Red Phoenix

Dark Heavens, Book Two

By: Kylie Chan

Narrated by: Cindy Kay

The second audiobook in Australian author Kylie Chan's ingenious urban fantasy saga - a tale of ancient gods and foul demons doing battle in the modern world - Red Phoenix combines Chinese mythology with martial arts, paranormal romance, and magic in a story that takes off like a rocket and never slows down. The action moves from Hong Kong to Europe as heroine Emma Donahoe finds a demonic circle of death closing around her and the people she loves: the breathtaking and powerful god she is bound to and his innocent, young daughter whom Emma has sworn to protect.

Red Phoenix is gripping, globe-trotting adventure, urban fantasy, and kung fu all rolled into one spectacular package that fans of Lilith Saintcrow, Liz Williams, Karen Chance, Devon Monk, and Ilona Andrews are going to flip over.

Contains mature themes.

©2007 Kylie Chan (P)2020 Tantor

More Action and Deeper Mystery

Matters grow much more complicated for Emma in the second novel in the series. She is engaged to be married to a Chinese god and his world is a dangerous one. Demons seek to kill her and one of them has broken from the paths of honor and is targeting family members who would normally be considered safe from these conflicts. In addition, her fiance continues to grow weaker as he needs to leave earth and return to his celestial home to regenerate his strength, but he is trying to remain in our world long enough to see his daughter grow to a point where she can defend herself from his enemies. All of this is stressful enough, but Emma has begun to suspect that there is an evil power inside of her and she is terrified of releasing it lest it hurts the ones she loves. This one is filled with all the action of the first plus a deepening mystery surrounding Emma herself.

Frustrating

I liked this book, It had me grinning or laughing out loud or just plain interested for 99% of the story. However there is a two part question that is constantly asked through out the book. Emma for some reason seems to fixate on the worst possible answer to that question. Which is fine, except she keeps being told that no she is NOT something only for her to keep harping on it. Also the author kept using one of my most hated ways to pad the run time, amnesia. Honestly it was bad enough that i debated whether or not to give this book a two or three star rating at times. In the end though i realized that for the majority of the book i was well entertained and the parts i didn't like were just a particular frustrating pet peeve of mine. In the end this book is exactly what it is, a middle of the road book that is supposed to bridge the first and third books together, and as far as i can tell it does this well enough. Still looking forward to the next books.