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My Soul to Keep By Tananarive Due ( Eos )
Release Date: 1998-04-01
Average Customer Rating:
List Price: $15.95
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Product Description
When Jessica marries David, he is everything she wants in a family man: brilliant, attentive, ever youthful. Yet she still feels something about him is just out of reach. Soon, as people close to Jessica begin to meet violent, mysterious deaths, David makes an unimaginable confession: More than 400 years ago, he and other members of an Ethiopian sect traded their humanity so they would never die, a secret he must protect at any cost. Now, his immortal brethren have decided David must return and leave his family in Miami. Instead, David vows to invoke a forbidden ritual to keep Jessica and his daughter with him forever. Harrowing, engrossing and skillfully rendered, My Soul to Keep traps Jessica between the desperation of immortals who want to rob her of her life and a husband who wants to rob her of her soul. With deft plotting and an unforgettable climax, this tour de force reminiscent of early Anne Rice will win Due a new legion of fans.
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Amazon.com
Tananarive Due is intrigued by how unfolding timelines and alternate destinies impinge on people's lives. "How frightening it is," she writes, "when fate is at liberty to take over what will has begun." As in her absorbing first novel, The Between, My Soul to Keep is about what happens when the domestic joy of a middle-class African American family (in this story, he's a jazz scholar, she's a reporter, and they have a 5-year-old daughter) is shattered by supernatural forces and memories of events long past. The story is deeply involving because of the characters' appeal, and suspenseful because the loving husband (who turns out to be a 500-year-old immortal) is so alien, he's utterly unpredictable. The passages recalling the husband's experiences as a slave in the American South in the 1800s are especially gripping. It's a melodramatic approach to dark fantasy, but it works well.
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You Won't Be Able To Put This Book Down!! ( supermommie316 )
This book was fabulous! I couldn't put it down! I finished it in 2 days (stupid work! I'd have finished it in 1 day if I didn't have to go!!). I've always seen books about immortals as vampire, gross, bloody books. This one is not that way at all. It's cleverly written, everthing has an underlying meaning. While you read, keep notes on facts...you will have "aha!" moments later!!
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Great Concept. Great Story.
My Soul to Keep grabs you and moves with descriptive style as if you are one of the characters. There are several stories within the story that end up intertwined later. The Jazz musician, the slave , the Ethiopian, the professor, the perfect husband and the immortal all of these characters were David also known as Dawit.There are bumps and bruises along the way with murders to cover up his "immortality", David was loved and was "Mr. Perfect" where did it all go wrong? When he fell in love and wanted to give the gift of life to his wife and child? Or when his wife stumbled on the mysterious death of his daughter Rosalie?
There were hints from "Grandpa" who's always eating a Whopper. When looking back on it I think the author used Grandpa to soften the anticipated, almost expected, blow of Kira's death. This was definitely painful to witness. I was frustrated with the speed of the unfolding. I wanted more time with Kira and to offer advice to the characters on how they could save her. Almost yelling at the book! I lost track of time reading the final chapters and couldn't put it down until I was finished.
The story leaves you hanging with several lose ends. What is Jessica doing sharing the living blood with terminal children in Africa? Was she in mourning over Kira and wanted to help as many kids as she could? Why was she so short with David when he came to visit? Will she go after him soon? I think she will. The new child seems even more powerful and superior then his immortal parents. Knowing that there is a sequel is comforting. B/c there are several more stories to be told.....
Overall it's a very good book. I would put it in the top 10 for sure. I can't wait to start the sequel.
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Amazing Work
Due is an amazing author and I can't wait to see the film adaptation of this book.
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The Horror
Filled with deep spiritual questions, these Tananrive Due horror novels (The Between, My Soul to Keep, and Living Blood) make my blood run cold and give me real goose bumps. It takes alot to make that happen.
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An all-time favorite
I am an avid African American fiction & non-fiction reader. However, I never could get into sci-fi-type novels. My Soul to Keep changed my mind forever. I was hooked before the end of the first chapter, and read it in one night. I wanted more...and got it later. During that first read, I experienced so many different emotions: happiness, fear, anxiety, etc. That's a rare thing for me.
I think the problem with the other books that others would compare M S to K to was that the basis of the stories were unbelievable to me. Tananarive Due did an excellent job of making the story believable (at least to me) and taking me on a journey that had me addicted. I cannot wait for the third installment to come out in June!
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