Product Description

A tale of the dark side of man's desire for immortality. Jessica despairs of ever finding a soulmate among her fellow African-Americans - and then she meets David who is everything she ever dreamed of in a husband. Yet there are parts of him she cannot comprehend and a chilling suspense sets in.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #709582 in Books
• Published on: 1997-11-06
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 346 pages

Review
Top-flight soft-horror novel by Miami-based columnist Due (The Between, 1995). Some 500 years ago, young Dawit of Lalibela, in Abyssinia, was inducted into the 52-member group called The Immortals by the master Khaldun, who had drunk the blood of Christ. Still looking 30, Dawit (now known as David) lives in Miami, his Khaldun-transfused blood so filled with T-cells that no disease or injury can kill him. He is, for all practical purposes, immortal. He's had many careers. He's also had many lovers, wives, and children, and watched age overtake them while he remained young. Today, his daughter Rosalie, from a liaison in New Orleans in the 1920s, lies infirm in a Chicago nursing home. David stops off to administer euthanasia. Then he returns to Jessica, his wife of six years, a Miami reporter who's just started research on a book about disgraceful conditions in nursing homes. The Immortals think themselves above humans, so when David feels threatened by Jessica's research he kills her fellow researcher, Peter. Although he's killed before to protect his identity, his love of Jessica makes him feel, for the first time, guilty for what he's done. David realizes that he doesn't, for once, want to outlive and, to protect his secret, abandon his human family. Will Jessica discover that her husband's immortal? Will he give his blood to her and their five-year-old daughter, Kira, so that they can always be with him? Suspense tightens neatly with modest melodrama but with a big sense of family life. Due is careful to portray David as both hero (he's charming and talented, polylingual, and a published author) and threat. He is, essentially, an alien trying to mimic a life that can never really be his. A sequel seems likely, though it may be hard to keep up the gripping originality here. (Kirkus Reviews)

Customer Reviews

A Modern Masterpiece
It is beyond me why this book has not been made into a film! It has compassionate characters, a swiftly moving and involved plot, realistic settings, romance and intrigue spanning centuries,and mysticism coupled with religious overtures. And, for a change the characters are Black. Whoops! I forgot! That's why Hollywood hasn't called. Well, like Dr. King, I can only dream!

My Soul To Keep
Being an avid reader of Dean Koontz and Richard Laymon I picked up this book expecting to be disappointed, How wrong I was! Tananarive Dues writing was captivating and the story so rich that it draws you in and refuses to let you go. Needless to say I sobbed through out the final two chapters and put it down (having stared in early evening) sometime the next morning feeling physically drained. A fabulous book in every way!

Not very good in my opinion
I can't believe I read the same book as everyone else, I gave it 2 stars, because I thought it was well written, but the story didn't want me wanting more. As for the character David he just made me cringe, no sympathy whatsoever. I kept on going though, thinking that it will get better, but I gave up in the end, after Peter was murdered.
Sorry, but not recommended by me, Anne Rice does it better