The Living Blood [Paperback]

Tananarive Due (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 2, 2002

From the author of the national bestseller My Soul to Keep comes a riveting new novel of supernatural suspense -- a gripping tale that brilliantly showcases a writer at the pinnacle of her astounding storytelling abilities.

Jessica Jacobs-Wolde has somehow survived the worst that any mother or wife could ever endure: the deaths of her husband and first daughter. But now, four years later, not only is the nightmare continuing -- it may have only just begun. Jessica has discovered the terrifying truth behind the legacy that her husband left to their second daughter, Fana...a legacy preordained a thousand years before her time and drenched in the powerful lifeblood that now courses through her veins. As young Fana begins to display unearthly abilities that are quickly spiraling out of control, she becomes the target of those who will stop at nothing to exploit her power -- and the unwitting touchstone in an ancient supernatural battle whose outcome may decide the fate of all humanity.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

The pantheon of modern horror gods is a small and frighteningly talented group: Stephen King, Anne Rice, Peter Straub, Clive Barker, Dean Koontz--and Tananarive Due. If there is any justice, Due's exciting, powerful, ambitious, scary, and beautifully written supernatural thriller, The Living Blood, will be the first of a decades-long string of hits that will sell millions.

Jessica Jacobs-Wolde's life was destroyed when her husband, David Wolde, disappeared after killing both their daughter Kira and Jessica herself--and reviving Jessica to immortality with his healing blood. David was a Life Brother, member of an ancient, secret, and immortal African clan. Now Jessica, hiding with her surviving daughter in rural Botswana, attempts to make sense of her new existence as she uses her altered blood to save the incurably ill. But her daughter Fana was born with the living blood in her veins, and at the age of 3 can raise a storm, kill with a thought, and possess her mother's mind. The true extent of her abilities is unknown. Jessica's only hope of teaching Fana to control her dangerous talents is to travel to Ethiopia and find the Life Brothers' hidden colony. But the Life Brothers despise the new immortals and may possess the knowledge to end even immortal lives. And others, unknown to Jessica, are searching for her and Fana: Lucas Shepard, a Florida doctor driven to desperation by his young son's untreatable leukemia; ruthless mercenaries in the pay of an aging medical-company executive, who will stop at nothing to gain immortality and the billion-dollar profits that a drug based on the living blood would bring; and a supernatural being or force called the Bee Lady, who stalks Fana in the world of dreams, seeking to possess Fana's mind and powers for her own evil purposes.

The Living Blood is the sequel to My Soul to Keep, one of the Publishers Weekly Best Novels of the Year in 1997. Due's historical novel The Black Rose was a finalist for an NAACP Image Award, and her debut novel, The Between, was nominated for the Bram Stoker Award. Due is also coauthor, with Dave Barry, Edna Buchanan, Carl Hiassen, Elmore Leonard, and eight others, of the comic thriller Naked Came the Manatee. --Cynthia Ward --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Publishers Weekly

Like the hurricane that threatens Florida at its climax, this stunning sequel to My Soul to Keep (1997) is an event of sustained power and energy. Its predecessor introduced Jessica Jacob-Wolde, a journalist who belatedly discovers that her "perfect" husband, David, is a renegade from a secretive 1,000-year-old clan of Ethiopian immortals who will kill to prevent members from sharing their life-extending blood with mortals. David has returned to Africa to do penance among his Life Brothers, and Jessica, whom he resurrected from the dead with a transfusion from himself, follows close behind, setting up a jungle clinic to dispense dilutions of her blood as medicine. Jessica's daughter Fana, whom David did not know Jessica was pregnant with when he transfused her, has begun to show magical powers, and her precocious divinity is the catalyst for a volatile brew of subplots that includes a violent schism among the Life Brothers, an alternative medicine guru's desperate efforts to save his leukemic son with Jessica's blood and a force of unspeakable evil trying to channel itself through Fana. Due exercises assured control over her wildly gyrating story, exploring its drama in terms of African culture, African-American experience and a variety of parent-child relationships. What's more, she fuses clich‚d themes from a variety of genres jungle adventure, transcontinental espionage, natural disaster into an amalgam that reclaims their powers to excite. A rare example of a sequel that improves upon the original, this novel also should set a standard for supernatural thrillers of the new millennium. Agent, Jack Hawkins. (Apr. 10)Forecast: My Soul to Keep was one of the most talked-about debuts in the horror field since the advent of Stephen King. Expect heavy interest and like sales for this sequel.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 528 pages
• Publisher: Washington Square Press (January 2, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0671040847
• ISBN-13: 978-0671040840
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.5 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (98 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #483,086 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Tananarive does it again!, May 2, 2001

By 

D.L.G. (Chicago, IL United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Living Blood (Hardcover)

One word: Engaging. After the success of her second novel, My Soul To Keep, Tananarive Due fans have been waiting for the continued story of Jessica, her family and Dawit and the Immortals. However, The Living Blood has surpassed all high expectations. First of all, The Living Blood is a self-contained story and one needs not to have read My Soul To Keep to follow the fast paced action and addictive plot line. I read most of this book in one weekend and I feel that others will have the same experience. There is something to be said for good "page turners" and I believe it is an art within itself to keep readers so glued to the page that they miss appointments, bus stops and much needed sleep. The Living Blood takes us on a journey over a massive landscape, touching down on different countries within Africa, Europe and landing within the United States. Ms. Due's narrative descriptions are so powerful that I often felt if I were to look out my own window I would see the rock-hewn churches of Lalibela or the greying skies of a coming tropic storm. The Living Blood takes you to these places through the eyes of several memorable characters. Jessica and her sister's tenacity continue into this novel from the previous, however, we are also introduced to Lucas Shepherd and experience his one-man quest to find a cure for his son's leukemia. Each character is distinct in their system of beliefs and Ms. Due has done a wonderful job in showing what ethical and moral questions might arise if the world were to become aware of the existence of a blood so powerful that it can heal most diseases and even cause immortality. By far one of the most interesting characters is Fana, the first child born of two immortals. Tananarive Due takes us inside the mind of this unprecedented girl as she discovers the full range of her powers over time. Truthfully, I couldn't put this book down until I hit the last page, and even after that I read the book jacket, the notes, and scanned the back cover looking for more!

Tananarive Due is a wonderful author. At every opportunity, I have recommended her books to friends and family. There is one thing that I enjoy in particular about her books, The Living Blood and My Soul To Keep, and that is how Ms. Due's landscape of characters demonstrate the different faces of Americans and the rest of the world. While most of the main characters are African-American there are also prominent Caucasian and African characters, Latino characters, and Italian and Irish characters. All of these people are in roles of doctors, families, soldiers, scholars, lawyers and corporate heads. What is exciting is that while all of these characters interact with one another, the focus of the novel is not the _fact_ that they are interacting. I am so happy to see an author writing books that demonstrate the richness of the world we live in. We are all influenced by one another and Ms. Due's books let that be known through the character's likes/dislikes and experiences. Furthermore, while all of these ethnic and racial groups are interacting, there is little sense of the "other" or outcasts and stereotypes. In fact, the division is not between races but a dichotomy of mortals and immortals, and by the end of The Living Blood even those lines are blurred. Congratulations to Tananarive Due she is a wonderful and innovative author. I wish her much continued success.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Living Blood, April 5, 2001

By 

Nina (United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Living Blood (Hardcover)

I could not wait to get my hands on a copy of the sequel to My Soul to Keep...The Living Blood. When I finally got it, I waited a couple of hours to read it (took me about a day and a half). Anyway, I really enjoyed reading the Living Blood, though I wish the author had spent more time on Jessica and Dawit/David than the other characters. I'm not sure I liked the way the book ended, but I hope there will be another sequel...with Fana as a young woman. I'd really like to see how she turns out. Why does this book deserve five stars? At times it was heartwrenching and I really, really felt for the characters, especially Dr. Shepard. The story was well-told and quick-paced, though at times I wanted to skip over parts that had nothing to do with Jessica, David, or Fana. The book also scared me, and I like nothing more than a good scare. Overall, it was a very, very good read...my high expectations were met for the sequel. Ms. Due , I look forward to reading more

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars This lady has the Midas touch, May 7, 2001

By 

mateo52 "invisible man" (State College, Pa.) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: The Living Blood (Hardcover)

In THE LIVING BLOOD, ostensibly her sequel to 1997's MY SOUL TO KEEP, Tananarive Due adroitly explores territory traveled far and wide by many other authors, the age-old classic battle between the forces of good and evil.

The central characters from MSTK, the immortal Dawit Wolde and his estranged wife, Jessica (also now an immortal) are back but TLB is a very different book from it's antecedent. Primarily, plot revolves around Fana, the precocious three year old daughter of the two immortals, a young child who is beginning to exhibit powers well beyond her mother's understanding and even further beyond her ability to control. As with her home and clinic in South Africa, where she had fled to soon after Fana's birth, Jessica decides to abandon the clinic she and her dedicated sister, Alexis, are running in Botswana to seek out guidance from the LifeBrothers, the secret Ethiopian colony of immortals, before Fana's powers mature any further. She knows the blood coursing through her veins can be a salvation but also carries a tremendous liability. Unbeknownst to her, but not unexpected, there are conflicting external forces, corporeal and otherwise who want to gain control of the blood and her daughter, for a multiplicity of reasons: some personal, some altrustic, some captialistic and some...just pure malevolence.

Due does an excellent job of encapsulating MSTK's significant plotlines within TLB. She masterfully crafts a portal to an alternate 'unreality' as seen through the comprehension of a three year old. She evokes vivid images of Southern Africa and the little acknowledged history and beauty of Ethiopia. As she has proven with earlier works, she writes with uncomplicated elegance, seemingly unafflicted with the arrogance so often displayed in the works of so many other writers.

TLB is a good book but that is not to infer it is flawless. There are a number of incongruities that cannot be effectively addressed here without detracting from the story for future readers. One that I can talk about however, might be my misconceived idea of the LifeBrothers, and their ethereal leader, Khaldun, rather than a failing on the part of the author. Due chose not to devote a great deal of the story to the LifeBrothers, their philosophy and the religious implications. In essence, the immortals were portrayed as little more than men who just lived forever, subject to the same petty jealousies, competitiveness and insecurities as mortals. Rather than superior, they appeared to be stagnant, unable to die but for the most part unwilling to evolve. Hopefully, there will be a follow-up to TLB that deals with that aspect in depth.