Review: A Rush of Wings by Adrian Phoenix

A Rush of Wings was a ran­dom “that looks inter­est­ing” choice from the library’s new books shelves. I was some­what sur­prised to find that the book was just pub­lished this Jan­u­ary, because the copy I checked out has obvi­ous­ly been read many, many times. It seems as if Adri­an Phoenix’s first nov­el is a hit.

It was­n’t bad, espe­cial­ly for a first nov­el. It’s yet anoth­er urban fantasy/horror vam­pire sto­ry, but it did­n’t feel too deriv­a­tive. I did won­der if Phoenix has read much of Nan­cy Collins’ work, but she still has a rea­son­ably dif­fer­ent spin on the genre.

I liked the main char­ac­ter, FBI Spe­cial Agent Heather Wal­lace. Her love inter­est, Dante, did­n’t do much for me, but then I’m not into bad boys or goth kid­dies. I did­n’t quite buy the attrac­tion between them, but hap­py Wal­lace did (most­ly) con­tin­ue to live by her values.

I think I would have been slight­ly hap­pi­er if I did­n’t feel like the book was being set up for sequels if it sold well. What­ev­er hap­pened to stand­alone nov­els? Phoenix’s web­site says that her next book, In the Blood, will be released next year. I did­n’t find any­thing that says it’s about Dante and friends, but I have a feel­ing that it is.