Doomsday Can Wait

By Lori Handeland

Rated Four 1/2 Blue Ribbon from Romance Junkies

Werewolves? Vampires? Demons? Oh, my!

Pyschic ex-cop, Liz Phoenix is back. She's managed to thwart Doomsday once, but the army of demons intent on bringing about the Apocalypse isn't done yet. Neither is Liz.

Having lost three quarters of her troops, Liz must rely on the help of a half-vampire, a fairy and a Navajo skinwalker to keep the end at bay. She believes she's making progress until she meets the Naye'i, or woman of smoke, a powerful demon who is also the mother of the shaman, Sawyer. The Naye'i wants Liz dead.

But lately, who doesn't?

Doomsday Can Wait is the second installment of the fan favorite urban fantasy series The Phoenix Chronicles, written by New York Times Bestselling Author Lori Handeland. If you can't get enough of the novels of Laurell K. Hamilton and Kelly Armstrong, try The Phoenix Chronicles!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lori Handeland
• Release date: Jan 6, 2015
• ISBN: 9780990596486

Lori Handeland

Lori Handeland is a New York Times and USA Today bestselling author with more than 60 published works of fiction to her credit. Her novels, novellas, and short stories span genres from paranormal and urban fantasy to historical romance. After a quarter-century of success and accolades, she began a new chapter in her career. Marking her women’s fiction debut, Just Once (Severn House, January 2019) is a richly layered novel about two women who love the same man, how their lives intertwine, and their journeys of loss, grief, sacrifice, and forgiveness. While student teaching, Lori started reading a life-changing book, How to Write a Romance and Get It Published. Within its pages. the author, Kathryn Falk, mentioned Romance Writers of America. There was a local chapter; Lori joined it, dived into learning all about the craft and business, and got busy writing a romance novel. With only five pages completed, she entered a contest where the prize was having an editor at Harlequin read her first chapter. She won. Lori sold her first novel, a western historical romance, in 1993. In the years since then, she has written eleven novels in the popular Nightcreature series, five installments in the Phoenix Chronicles, six works of spicy contemporary romance about the Luchettis, a duet of Shakespeare Undead novels, and many more books. Her fiction has won critical acclaim and coveted awards, including two RITA Awards from Romance Writers of America for Best Paranormal Romance (Blue Moon) and Best Long Contemporary Category Romance (The Mommy Quest), a Romantic Times Award for Best Harlequin Superromance (A Soldier’s Quest), and a National Reader’s Choice Award for Best Paranormal (Hunter’s Moon). Lori Handeland lives in Southern Wisconsin with her husband. In between writing and reading, she enjoys long walks with their rescue mutt, Arnold, and occasional visits from her two grown sons and her perfectly adorable grandson.

Reviews for Doomsday Can Wait

[mlake_22 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I put off finishing this book in hopes of keeping Doomsday at bay but it seems that it is coming and I can't stop it. This was a fun read (if you ignore the end of the world as we know it bit). I will definitely read the next one - gotta find out who wins the war of dark and light!

[mephistia · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

I like the cover?

The writing . . . meh. Actually, this is one of those books that gives aspiring authors hope. Much like the Twilight series, the realization that this book was published -- and more than that, it's apparently part of a series -- is at once depressing and exhilarating.

Depressing because it's simply awful -- not in terms of plot, which had promise, but in terms of the actual writing. Dead writing, badly paced, and a lot of "telling," not "showing." There were times when I felt as though I was reading a badly written screenplay, because the focus was so much on dialogue and not at all on description.

Exhilarating, because if books like these get published on a regular basis, that gives any aspiring author of even minimal talent peace of mind. Sort of a, "If she can do it, god knows I can."

[sunnysd_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Doomsday's been postponed... or has it? For ex-cop turned bartender Liz Phoenix lately a good day has been one in which mysterious forces of evil haven't been trying to either rape her or kill her. She's not averse to a little downtime - but unfortunately if there's no rest of the wicked, the forces of light can't sleep either. Things are once again heating up on the paranormal horizon, and Liz has no choice but to join forces with Navajo skinwalker Sawyer and the annoyingly cute fairy Summer. Their task? Defeat the Lady of Smoke - who just happens to be Sawyer's mother.... No one ever said it was gonna be easy!Borrow, don't buy - this is a bit more even than the first installment, but still missing something.

[dragonlibrary8 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This was a great follow-up to the first book. I was already invested into the characters and this book brought them out more. I love the intrigue. I enjoyed it and can't wait to get to the store to get the next one!

[iluvvideo · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I was really looking forward to this book. I'd read the first in the series and really enjoyed it, even though I was in the minority, it seemed. I liked the characters, the story and yes, even the graphic sex (which I found unusual for this type of novel). So given all the above, why didn't I like this book? For several reasons. #1-The Sex. It seemed that all the sexual doings were missing from this one. Sure there was some, but it didn't come until the last third of the book and it was nowhere near as hot (and important to the plot) as in the first novel. It seemed as if the author read the criticism of the first book and toned it way down. #2-The characters. Rather than any appreciable character development, it seemed that the plan was to add several new characters, that just seemed to have what was needed for each tense situation. #3- The plot. Since the characters remain almost the same as in the first book, I found it very hard to work up any concern over their well being. I was just looking to see where the author would drop the next unbelievably convenient twist to the story. And #4- New characters. These were poorly developed. It seemed that they served their initial purpose and were never heard from again, or kept around doing a whole lot of nothing.So maybe it was my expectations. I REALLY wanted to like this book. The first one introduced me to an author and her style (one I'm usually not drawn to). I was swept along early and found it hard to put the book down. This one seemed to need more of an effort to get a few pages done each night. The first left me wanting to know what would happen to everyone. By the end of this book, I was just glad to be done. I may try the next one in the series, but I won't have very high expectations. Maybe that'll help.

[jjmachshev_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

"Doomsday Can Wait" was another hit for me by Lori Handeland. This is urban fantasy with hot sex and enough paranormal critters to keep anybody happy. There's blood, but not gore. There's a cool twist on reality that's more than just a cast of supernatural beings. And there's a tight plot that keeps you turning pages as fast as you can read.Since Liz recently managed to stave off Doomsday (not that any normal humans know about that, thank God) she's been enjoying a little down time. She deserves it seeing how she had to kill her boyfriend (OK, he's a vampire so he's undead) and almost died herself. She's also not seen sexy Sawyer and she's pretty sure she's happy about that. But when a mysterious shadow woman keeps trying to kill her and Sawyer's talisman is the only thing stopping her, Liz sets off to find both of them. Once she does, she must make a difficult choice carefully because the wrong choice could start Doomsday...again.I can't begin to include all the cool stuff in this series. Even though it's not marketed as paranormal romance, there's plenty of sexual tension and follow-through in Liz's life. She has her childhood sweetheart who will always occupy a special place in her heart and was the one to help her understand her new powers, and the smoldering mystic who practices sex magic on and with Liz. Fans of the early Anita Blake (by Laurell K. Hamilton) will likely succumb to Liz's world just like I have...and be happy to do so.So whether you call it urban fantasy, paranormal romance, or contemporary fantasy, it's all good. Lori Handeland's world is distinct and different, and her characters are built slowly but surely into people with all the complexities of any race. This isn't hearts and flowers, and it's a very different series from Handeland's 'Moon' books. But it's a serious I'm happy to read, and anxious to find out where it will take me next.

[onyx95_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Adjusting to what she now knows to be part of her life, Liz Phoenix also realizes that she can’t do it alone. No training could prepare her to fight the demons that are trying to bring on doomsday, but to go into it as a seer and a DK (demon killer) leaves her with her wits, the little bit of information that her ghost of a mentor givers her through her dreams, visions and a voice she hears every time a demon is around and anyone who could possibly help her. The help available isn’t the most reliable either. Her ex-boyfriend Jimmy became a vampire and tried to kill her, then there is Summer, a faerie more interested in Jimmy than anything else, and Sawyer in a skin walker who trains the new recruits for the secret federation that Liz now finds herself the leader of. Sawyer is good at bringing out the special talents of each new recruit, but no one knows where his allegiance lies especially now that Liz has found out that his mother is one strong demon that she feels only she will be able to kill, even though no one knows how to do that.Book 2 ….. Ok, I wasn’t sure about this series after reading the first one. This one did redeem it a bit for me. The concept of the leader being thrown into the position blind is always good, especially when up against something that they didn’t even knew existed until recently. Some of the characters grew on me. I really didn’t like any of them all that much after the last book, but by the end I did actually like Sawyer a lot and Jimmy a little. Still not a big fan of Liz for some reason, maybe it was that she is the cocky type, which in her circumstance seemed out of place and reckless. Still it was enough of an improvement to the series for me to look at reading the next one - Apocalypse Happensquote from page 108 of the book, Liz was looking down at a wound on her chest and thought ….. “Since I’d never been killed before, I wasn’t sure how long it would last or how well it would heal.”

[dearheart_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This is the second book in the Phoenix Chronicles series, following the fight between the light and the dark, and the role of leader that Liz never wanted, but has come to accept. Unlike her Moon series, this one is told in the first person POV with a continuing story. It’s also loaded with creatures from mythology outside of the normal shifters and vampires we’ve come to expect from Urban Fantasies.Most of her army was killed in the first book and Liz needs Jimmy’s help to locate the others that went into hiding. Only Jimmy is trying to hide from her because his father brought out his vampire beast and now he feels he’s too dangerous to be around others; especially Liz.While this is going on, a woman who turns into smoke, Sawyer’s mother, is trying to kill her. How do you kill an evil spirit who plans on releasing the Grigori, causing total chaos on the planet? Sawyer has been trying for years. Along the way, two more people get picked up and added to her arsenal. I like the fact that while Liz is in many ways a kick-butt heroine, she’s definitely vulnerable. She doesn’t know the limits of what she can do, but thinks outside of the box to solve problems. And yes, she does make some mistakes. The story contains elements of humor and there is a romantic interest in two men that may or may not go anywhere. The mythology isn’t just thrown at us; we get a short history lesson on various creatures, entities and objects.I found it difficult to put the book down, but do not recommend that anyone start it before reading Any Given Doomsday. You’d be missing too much.