Novels Now

Any Given Doomsday by Lori Handerland
The Phoenix Chronicles, Book 1

Pages: 343 pgs.
First Published: Nov. 4, 2008
Rating: 3/5

First sentence:

On the day my old life died, the air smelled of springtime — budding trees and just-born flowers, fresh grass and hope.

Reason for Reading: I was intrigued by the ex-cop, psychic demon hunter aspect of the plot.

Summary: Ex-cop Elizabeth Phoenix has always been psychic but she’s tried to keep it under control and under wraps most of the time. But when her beloved foster mother is killed by monsters she visits Lizzy in her mind to tell her that she is now the seer over all the demon killers and she remains with Lizzy to teach her to recognize non-humans. It is in this way that she learns her boyfriend Jimmie is half vampire and one of the demon killers. She is sent out into the desert with a mysterious Navajo shape-shifter to awaken her psychic powers to their fullest and learns that learns that the prophetic Apocalypse is well underway unless she and her demon killers can save humanity.

Comments: The plot is based upon the Book of Enoch, a Jewish writing which is non-canonical (not part of) either the Bible or the Torah. This book has many scholarly interpretations and Handeland has gloried in the literal interpretation, allowing her to tie her paranormal world to a Biblical mythology. I’ll admit right up front that I quite enjoyed the book; it’s what I would call a guilty little pleasure. It was a fast read, exciting, lots of action and very Buffy-like that it kept me reading. The dialogue was cheesy at times but so what. The book is supposed to be paranormal romance though I wouldn’t call it as much romance as I would plain s*x. The first half of the book is all action, but the second half introduces some quite explicit s*x scenes. While this isn’t what I normally read, I found myself going with the flow and basically having a fun read. I’m a grown-up, married woman and while I am deeply religious, I’m not a prude and don’t mind a bit of a romp when it’s aimed at adult women. So, no literary winner here. Definitely not to everyone’s tastes. Just a fun little read that would make a good plane or beach read. I’ll be continuing the series.

333 pages

Elizabeth Phoenix used to be a police officer for the Milwaukee Police Department. She is a psychic and she used her skills in her job but she quit the force when her partner was killed. She now works as a bartender for her dead partner’s wife. One day, while on the job at the bar, she gets the overwhelming urge to visit her foster mother, Ruthie. When she arrives, she finds that Ruthie has been attacked. Just before she dies, Ruthie passes “something” to Elizabeth who falls unconscious into a coma for a few days. When she wakes up, her life is changed forever and the Doomsday countdown has begun.

Part of the draw of urban fantasy for me is all of the monsters, fairies and such in a modern-day setting. I enjoyed that there were so many different types of characters that I had never heard of and that at least a little bit of info about each type was presented such as how Liz could kill them, how they got their power, how they came to be, which parts of the myth are true etc. I also enjoyed the story of Liz and Jimmy’s relationship and their relationship with Ruthie.

As a fan of urban fantasy, I understand that most, if not all, books in this genre contain at least some sexual content. I know this, and generally speaking, I know what I am getting myself into. However, this book went way beyond what I would normally expect to find. The entire second half of the book is one gratuitous sex scene after another while we get snippets here and there about the Doomsday countdown. I was annoyed to see a storyline I was enjoying deteriorate into this and in the end, I decided it just wasn’t worth it. I skipped a large chunk and read the last two pages. I am giving this 2 out of 5 stars when I didn’t technically finish because I did enjoy the first part of the story. (2/5)