Customer Reviews

My Soul to Keep

5 star:		(128)
4 star:		(21)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This is the story of an immortal who gets swept away with the lives of mortals and desires to maintain the love affection and closeness he has with those individuals. David aka Dawit is an African/ African American who has inhabited this earth for the past 500 years. He has had many lives, many experiences, many wives and many children. However, whenever the powers have told him to leave his life amongst mortals, he has done so without reservation.

However, along comes his wife Jessica and the Kira, the daughter they share and his life changes based on his sense of love and devotion to these 2 people. David aka Dawit's blood is everlasting and once infused into the body of mortals, accompanyed by the Ritual of Life, individuals live forever. Although Dawit is sworn to secrecy, his love for his wife causes him to break the covenant and risk the life not only of himself but his family as well. It is with his blood that he attemtps to ensure that his new wife and child have everlasting life.

Although the character of Dawit is somewhat odd and sinister, he has redeeming qualities based on his sacrifice in the name of Jessica and Kira. It almost makes the acts he commits during the book seem OK. In an odd way, this is the story about what a person will do in the name of love.

I thoroughly enjoyed this novel and it had a very interesting religious twist re: the blood of Christ. This author is very talented. I have read all three of her novels and each one is very well written. However, her novels show a great deal of versatility, each with a completely different subject yet each beautifully well written. Highly recommended.

My Soul To Keep (MSTK) by Tananarive Due is one of the best books that I've Read in 2000! This book was just awesome and included all of the elements of a good read. MSTK was well written, scripted with a vivid imagination and creativity and included a strong storyline, great character development along with cliff hanging plot twists and turns. I must digress for a moment and admit that I had MSTK on my "To Read List" for two years but was a little reluctant to read it because of the genre. Once I committed myself to reading MSTK, I found myself really getting into this book and the storyline; I ravenously turned the pages and became so all consumed that I didn't want to put the book down. MSTK engrosses you in the tale of David/Dawit the immortal who will do whatever is necessary to maintain his family, the love of his life wife Jessica, and Kira his young daughter. The plot grabbed me from the beginning as Ms. Due had a wonderful way of telling the story and taking one back into time. Once Ms. Due had your attention she took you back periodically to help you understand How Dawit/became David. I felt that I was actually back in the various timeperiods depicted in the book and actually waiting to travel back to present day. Due weaves Past with Present in the telling of MSTK and in doing so she provides the reader with enough background information to keep the reader on the edge of the seat while adding depth and giving substance to the storyline. MSTK keeps the reader fully immersed and satiated until you have finished the last page. There is so much to absorb and enjoy in MSTK that no one can really tell you about it; MSTK is a book that you must experience in order to receive the full scope, the full meaning of the story. I plan to read MSTK again...hopefully a little slower this time so that I can SAVOR AND DIGEST the small details as well this time. Ms. Due combines a fine blend of history, science fiction, and drama to make the story riveting and to hold your interest from beginning to end. I recommend MSTK as an excellent read for everyone and I can't wait for the sequel...I know David/Dawit is still out there and I can't wait to hear what he's been up to since I last read about him.

I'm an avid reader and I enjoy a good science-fiction more than anything else. When I stumbled across this book in 1998, purely by luck, I was not prepared for the ride it took me on. Ms. Due has earned her place among the ranks of Steven King and Spielberg. Since 1998 I've read this book twice -- and I'm not normally a person who reads a book more than once, but this story grabs you, takes you to a another place altogether and you'll never in your life forget the main character, Dawit (or Daud, or David-just one of his many names). This book leaves you hoping that just once this could be true, that there really could be people out there like Dawit and if you're really fortunate, maybe one day you'll meet one. I sincerely hope, as I've been hoping since '98, that Ms. Due will do a sequel. It will be well worth it!

This is one of those books that while you read your eyes may be burning, you know you have to get up at 5:30 am the next morning and you still have to do some chores around the house, but you just DON'T CARE. There is nothing that could tear that book from my hands. This is my first book by this author and I can't even pronounce her name correctly, but I am a fan for life.

The book started off with a sense of mystery and suspence. Things on the surface seemed okay, but I knew, as anyone who reads this book will know, that things are just not as they seem. Then Tananarive took me on the ride of my life. I wanted so much to hate Dawit and I just couldn't. I wanted Jessica to get away from him and then I wanted her to stay with him forever. "Forgive him, he loves you!" I screamed and cried. Why won't these people listen to me. Dawit is an immortal who has lived for over 500 years when we meet him. Jessica is a reporter with a loving family. When a story she's working on leads her to find out about Dawit and who he is, especially how he fits into her life, all hell breaks loose. This book takes the reader, especially me, on an emotional roller coaster. There were times when I had to put the book down saying that I just can't take it anymore, but it wouldn't be ten seconds before I picked it up again.

Tananarive made every character so real that I couldn't help but care for each of their well being. Another great characteristic of her writing is that I never wanted to skip part because they were boring. I may have wanted to skip ahead to see what would happen, but never because a part was too boring or too wordy.

In summing up my review, I really don't want to say anything that will give away the story or plot, but this story reminded me of Octavia Butler's work. Even though I am not the type that really goes for science fiction or anything in that ilk, but this book had me out of breath, crying, scared and best of all, it left me wanting more. I urge you all to read this book.

The first time I picked up this novel and read a couple pages, my heart beat a little faster because I knew what I was in for a real treat. The story is a tragic love story, albeit a strange one. I hate it when reviewers describe detailed scenes in the book, so I'll skip the deconstruction and analysis, and just provide my opinion: It really blew away my expectations because it was an exceptionally well-written supernatural thriller. (My favorite kind of book in the world!) Hard to find because it's hard to do. You try to convince the cynical reader that what's incredible can actually be credible--good luck. The prologue and chapter 1, tell you everything about the two main characters. The first chapter was quietly harrowing, I found that I was tensing up as I read on, which is probably the best review that I can give to a book. I forgot I was reading a work of fiction and was totally into the shared reality thing. I am giving this book 4 stars (4 and a half stars if I could) and not 5 because there are a couple subplots that should have been developed a little more --could have had better editing - maybe?, it's not perfect, but why sweat the small details? Overall, it is better than good. T. Due is a graceful, talented storyteller! She authors with a voice, emotion and a beat that is hers, I will certainly be reading the rest of her novels. I'm starting on The Living Blood now (the sequel) and it promises to be even better, I can tell already that the style is more polished and it's going to take me where I want to go!

In her second novel, Tananarive Due shows that she is an author on the rise. MY SOUL TO KEEP is a story of sensitivity, passion, irresistible commitment, and sorrow, and a book you do not want to put down.

By all outward appearance, David Wolde is the perfect husband and father. In fact, some friends of his wife, Jessica, sarcastically refer to him as "Mr. Perfect." Yet David, who is known as "Dawit" by the other members of his sect, is actually over 450 years old, an immortal who has walked and lived among the mortals for centuries. The leader of Dawit's secret sect has decided this rebelliousness has gone on for too long, and he dispatches another sect member (Dawit's former closest friend) to resolve the issue, in whatever manner necessary. David/Dawit is consumed by a multipicity of conflicting emotions and responsibilities, not the least of which is finding a way to safeguard his wife and child, particularly since this his longevity has resulted in countless repetitions of the same pattern of desertion. This time, the mortality of his mate has to be addressed.

Ms. Due writes in an uncomplicated manner but does not condescend. Her prose are straightforward without becoming mundane. She skillfully blends in passages that take you back in time to get some feeling for the "lives" Dawit has lived, but always maintains a coherent view of the story's critical path. My only concern and it is a small one, was the story ended in somewhat ambiguous fashion, which is no longer an issue since I understand a sequel is on the way.

The strength of this novel lies in the possibility of life after death. In the last few books that I've read, not by choice but by happenstance I keep running into this theme of immortality. Of the fear of death. What makes this novel different is that we get the fear from the perspective of Dawit/David who is immortal and is not afraid of dying but off his family doing so. After he kills a child who now lies in a nursing home and then must kill his wife's friend a reporter who uncovers a clue about him and then Khladun, creator of the Immortals from the blood of Christ, we see how complicated immortality is.
The concept of changing identities every twenty or thrity years is posisble to imagine. But there are things that must be sacrificed. Children, love, even to a degree notoriety because this is what ultimately starts unraveling David's cover, his notoriety in one life is flickering like a flame at the edges of his new one.
Here's what I wonder, do the ties that bind African-American communities, the inter-relationships, ultimately put David at a greater risk? Being not the majority percentage in America given enough connectability, isn't there the possibility that if not related in blood, most African-American are by story, by some touchstone?
Is immortality particularly dangerous to David because he's passing for Black in a country where someone of his intellect and ability to pick up talents would stand out, much along the lines of "the Talented 10th"? The book then brings us to another question, what are you willing to die and kill for? And Ms. Due suggests that the easiest kills are the ties that bind us because there will come a point if we live long enough that they strangle. It is only David's refusal to be alone anymore that brings this whole novel to the point of being worth a story. What I really liked was that David is both hero and villain to his own family and ultimately to himself. To love so deeply that he's willing to keep killing, even eventually his family to resurrect them, makes me wonder about the long terms effects of immortality and the wisdom of Khaldun keeping the Life Brothers to a limited number and hidden away. Our emotions are irrational, our desires foolish and the lengths we are willign to go to for the silliest things our undoing. Now on some level we all get and observe this in our daily lives but Ms. Due's book forces us to realize that without discipline we couldn't handle immortality, the burden of it the responsibility, the temptation to play God. Because one of the abilities that God holds is over life and death and this beautiful book turns everything upside down when it asks what happens when we assume one fo God's powers. It's a nice touch that the "Living Blood" comes from Christ himself, it both humanizes Jesus in a way that makes us think of him as pure down to his last cell and at the same time real.
I also liked how these religious questions were raised, how Jessica's faith was challenged by the fact that suddenly the God she prays to is made real and a miracle is before her. This could've simply been a horror story or a fantasy tale but by making her hav to confront her thoughts about God and the temptation to immortality, it really rang true as the kinds of thoughts a normal person in extraordinary circumstances would have,

Having never heard of Tananarive Due, I saw this book in a discount bin at a closing bookstore and purchased it for something like 2 dollars. I saw the stephan king blurb and decided I'd give it a try.

This book was the first of 3 reading experiences that would make Tananarive Due one of my favorite writers. She provides a reading experience that WILL NOT dissapoint.

In "My Soul To Keep" Jessica Jacobs Wolde finds out that her husband, her true love even, is an Immortal and because he breaks the laws of his people he is hunted.

With out wanting to spoil the story let me tell you that there are some very innovative twists in this story. When Due is discussing any part of the story, she uses words that create a certain feel. Although the story is told in Third Person, you get a strong feeling for what the charecters are going threw by the dictation. Due reminds us constantly that "My Soul To Keep' exists in a world very similar to ours with human emotions and painful choices. Some of her charecters make the wrong choice, some of them choose wisely. There are some very, very sad elements of the story and a strange sort of irony as the prologue resonates a theme threw the story.

Forget the fact that I am not a science fiction buff. This book along with Janice Sims's Out of the Blue has made a convert out of me. This book is soooooo gooooooood. David Wolde whose real name is Dawit is over 450 years old but doesn't look a day of thirty. That is because he has the Blood. Mentored by Khaldin who gave him the blood, Dawit has been living as a mortal with his wife, Jessica, and young daughter, Kira. But now his time as a mortal is drawing to a close. Malmoud has been sent by Khaldin to bring Dawit home. David/Dawit's idealistic life is about to blow up. He is getting desperate. In order to preserve what he has he makes graves errors but he loves his wife and daughter desperately. Dawit has traveled through a time warp. As Dawit he was born in ancient Ethiopia. His wife died in childbirth at thirteen. He was a slave in the 1840s named Seth and saw his beloved Adele hung. As jazz musician Spider Tillis, he wrote well-known songs and disappeared leaving a wife and children. Jessica has always been in awe of her husband. He is nicknamed Mr. Perfect by one of best friends. She is beginning to think he is too perfect. This was superb writing and I had an opportunity to meet the author who is releasing a sequel next year. A MUST READ.

This story is a real departure from your typical fangs in the throat vampire. The premise is fascinating, from the living blood and how it is shared, to the pain this particular man feels having loved and lost over so many years and his struggles with living a double life. However, I don't think this book packs as much punch as it could. I found the first 3/4's of the book slow, with only glimmers of excitment. The ending was great, but it didn't make up for the rest of the book. I have to say, I was disappointed. I've heard so many good things about this book, that I was really looking forward to it, and it's sequel. Now I'm not so sure I want to continue with the saga. If I do, I won't be purchasing the book. I suggest a trip to the library and hope for the best.