Any Given Doomsday was definitely not in my normal reading genres, and I had never delved into murder mysteries before this book.

For what it was worth, the book was well written, though it took me a long time to get into it, due to the lack of depth of characters.

The explicit material found later in the book threw me off guard, as I was not expecting it at all, and, again, wouldn't consider books in the romance genre within my coveted reading material.

For a first timer with both genres, mystery and romance, it wasn't one of the worst books I could have read, and I did find some entertainment within this first of a trilogy. ( )

I realize that this is a genre book, which I didn't know when I got it. It turns out that I don't like that genre, though the book is not badly written, all things considered.

I like books that examine the human condition, whether humans are presented as vampires or aliens or humans. China Mieville's monsters, for example, seem to me to be illustrative of what it's like to be human.

The characters in "Any Given Doomsday," however, are flat and stereotypical. I don't recognize myself or anyone I know in them.

Second, I like books to point to solutions or at least to contain insight about who we are and what we can do about it. The exploration of rape as pleasure was over my ability to cope. To my understanding, S&M rape is a pre-arranged deal and can be satisfying for both parties. But flat out rape that's presented as, all-in-all, a good thing, loses me as an audience.

Sorry, but there it is.

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. ( )

I have to say, I enjoyed this novel immensely. It's the beginning of a new series by Handeland, called The Phoenix Chronicles, as the main character at the heart of the action is named Elizabeth Phoenix.

Elizabeth was adopted as a young child, taken in off the streets by a woman named Ruthie. At the opening of the book, Ruthie is found murdered and it's up to Liz to figure out why. Liz meets up with a man from her past, Jimmy Sanducci, and he reveals to her that she has supernatural powers she never knew of...and it's up to her save the world. She travels to New Mexico to learn to use her powers, and then to New York to put them to the test. She's a seer, one who can tell demons from humans, and she is needed to show the demon-killers where to focus their efforts next. But what is she to do when someone close to her is the demon who needs killing?

The book does have some sexual content and language, so if you're not a fan of those things, you might want to skip this book. I, however, have no qualms about language or sex scenes (and the sex scenes in this book weren't THAT bad, but I have pretty liberal standards), so I enjoyed the book a lot.

It's a good supernatural romance/thriller. It's a great beginning to the series. I didn't expect to like it as much as I did. But I was drawn in and stayed up late several nights, including this past Wednesday night when I finished it, in order to find out what would happen to Liz next. And, since I was SUPPOSED to review this book over a year ago, there are now at least two more books in the series published, so I'll have to keep an eye out for them, because I'd like to find out where Liz's powers take her next.

Four and a half out of five Whatevers. Good for fans of Laurell K. Hamilton, older fans of the Twilight books, and anyone who is interested in a good romance/thriller all rolled into one. ( )

I've had this ARC for ages but have never gotten around to either finishing reading it or reviewing it. Try as I might I just could not get through this book!

The author seemed to be trying to cram in as many supernatural beings as possible making the cast far too complex. the plot was highly muddled and the characters themselves didn't capture me at all. I've read a lot of books in this genre and many of them are well done. This one, however, was not. ( )