Customer Reviews

Immortal Desire (Paranormal Romance (Berkley))

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

~DESTINY~

It is believe that Nidaba is one of the oldest Immortal High Witches still living. As such, the Dark Ones crave the power taking her heart would bring them. Nidaba hasn't survived so long being weak, however. To stand against her is to endanger one's own life.

Nathan King lives a quiet life, spending his immortality safely hidden away from the spotlight. His long life has seen more loss than one man should bear. But when he finds the woman he loved long ago in a mental hospital in a cathartic and unresponsive state, he rescues her. Saving the woman he loves is not quite that easy, however. Now he must save both her mind and the love they once shared.

We first met Nidaba during the story INFINITY, in Maggie Shayne's ETERNAL LOVE collection. I was intrigued by her then, and so was very happy to find that she is the heroine of DESTINY.

Ms. Shayne builds a rich and involved history for Nidaba, and I was fascinated by the way the story of Nathan and Nidaba's shared past unfolded, moving between their youth together centuries ago and the present day, where they find themselves estranged yet still undeniably drawn to each other. As it turns out, their past has much to do with their present, and they must explore to find a way back to each other as friends and lovers.

Although this story can be read by itself, I do recommend it be read in series order, after reading ETERNAL LOVE. The stories build upon each other, with each tale inciting curiosity in the reader about one of the main characters for the next story.

~IMMORTALITY~

Puabi hasn't lived a good life. Not in her mortal life, and certainly not during the course of her long existence as an immortal. Having stolen the lives of other witches in order to prolong her own, she has lived without remorse as a Dark One.

Everything changes when Matthew Fairchild rescues her from the depths of the sea and takes her to his private island to care for her until she is well. Slowly, Puabi finds the need to repent, to be somehow better than she was. And with Matthew, she finds a part of herself that has been missing for far too long.

I have to say, IMMORTALITY was a very different story for me. How do you take the previous story's villain, who is utterly unrepentant concerning their numerous misdeeds, and turn her into a heroine? By not sugar-coating it, that's how, just like Maggie Shayne did in this story.

Ms. Shayne never makes excuses for Puabi, never excuses her actions. What she does do is show us the history that, coupled with bad choices on Puabi's part, made her the woman she is now.

Then she begins to redeem this character, slowly but surely. With a man who can lover her despite her flaws, as Matthew does, and one completely selfless act, Puabi begins the path to redemption and finds true love in the process. As her story ends, you are left with the feeling that this is just the beginning for Puabi as she embarks on the rest of her life with a new outlook.

Series Order:
Eternal Love (Berkley Sensation)
Immortal Desire (Paranormal Romance (Berkley Sensation))

As our story begins, a dead woman comes to life in the back of an ambulance. She had been thrown off the rooftop garden of a hotel in Manhattan. Newspapers claimed the young lady had jumped, an attempt at suicide.

Nathan Ian King is a collector and dealer in antiquities. No one knows that he is over four thousand, five hundred years old. He is a Light Immortal. All Immortals are marked with the unusual birthmark of a crescent moon. When Nathan reads about the young lady miraculously surviving the plunge with no visible injuries, but unable or refusing to speak, Nathan is sure it is Nidaba. However, Nathan believed Nidaba died over four thousand years ago in a fire. If the lady really is Nidaba, why has she not contacted him in all this time?

In 2501 B.C.E. Nathan had been a young prince named Eannaturm, Natum for short. He and the small girl, Nidaba, were close friends. People said that Nidaba was "born of the goddess". Whenever Nidaba became angry, things would happen (such as earthquakes). But today, Nathan does not believe Nidaba would like the man he has become.

After a brief visit to the hospital, Nathan knows the miracle lady is definitely Nidaba and he is determined to save her. This will be much easier said than done. The Dark Ones now know that the priestess Nidaba is still alive. Nidaba is one of the oldest Immortals and her heart would be a prize worth seeking.

*** An interest tale; however, it is too choppy and jumps around a lot during the first few chapters. This made it difficult for me to really get into the plot. The story flow does not seem to begin flowing smoothly until well into the book. Fans of supernatural romances will enjoy Nidaba and Nathan's story, but this is not one of Maggie Shayne's better novels. ***

Reviewed by Detra Fitch of Huntress Reviews.

Immortal Desire (Paranormal Romance (Berkley))

The Next and I hope Not The Last book In the series Is Short As We find Puabi Is Bested by Nibiada At Natum's Home In Maine And Although Puabi Tries With All The Rage Within Her To Kill Her Nemesis, She Fails And Natum's Home Is In Flames, But Puabi Digs Deep Within Herself And Drags Her Charred Body To A cliff, She plunges Over Into The Atlantic, And Just Gives Up Trying To Make Natum Love Her. Puabi Resolves To Dying Among The Fish But Instead She Gets Saved By Matthew Fairchild When He Is Out On His Boat. She Can Not Believe That Her Body Drifted As Far Down To The Carribean But When Matt Takes Her Aboard She Tries To Stab Him And Matt Thinks She Is Crazy Or He Was For Saving Her!

Matthew Fairchild Stays On His Private Island To Come To Terms With Killing His Wife And Unborn Son. Oh, He Knew That He Really Did Not Kill Her, He Was Just A Means To Her Driving Off Of A Cliff, But In His Heart He Knew That He had Never Loved Gabriella But One Thing Led To Another And She Was Pregnant With His child But If He Had Not Been So Absorbed With His Business He Could Have Had A Family; Now All He Had Left Was A Business That He Did Not Give A Damn About And When He Rescued What He Thought Was A Dead Woman Once He Got Her Into His Boat, She Was Alive And Could Have Been His Dead Wife's Twin!

What can I say about Maggie Shayne?! Her books provide us with so much entertainment and suspense. Immortal Desire continues to mesmerize and entertain proving that she can do no wrong when it comes to writing!

"Immortal Desire" is the follow up to the recently-published book "Eternal Love" which contained the novellas "Infinity" and "Eternity", set in the world of the High Witches with their immortality. "Immortal Desire" continues this theme with a longer story, "Destiny", and then the fairly short "Immortality". These books have all been published before but are brought together and reissued in these two books.

DESTINY
"Destiny" works very well as a standalone story and it's not necessary to have read the previous stories to follow the action, although one or two nuances, as well as some characters, aren't explained completely. This story follows Nidaba who was mentioned a great deal in "Eternity" as a four thousand year old woman whose mind was perhaps letting go. We meet Nidaba in this story after she has just committed suicide after jumping from a high building, only to recover in the ambulance and to be drugged and then kept in a mental asylum. When Nathan Ian King sees her photograph in the newspaper with the question "who is this woman" he is sure he knows who she is... only that she died four and a half thousand years ago. However he goes to investigate and discovers that she is indeed Nidaba, Priestess of Inanna who was his childhood playmate and only real love when he was the King of Lagesh in ancient Sumer.

With the help of two of his friends, Nathan rescues Nidaba from the mental asylum and cares for her at his house, trying to help her to recover from her catatonic state. However when she does they have a lot of history to cover - they both have much for which to be forgiven. The novel takes place in two times in history, with the modern-day sections when Nathan is caring for Nidaba and the historical sections where Eannatum and Nidaba are growing up and learning to love each other in ancient Sumer. The Sumerian sections are interesting and reasonably accurate.

Of course there is a 'baddie' in this book. Nathan's former wife Puabi, who is trying to get Nidaba's heart to extend her own immortality and to finally pay back her old, old adversary. We also briefly meet Arianna and Nicodimus from "Eternity" but most of the action is between Nathan/Eannatum and Nidaba. It was an interesting story and the historical sections in Sumer added a great deal to the story but somehow it never really completely drew in this reader to the world described. Four stars.

IMMORTALITY
This is a much shorter story and, rather surprisingly, has as its heroine the evil murderess Puabi of the previous book. When Puabi escapes from the burning house of Nathan she casts herself into the sea and expects, eventually, to use up all her lives and to drown. However she is fished out of the sea by a man who takes her to his island to care for her. Matthew Fairchild is taking some time out from his work to deal with the consequences of the death of his fiance and unborn child; when he meets Puabi he is shocked by her physical similarity to his dead fiance Gabriella, although their natures could not be more different. The two talk, spar and eventually uncover their secrets, although Matthew doesn't of course believe Puabi is really a Sumerian Queen who's over four thousand years old. When Matthew's Personal Assistant tries to kill them they both discover a shocking secret and Puabi is given another chance to atone for her sins.

This story started off reasonably enough and I was interested to see how the author would deal with the fact that her heroine is incredibly anti-heroic, having killed lots of people, including two in the previous story. However I was rather disappointed that this aspect of Puabi's nature wasn't really discussed, just that Puabi was having a fresh start. The events towards the end of this story were too far fetched to enable this reader to really go along with it and I felt it was all rather a cop-out. Two stars.

This book is a reasonable read because of the first story which has the lion's share of the book and it will definitely appeal to those who liked the previous book in this series but it isn't in any way outstanding in a crowded genre and the stories didn't inspire me to read them again.

Originally published for Curled Up With A Good Book, www.curledup.com. © Helen Hancox 2007