Immortal Beloved Review



 



Immortal Beloved
Cate Tiernan
January 2011
Hodder & Stoughton


Opening line:~ Last night my whole world came tumbling down.

Now I'm running scared.

Closing line:~ I was done running.

Favourite quote:~ ...'I want my power back. I want my heritage. I want to be my mother's daughter, my father's heir.'
~Nasty~

An interesting story for the dark romance genre, not a vampire, werewolf or angel insight. Instead we have immortals with a flare for magic.

Nastasya has been existing for over 400 years. Leading many different lives, most are spent parting with friends and not having a care in the world. But when one of her closest friends leaves a taxi driver paralysed Nasty is shocked into turning her life around. On the run from her friends she finds herself at River's house, an immortal she met hundreds of years earlier. River's 'safe-house' could be likened to immortality rehab where immortals can spend time learning to use their magic in a good way, and fight the personal battle of good and evil.

And what story would be complete without the guy!? Enter Reyn. 

Reyn seems very closed off to Nasty but the two seem to vaguely remember each other from some point throughout their lives. Constantly draw to each other the pair soon remember more about the other but with over 400 years of memories not all memories are good!

I'm really torn with how I feel about this story! It had a great opening chapter and I was totally hook, then after Nasty was on the run I was so intrigued as to what would happen. But then Nasty reaches River's house and things slow way down. I appreciate she is on a road to self-discovery, as are the other immortals at the house, and we need to learn about her past to understand her present, but I wanted so much more. It's not until you get about 190 pages in that things start to really pick up again. Then I was hooked again with magic lessons, the true discovery of Reyn, and Nasty's own heritage being reviled, I couldn't read quick enough!

I really like Nastasya! I like the fact that even after 400 years she can still be shocked by her closest friends. I admire the courage that she has and what it took for her to leave them all behind along with everything else. Her past is so haunting and I look forward to the next book to she how she deals with things now she knows what she knows.

I love Reyn!! I can't say much more about him as I feel it would give too much away! But his own journey is just as compelling as Nasty's.

I am looking forward to the next two books to see how their lives develop and how Nastys friends are going to react to her.

3.5 of 5 Stars. Why? Because I loved the idea of the story, it was just a little too slow at times but I understand why. As I said you need to now about the past before you can understand the present.

Winner of My Name Is Memory






Although we liked everyone's memory the winner is.........Paranormal Opinion! We went with her memory....

I think my favorite memory would be our vacation to Texas last year. The kids had so much fun, and my husband and I love Texas :)

Because family is important to us to and some of our favourite memories come for our childhood holidays!!

Author Interview with Tom Clempson




Tom Clempson is the author of One Seriously Messed-Up Week: In The Otherwise Mundane And Uneventful Life Of Jack Samsonite which is the funniest book I've read this year! If you haven't read my review read it here.

Thank you so much for stopping by the blog today

Thank you for having me!


1. How does it feel to be a published author?

Unreal. Literally. I suppose, because at the time of this interview we’re still about 10 weeks away from publication, it won’t feel real until I am able to see it in shops. But even so, to know that people like you, who read and review books all the time, have read it and haven’t thrown it back in my face, fills me with such a sense of… I don’t even know! But it’s nice! It’s very nice. Everything is still sinking in. I’m still celebrating getting an agent and that happened about 2 years ago now!


2. Please could you sum up O.S.M.W.I.T.O.M.U.L.O.J.S. in one sentence?

Oh no, this is like a pitch! I’m no good at pitching my own stuff. I have a knack of making it sound superbly crap. But I’ll give it a shot…

When a very average teenage boy is faced with the prospect of writing an essay about himself, he decides it’s time to stop being average, (only he may have gone too far!).

How was that? I don’t think I really said anything that isn’t already in the title. The title says it all!


3. In all honesty, how much of the book is based on personal experience?

LOADS of it! I used my own school experiences as a template for Jack’s story. But those experiences are all ones that I think are fairly universal to teenage boys – growing pains (see first line of the book), girl trouble, bully trouble, fitting in… I think that quite a few people can relate to Jack, because we’ve all been in similar circumstances (well, to some degree. Maybe not quite to the same extent as Jack).


4. Who is your favourite character and why?

That crazy kid on the bus. He was just so fun to write. I could happily write a whole book just for him. I used to write emails to my friends in the voice of a slightly deranged person, and that’s where he came from. I daresay I freaked out quite a lot of people!.

5. Did you have a favourite teacher while you were at school?

I had a couple of favourites. My school was very similar to Jacks, so there were a lot of characters. My Yr 9 English teacher was a really inspiring guy. My art teachers were very cool too. None quite match up to the teachers in the book though.


6. Your book has been described as Adrian Mole meets The Inbetweeners, how does that make you feel?

It’s such a compliment to be compared to two creations that are so adored. I have no idea how accurate those comparisons are though, because my only memories of Adrian Mole are from my Mum reading it to me at quite a young age (I sincerely hope the material wasn’t THAT similar to mine! Unless my Mum edited her version?) and I’ve only ever seen about 20 minutes of The Inbetweeners. Yeah, it’s a HUGE compliment, but at the same time makes me realise that my work isn’t quite as original as I’d have hoped.


7. Are you working on anything else at the moment?

I am being very optimistic/presumptuous/foolish and am working on a follow-up to OSMUW. It’s a very different experience to writing the first one, because this time around I am aware that there is the possibility that other people might read it. First time round I was fairly certain no one was going to read it, which gave me a lot of freedom.


8.You may not believe it but...................

Oh, where to begin… Jack isn’t me! Ummm… nobody in the book is based upon any individual from real life (no one ever believes me!). I wrote to two agents, the first turned me down because they ‘don’t accept work by children’. My first draft only took 2 weeks to write. The original title for the book was only 3 words long! I’ll stop there.


Thank you so much for stopping by the blog to answer my questions, I think some of your answers were as funny as the book!

Thank you. It was a pleasure.


If you would like to learn more about Tom and his book please follow the links below:~

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