Any Given Doomsday (The Phoenix Chronicles)
by Lori Handeland
Having read Lori Handeland's Crescent Moon
(book 4 in the Nightcreature series), I was looking forward to reading the Advance Reader copy of Any Given Doomsday. The start of a new series , this one gets off to a slow start. The first half of the book is bogged down in background and setup and at times leaves the reader as confused about what is going on as the lead character, Liz Phoenix, a psychic ex-cop who has quit the force rather than try to explain where her knowledge of crimes comes from.Her foster mother is brutally murdered and first she, then a former boyfriend, Jimmy, are suspected. The boyfriend tells her she is in danger, then locks her in an abandoned house, where she is attacked by a supernatural body-snatching creature. Once he has been dealt with (due to a lucky choice of jewelry and bad footing), she and the boyfriend plant evidence to make it appear the unlucky snatchee killed her foster mother, then the take off cross country to visit her psychic teacher from her teen years (who she has a crush on and is equally afraid of). More supernatural events occur on the trip (including period visits with the dead foster mother thru dreams).
Halfway through the book, she (and we) find she gains powers by sleeping with others (who have powers due to partial demonic genetics, but who fight on the side of good, killing off demons who are on the other side). First sleeping with the former teacher, she gains the ability to shapeshift, but only when touching his magical tattoos. This apparently also unlocks her ability to gain powers through sex, as she later has an encounter with Jimmy and gains his powers as well (despite having slept with him long before, she received no powers previously).
As the first in a series, the book seemed to have just taken off in plot and character development, when it suddenly ended. And, of course, many threads were left unexplored (often in a rather obvious manner), setting up the stage for further episodes: where did Jimmy go, will Sawyer find (and kill) his mother, will Liz decide sleeping with women is worth the increase in power ("magic make-me dust" might not be enough temptation to sleep with her ex's next lover, but who knows what the next temptation will be?).
The second half of the book was definitely a more engaging read and the book as a whole is not for those who don't tolerate explicit sexual content. This book joins the current torrent in the dark fantasy/erotic genre popularized by Laurell K. Hamilton
. Hopefully now that all that pesky background and development work has been taken care of, the following books in the series will maintain the pace set near the end.
