Fran’s Review – Immortal Beloved by Cate Tiernan
Book Summary: New name, new town, new life. Nastasya has done it too often to count. And there’s no end in sight. Nothing ever really ends… when you’re immortal. But this time is different: Nastasya knows that this new town must hold her salvation—or her death.
Nastasya was born into darkness, and has embraced it her whole life. Four hundred years ago, a tragedy robbed her of her birthright, and she’s been living a lie ever since. Now, four centuries of exploring the depths and limits of dark power has left Nastasya feeling sickened unto death. If she continues down this road, she will end up as a very dark, twisted, evil thing—with unthinkable power. Or she can begin the long, painful road toward light, and reclaim the destiny that others tried to destroy.
They’re rare. You may have never met one, never sat next to one on a plane, never eaten in the same restaurant at the same time. But the Immortals are there. Have always been there. Will always be there. Moving among humans, playing out their own cursed fate. Sometimes subtly, sometimes with huge, sweeping implications for mankind. But no one will ever know. Except you.
Nas and her friends Incy, Cicely,Boz and Katy are all immortals who have been drifting through life having fun with no responsibility, that is until one night after a disagreement with a cab driver Incy breaks his spine using magick and then goes on ‘niteclubbing’ without a second thought leaving the cabbie in the gutter in pain. Nas starts to question her life and the actions of her friends, remembering an incident in the 1920′s where after a hair-raising car ride/accident in which a girl is killed and another injured (both who weren’t immortal), she meets a women- River, who is immortal and who offers her a place to stay if she ever finds a need to find purpose in her life away from her friends. It is to this place that Nas flees the next day leaving her friends behind, using a false passport and ID that not even her friends know about. She arrives at Rivers farm which turns out to be a rehab facility of sorts for immortals, meeting one guy Reyn who she immediately feels a connection to and who seems vaguely familiar but she can’t place where she knows him. She leaves the next day as Reyn points out that she doesn’t belong, only to return as the further she gets from the farm the more uneasy she feels. She realises the farm and the people there give her the first sense of peace she has felt in all her 459 years of life, at least since she was ten when her family were all killed by a raiding party. She meets people who she begins to care about in her own way as for centuries she has never formed any attachments to anyone, preferring to just ‘party’ her way through life without a thought or care.
Whilst she is at the farm she participates in magick circles which cause her to remember different times in her life and the losses she has suffered. It is during one of the rituals that she remembers who Reyn is and the role he played in the death of her family, which she finds hard as she is still attracted to him leading to an episode in the barn where they both admit their feelings for each other. Whilst at the farm River tells her that Incy is trying to find her using magick but they have ‘spelled’ guards around her so that she will remain invisible to him until she is ready to talk to him, which she agrees having “seen” in one of the circle ceremonies an incident where Incy and friends seemingly deliberately caused the death of two young men through their reckless behaviour and another episode where Incy after ‘trashing’ his hotel room admits to the others that he needs to be with Nes so he can take advantage of her power, a power that whilst Nas was with them she was unaware of the full potential of. River and the other teachers help Nas acccept her heritage and develop her powers as the last descendant of the House of Ulfur, which is one of eight magickal ‘houses’ that have just about been destroyed by raiding parties intent on gaining the power for themselves.”
I found this an easy read and an easy story to follow with just the right amount of suspense/romance and magic to satisfy me!. It is part of a trilogy with the next one coming out in 2011. Do yourself a favour and start reading!
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Fishpond
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