Author: S.J. Day
Cover Artist: Gordon Crabb
Publisher: Tor
Binding: Paperback
Publication Date: June 2009
Eve of Destruction is the second book in S.J. Day’s urban fantasy, archangel/sinner-demon-hunter Marked series and the sequel to Eve of Darkness.
It picks up right where the first book left off, with Eve dying at the hands of an Infernal (denizens of Hell are called Infernals), but quickly skips to a few days after her resurrection, which cost her mentor and her handler, the brothers Alec (Cain) and Reed (Abel), an unknown amount of favors to various higher-ups. Myself, I’d have liked to know more about the whole dying and resurrection part, but Day really tries to focus in on the pertinent events for her books, and that was not a pertinent event. The part that mattered was that Eve got to come back and fight another day…although she still has yet to decide whether she’s fighting for the divine or for her own freedom from the Mark.
The focus of the book’s action is split into three parts: Eve’s field training with her Mark class at an old, closed military base, Reed’s investigation into the unknown class of Infernal that keeps killing Marks in an especially grisly way, and Alec’s hunt for the werewolf chief who sent the ambush Eve walked into.
Eve isn’t close to anyone in her class, and for the most part they regard her with envy or dislike. Once they are encamped at the base, however, a couple of them make overtures to her in Survivor-like fashion, to band together and help each other during the training. But when their first training exercise ends with one of the class dead and no sign of an Infernal at the murder scene, all bets are off. Eve has no one she can trust and must rely on her instincts and what little experience she has gained at Alec’s side to track down the real killer, be it a disguised Infernal or one of her own classmates, a fellow Mark….
Reed is assigned to go to the scene of yet another unclassified-Infernal attack and see if he can discover any clues to its type or MO. About all that he and the others with him can discover is that the Infernal seems to be absorbing part of the Marks it kills, along with their memories, and that it gets bigger after each feeding. Reed hightails it to Eve’s side when her training class is so disrupted, and the two of them must fight off their growing attraction to each other–after all, she’s Alec’s girlfriend.
Alec, meanwhile, travels up to the werewolf pack territory and on the way meets with a suicidal band of Infernals, which is an unheard-of aberration. One of them does not kill herself in hopes that Alec has enough clout to grant her amnesty on Earth if she tells him what she knows…and what she knows is nothing less than the most secret plans of the Infernals and their dark master himself.
The three threads of the story come together and resolve the immediate action well, while opening the door to other complications to be addressed in the third book.
Like its predecessor, Eve of Destruction was a sassy romp through demon-hunting detective work. I’ve seen these book in the Romance section at most book stores, and I don’t think that’s really where they belong. For one thing, by the end of this book it is entirely unclear which of the brothers is supposed to be her end-game romantic involvement, and because of this, for me, at least, the sexy parts of the book ground to a screeching halt while the action was really the backbone and strength of the story. Also, the action and style seem much more tough-edged urban fantasy than the paranormal romance.
Bottom line: If you’re into urban fantasy and aren’t squeamish about things like threesomes and angels being reduced to Machiavellian manipulators and/or irrepressibly sexual predators, then these books guarantee you a fun ride of whooping up on some demon ass with a dance of chaotic action that leaves you breathless.
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