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Burn For Me (October 28, 2014) by Ilona Andrews

Hidden Legacy series is a trilogy by Ilona Andrews.


Genres and Sub-Genres[]

UF / PNR (Urban Fantasy / Paranormal Romance)

Series Description or Overview[]

The series follows three sisters from the Baylor family as they come into power in a dangerous world, protecting their family as best they can while keeping Baylor Investigative Agency running, in spite of the magical dangers that surround them

✥ New York Times bestselling author Ilona Andrews launches a brand new Hidden Legacy series, in which one woman must place her trust in a seductive, dangerous man who sets off an even more dangerous desire. It’s a story of a woman who exists in a world very much like our own, except this world revolves around Houses, magic dynasties. They own corporations, they dominate politics, and they feud to each other. It’s a story of over the top adventure, flashy magic, and unlikely romance between Nevada Baylor, who knows when people lie to her and Mad Rogan, the billionaire-mage who wields almost god-like power. ~ Burn For Me Cover Reveal

✥ “The actual story begins in current times featuring Nevada Baylor, a small-time PI who is carefully supporting her family the best way she can. Things however take a drastic turn as she is compelled into a herculean endeavor and that’s where the actual plot sets in. Featuring snarky dialogue, a strong female protagonist and an intriguing magic-ensconced world, join Ilona Andrews in their new series coming out from Avon books soon…” ~ Fantasy Book Critic: NEWS: Ilona Andrews' New Series

Lead's Species[]

  • Mage

Primary Supe[]

  • Mages

What Sets it Apart[]

  • Magic Houses like dynasties

Narrative Type and Narrators[]

  • First-person narrative told by Nevada Baylor, protagonist;

Books in Series[]

Hidden Legacy

1) Burn For Me (Oct 28, 2014) (Nevada Baylor)

2) White Hot (5/30/2017) (Nevada Baylor)

3) Wildfire (7/25/2017) (Nevada Baylor)

3.5) Diamond Fire (11/06/2018) (Nevada and Catalina Baylor) (Novella)

4) Sapphire Flames (8/27/2019) (Catalina Baylor)

5) Emerald Blaze (8/25/2020) (Catalina Baylor)

6) Ruby Fever (08/23/2022) (Catalina Baylor)

Shorts, Anthologies, and Guides[]

A Misunderstanding (Arabella Baylor) [1]

The Cool Aunt (Arabella Baylor)[2]

Other Series by Author onsite[]

World Building[]

Setting[]

Hidden Legacy is set in the world much like our own, where over a hundred years ago several countries developed Osiris Serum, a solution that awakened one’s latent magical powers. They gave that serum to everybody willing to risk dying from it. Eventually they figured out that giving humans ability to spit fire and summon monsters wasn’t such a good thing, but by that point it was too late. The magical powers turned out to be hereditary.

Now the world is ruled by magical dynasties, powerful Houses, who marry for magic, maintain private armies, and own global corporations. Imagine the aristocratic families like Medici or Tudors, but in addition to being ruthless and cunning, they can now create a tornado or breathe life into a sculpture and use it to pummel their enemies.

In this world, in the city of Houston, lives the Baylor family. Three sisters, Nevada, Catalina, Arabella, their two cousins adopted into the family, Bernard and Leon, their veteran mother Penelope and their Grandma Frida. Together they run Baylor Investigative Agency, except for Grandma Frida who has her own business fixing mobile artillery for the Houston’s magical elite. The Hidden Legacy chronicles their lives, relationship, and adventures.

Places:

  • Bridge Park: on news: infested with rats

Supernatural Elements[]

Mages 

Glossary:[]

  • Prime: the highest rank of magic user—can set anyone and anything on fire
  • Enerkinetics: magic users who manipulated raw magical energy
  • Shockers: invisible from the outside, but it lets you shock anyone with magic—work like an amped-up taser, pulling power from the magic of the person doing the shocking. If the shockers pull too much power, they can kill the person doing the shocking and/or the person being shocked.
  • Ranks: Magic users are segregated into five ranks: Minor, Average, Notable, Significant, and Prime. The difference between Minor and Prime is enormous.
  • Houses: A family with a powerful magic is considered a House when it produces at least two Primes within three generations. 

Types of Magic:[]

  • Elemental Magic: Elemental magic users command forces of nature. Some can bend water to their will, some are able to cause mold soil, and other can conjure fire or create an electric current. Elemental mages can cause a great deal of damage. Most work in manufacturing. The greatest elemental Houses tend to run industrial and construction corporations.
    • Pyrokinesis – mastery over fire
    • Aquakinesis – mastery over water
    • Geokinesis – mastery over earth
    • Aerokinesis – mastery over air
    • Psychrokinesis – mastery over ice
    • Fulgurkinesis – mastery over lightning
  • Mental Magic: Magic of the mind would be best described as magic of the will. This category includes a slew of powers that rely on the will of the user. The mental talents are many and varied, from telekinesis, which can be used to a devastating effect, to harmonizing, which enables the mage to make beautiful flower arrangements.
    • Telekinesis – ability to move objects with your mind
    • Projection – ability to transmit images and feelings to the minds of others.
    • Theriogenology – ability to command animals. Practitioners are usually known as animal mages. Rare.
    • Harmonizing – ability to arrange one’s environment to invoke a specific feeling or mood.
    • Elenchus – ability to distinguish lie from truth, also known as truth-seeking. Extremely rare.
  • Arcane Magic: The word “arcane” means known or understood by very few. True to definition, the arcane branch of magic talents is poorly understood even by those who are born with these magic powers. Power of arcane magic users comes from reaching into arcane realm, a place of magic outside of our typical reality. Their talents are frequently disturbing.
    • Enerkinesis – mastery over magic energy.
    • Summoning – ability to cause manifestation of creatures.
    • Animating – ability to impart life to inanimate objects.
    • Binding – ability to fuse or bind something found in the arcane realm to human host with purpose of giving the host new magic powers.

Groups & Organizations:[]

  • Baylor Investigative Agency: owned by Nevada Baylor, protagonist.
  • Montgomery International Investigations (MII): Run by Augustine Montgomery
  • Firebug, Inc.: leading provider of industrial forging products owned by the Pierces;

World Description[]

✥ “Set in a world similar to our own but with a stark crucial difference, the emergence of magic by means of a scientific serum circa the late 19th century. The world develops with corporations forming around families of magical prowess. These corporations and families are like feudal holdings of the medieval times wherein competition and purity of bloodlines are encouraged.“ ~ Fantasy Book Critic

✥ Set in Houston, Texas, this alternate world has a slightly different history than our real world. As the first book opens, the U..S. is recovering from massive territorial wars over magic in Central America and South America. Formidable mage Houses hold all the power in cities and countries around the globe, and the relations among the Houses are not always peaceful. Book 1 begins with an explanation of the source of magic in this mythology. ~?

Houses: Magic is everything in the world of Hidden Legacy. It brings power, wealth, and security and most families try to maximize it. Because magical talents are passed on through the bloodline, marriages between Primes and Significants are often the matter of ancestry and genetics rather than love. A family with a powerful magic is considered a House when it produces at least two Primes within three generations. For example, if your grandmother was a Prime and you are a Prime, your family could apply for the registration in the House Ranks. The head of a House, male or female, wields complete authority over his or her family members. Houses are small economic empires: they control territories within cities, they hire private muscle, and engage in cut-throat business tactics. Houses frequently feud with each other and mutual attacks between rival Houses are not uncommon. Most of the time the civilian law enforcement stays of the inter-House conflicts as long as ordinary citizens are not endangered in any way. Houses also have their own ruling body, an Assembly, and although Assembly has no official status within United States government, when it speaks, its voice is heard by all branches of government. ~ Ranks and Houses | Hidden Legacy

History of Magic[]

Back in 1863, a serum was developed that brought out people's magic talents—abilities of all kinds. "Some people gained ability to command animals, some learned to sense water from miles away, and others suddenly realized they could kill their enemies by generating a burst of lightning between their hands." As the serum spread around the world, people soon realized that many magic users were taking advantage of their new power by using it for evil and violent purposes, and the serum was locked away. By that time, though, the serum's effects had reached into people's DNA, and their magical traits were passed down to their children—generation after generation—changing the course of history forever. Click HERE to go to a page on the authors' web site that discusses types of magic in this mythology.

Currently, mages are segregated into five ranks: Minor, Average, Notable, Significant, and Prime. Mage families are rated by the power of the head of the House and his or her children, particularly the heir. Here, a character explains what life is like for a prime: "When you're a Prime, especially an heir Prime, your life stops being your own once you graduate from college. Certain things are expected. Your specialty is predetermined by your family's needs. It's understood that you will complete your education, work to further the family interests, select a mate whose genetic pedigree is most likely to produce gifted children, marry, and have said children, at least one but no more than three"—one prime and two back-ups. Click HERE to go to a page on the authors' web site that provides in-depth information on the ranks and Houses of mages in this world.

For a lesser mage to stand a chance against a Prime, that mage would have to have shockers permanently inserted into his or her arms. Here, a character describes shockers as "completely invisible from the outside, but it lets you shock anyone with magic. Hurts you like hell, but it hurts whoever you grab even more. Seriously nasty gadgets." Shockers work like an amped-up taser, except that instead of pulling power from a battery, shockers pull power from the magic of the person doing the shocking. If the shockers pull too much power, they can kill the person doing the shocking and/or the person being shocked. Early in the book, the series heroine has shockers implanted into her arms as a means of self-defense. ~ Fang-tastic Fiction: Ilona Andrews: HIDDEN LEGACY SERIES

Protagonists[]

✥ Since her father died Nevada Baylor is the main wage earner for her loving, oddball family of seven. She will do anything to keep them safe and secure, even seek out and capture a dangerous high-level pyrokinetic mage. But she is in way over her head and if she is to survive she will need to depend on the help of an equally dangerous telekinetic mage named Mad Rogan. Despite their unfortunate first encounter, sparks fly between them. But, Nevada knows there is no hope of a lasting relationship between them. Not only is he so far above her in the social pecking order that she might as well be the chicken feed, and he is also certainly a sociopath and most likely a psychopath as well. They race to save the city of Houston from a modern-day version of Mrs. O'Leary's cow. Through her adventure, Nevada discovers unexpected strength, especially in her rare magical talent. ~ Goodreads Reader

✥ Nevada Baylor: a truth-seeker mage (the third rarest magic talent) and a licensed private investigator who lives with her extended family in a converted warehouse. No one outside Nevada's family knows about her truth-seeker talents because if anyone found out, she would be pulled away from her family and forced to work as an interrogator for either the government or one of the Houses. Nevada is the chief investigator for her family's investigation agency and is assisted by her mother, cousins, and sisters. Her mother is an army veteran—a lethal sharpshooter, and her grandmother—a mech-mage—repairs and restores armored vehicles for various Houses, all of which take their security quite seriously. During Nevada's father's extended terminal illness, the family mortgaged their agency to the powerful Augustine Montgomery, head of House Montgomery and chef executive of Montgomery International Investigations (MII) so the Baylor's work hard to build their image, and pull in clients in order to can keep up their monthly payments to Montgomery.

✥ The Baylor family lives by three rules: "Rule #1: we stayed bought. Once a client hired us, we were loyal to the client. Rule #2: we didn't break the law…It kept us out of jail and safe from litigation. And rule #3, the most important one of all: at the end of the day we still had to be able to look our reflections in the eye," meaning that they had no regrets and were sure they had done the right thing. ~ Fang-tastic Fiction: Ilona Andrews: HIDDEN LEGACY SERIES

✥ Connor "Mad" Rogan (aka, the Butcher, the Scourge) is an extremely powerful billionaire Prime, an inorganic telekinetic who earned his fierce and deadly reputation during his years in the military during the Mexican and South American wars. Millions of people have viewed his video on the Internet in which he completely destroys a Mexican town in just moments and with seemingly little effort, slicing up huge buildings and destroying them completely, one after another. Connor now lives in relative seclusion and even refers to himself as Mad Rogan. After leaving the service, Rogan put together his own security army equipped with top of the line technology and weaponry along with complete medical services for all staff. His people are loyal to him because he takes care of them and their families. Everything Rogan does, he does for practical reasons, and emotions never get in the way of rational thought. He is a cold-blooded killer, and he has accepted and even embraced that aspect of himself. ~ Fang-tastic Fiction: Ilona Andrews: HIDDEN LEGACY SERIES

~ Click HERE to go to a page on the authors' web site that provides biographies and sketches of the main characters in this series.

Characters Chart[]

Characters What About
Nevada Baylor detective, power: Elenchus Power: lie detection; inherited Baylor Investigative Agency from her father
Connor “Mad” Rogan billionaire Prime, inorganic telekinetic romantic interest of Nevada, became cold due to the war in Mexico, is called "the slaughter of Merida", "Hostage of Mexico"
Adam Pierce Prime, pyrokinetic highest rank of magic user; conjures fire that melts steel; everybody wanted him: military, etc; family owns Firebug, Inc; grew up in luxury, progeny, sought after bachelor; left it all behind to be radical biker, on news a lot;
Augustine Montgomery Prime Illusionist able to create incredibly life-like illusions; runs Montgomery International Investigations (MII); wears glasses
Bern Magista Exemplaria Nevada's 19-year-old young cousin; studies judo, wrestled in HS; is able to understand every pattern by heart
Penelope Baylor disabled military sniper Nevada's mother
Arabella 15-year-old sister; Beast of Cologne Nevada's youngest sister;
Catalina 17-year-old sister; siren two years older than Arabella and eight years younger than Nevada;
Lenora Jordan Houston's DA can control chains
Sgt. Munoz cop processed the case after Nevada arrested John Rutger;
John Rutger enerkinetic, vet cheating husband, Nevada was hired by his wife, Liz, to catch in the act; wife: Liz; magic trained in military;
Grandma Frida mechanic Married to Grandpa Leon (who could shoot accurately under duress) and Penelope Baylor's mother. Has a fondness for armored vehicles.
Bug swarmer survived beyond the two-year life span of swarmers, has the power to multitask on technological platforms.
Dr. Daniela Arias
Leon Magus Sagittarius knows where and when a bullet hits before it does

To expand the table, right-press or (Control-press on a Mac)—choose add row.

Ilona Andrews

Ilona Andrews — Ilona & Gordon Andrews, husband and wife writing team

Author[]

Ilona Andrews

  • WebsiteILONA ANDREWS
  • Genres: Urban Fantasy, Sci-Urban Fantasy, Romantic Urban Fantasy, Urban Paranormal Romance

Bio: Ilona Andrews is the pseudonym for a husband-and-wife writing team. Ilona is a native-born Russian and Gordon is a former communications sergeant in the U.S. Army. Contrary to popular belief, Gordon was never an intelligence officer with a license to kill, and Ilona was never the mysterious Russian spy who seduced him. They met in college, in English Composition 101, where Ilona got a better grade. (Gordon is still sore about that.)

Gordon and Ilona currently reside in Texas with their two children, and many dogs and cats. They have co-authored two series, the bestselling urban fantasy of Kate Daniels and romantic urban fantasy of The Edge. ~ Ilona Andrews - FF and Goodreads

Cover Artist[]

Artist: Richard Jones — Source: ISFdb

Publishing Information[]

Book Cover Blurbs[]

BOOK ONE—Burn For Me (2014): Nevada Baylor is faced with the most challenging case of her detective career—a suicide mission to bring in a suspect in a volatile case. Nevada isn't sure she has the chops. Her quarry is a Prime, the highest rank of magic user, who can set anyone and anything on fire. Then she’s kidnapped by Connor “Mad” Rogan—a darkly tempting billionaire with equally devastating powers. Torn between wanting to run or surrender to their overwhelming attraction, Nevada must join forces with Rogan to stay alive. Rogan's after the same target, so he needs Nevada. But she’s getting under his skin, making him care about someone other than himself for a change. And, as Rogan has learned, love can be as perilous as death, especially in the magic world. ~ ILONA ANDREWS and Goodreads | Burn for Me

BOOK TWO—White Hot (Oct 27, 2015): Nevada Baylor and Connor Rogan are back in the fight against corruption and the dark forces of Houston’s elite. Once again, they’ve been drawn together to fight a common enemy, but something is growing between them, too. Something that’s becoming more difficult to ignore with every heated touch and meaningful glance. But with new foes rising from all sides and danger ever present, they’ll have to work that much harder to protect one another - and any future they might have together.  ~ Goodreads | White Hot (Hidden Legacy, #2) by Ilona Andrews

BOOK THREE—:

First Sentences[]

  • 1 Burn For Me (2014) — All men are liars.
  • 2 White Hot (Oct 27, 2015) —
  • 3 Wildfire
  • 3.5 Diamond Fire
  • 4 Sapphire Flames

Quotes[]

“Rogan! That’s enough.” I grabbed him and pulled him off Adam. Adam rolled to his hands and knees. I kicked him as hard as I could right in the stomach. He fell and curled into a ball.“You almost killed my grandmother. You used kids to deliver a bomb to my house.” I kicked him again. “Flirt with me now, you sonovabitch! See if I’m impressed.”Behind me Mad Rogan was laughing his head off.” — Nevada, Rogan and Adam
“Stop,” Augustine yelled.I turned.“You’re a drained battery. You have no magic left. What could you possibly do to Pierce?” “She can shoot him in the face.” — Augustine, Rogan and Nevada

Trivia[]

Awards[]

Read Alikes (suggestions)[]

— If you like these, you may like this:

PNR:

Future of Series[]

Right now we have a firm plan for three books. Nobody knows what the future will bring. ~ Interview 11/12/14 - Rabid Reads

Notes[]

Letter To The Readers—Hidden: Legacy I feel like we’ve been building toward this idea for a really long time. It began years ago with a short story called Of Swine and Roses. It’s a story of girl from a world where magic is a normal, every-day thing and her disastrous date. There was something oddly compelling about the worldbuilding we did for that short. Magic exists in the world, magic is hereditary, and family business often revolves around the family magic. Imagine that you a pyrokinetic, a fire mage who can create heat and flame out of nothing. Let’s say you become a glass maker. You’re able to precisely apply just enough of the right kind of heat to create beautiful glass pieces. Your children are pyrokinetic too. Perhaps they follow in your footsteps or perhaps they choose to go into metallurgy or enlist in military forces and become a combat operative. It’s such a simple idea but it allows for so much flexibility and conflict. It lends itself to a vibrant, fresh world. We left the story alone and moved on to other ideas. Then came the world of Kinsmen, two science fiction stories that combined romance and enhanced human beings. They lived on a different planet and their families ran it, the way mafia families had once ran New York. Now we finally come to BURN FOR ME. It grew out of those previous stories and we can’t wait to share it with you. It’s a story of a woman who exists in a world very much like our own, except this world revolves around Houses, magic dynasties. They own corporations, they dominate politics, and they feud to each other. It’s a story of over the top adventure, flashy magic, and unlikely romance between Nevada Baylor, who knows when people lie to her and Mad Rogan, the billionaire-mage who wields almost god-like power. It’s funny and and romantic and it was so much fun to write. We’re thrilled to work with Avon on it and we hope you enjoy it as much as we did. ~ Letter To The Readers | Hidden Legacy

See Also[]

External References[]

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Excerpts:

Summaries:

World, Characters, etc:

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NEXT Release: White Hot #2 — October 27, 2015

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