Customer Reviews

Immortal Desires

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An artfully, sensuously crafted tale of a young vampire's tortured existence, "Immortal Desires" is a highly enjoyable, poignant story marked by tragedy and loss. The book moves slowly, both in the style of writing and in the passage of time, which leaves the reader feeling with the character -- it's quite a visceral novel.

In the opening pages, Elizabeth, a French-Victorian barmaid, finds herself attacked by a group of humans and rescued by Adrien, dark-souled vampire who sees her as a chance for "light" in his life. Her brush with the powerful Adrien, however, is short-lived, and as she adjusts to her new, inhuman life, she finds herself thrall to a crueler, sadistic vampire, Mikel. His twisted plans for her use against Adrien -- and her slow path at recovery -- set this book apart from others in the genre. All the characters have their darker halves, yet redeeming qualities, and how they all tie together by the end of the book is highly well-orchestrated.

The originally coquettish, sympathetic lead grows quickly -- perhaps a little too quickly, at times. She varies wildly between extremes regarding sex, though this can be plausibly explained by her transition to her state as a vampire. Her change of heart is not horribly distracting, however. All of her paramours are interesting and well-developed, though I must admit I was the most interested in the least explored one, Hunter.

Although not marketed as such, it is laced with hints of D/s, especially slave-lifestyle, though it's certainly not overt enough to dissaude readers who shy away from that sort of erotica. It also has the smallest taste of male-male tension, though (and rather unfortunately), it's unexplored.

One thing I really didn't care for was the handling of flashbacks. It seemed that they were thrown in a bit haphazardly, and they'd have been more meaningful if revealed in the vampires' own words, instead of seen for ourselves. There's also a bit of "unpolished" material throughout -- little anachronisms and grammatical or vocabulary errors that tended to distract a bit. On the whole, however, it's original and well-done.

Certainly worth a read; the slow development between the heroine and her eventual love -- and the growth of her maturity on the path to him -- is quite unique.

3.5/5

When she is brought across the threshhold of death into immortality, Elizabeth finds herself caught in the midst of a long rivalry between two other vampires, Adrien and Mikel. Frightened by them and appalled by the hungers stirred in her, she flees, only to find that any who dare befriend her become targets of the evil vampire who wants her and possibly of herself if she loses control. Yet, for decades, she is pursued and haunted by her immortal desires until the time of confrontation arrives.

*** Books of this nature are not the norm; most vampire books have a theme of trying to redeem the vampire, usually male, from his shadow world by the love of a mortal woman who will turn him human again or in some rare cases, join him. Having a vampire heroine and one not preoccupied with becoming mortal again is decidedly different. Yet, Elizabeth faces a struggle that even all too ordinary mortals face, the fight to stay herself; in this lies the heart of the story and the lesson. ***