lovers, Book 3, partners. But Nevada and Catalina are different characters, possibly overly defined by their older sister/middle sister roles, and if their partners are both dangerous billionaire bad boys, they're at least different dangerous billionaire bad boys - Connor as a soldier and Alessandro as, well, Zorro.

They're very much about family - the Baylors start as the three sisters, their mother, their two male cousins, and Grandma Frida, all working together, but also found family, because by the time the second trilogy wraps they are up to somewhere around twenty characters considering themselves to have family ties - and all but a couple of the younger kids with fully developed characters. 

The world-building is equally good, as is the plotting, with underlying arcs binding the trilogies together. I think I caught a couple of things that were raised and not developed, but nothing major. They even covered a point in the Baylor heritage where I initially thought they'd missed the scientific implications.

Impressed.