Immortal Beloved

Starred review from August 30, 2010
Born in 1551, Nastasya is immortal, wealthy, and at the end of her rope. After centuries of hedonism, one casually cruel moment in present-day London shatters her composure and leaves her grasping at the slimmest of chances to save her sense of humanity. That chance takes the form of River’s Edge, a farm and retreat in the heart of Massachusetts, where a varied group of immortals seek to regain the immediacy and emotion of life fully lived. It’s not an easy fit for Nastasya, and as she learns about her companions, the ghosts of her long and dark past rise vividly to haunt her. Tiernan (the Sweep series) gives Nastasya a strong, distinctive voice and wonderfully realized perspective on the joys and horrors of history (“I was in Paris on July 14, 1789. You never forget the sight of a human head on a pike”). First in a projected trilogy, the story necessarily leaves many questions open, but achieves a satisfying arc. As Nastasya admits, “I wanted to see how it came out.” Readers will, too. Ages 12–up.

Starred review from April 1, 2011

Gr 10 Up-Nastasya, an immortal, has lived many lifetimes and experienced great wealth, poverty, love, loss, and grief in the first title (Little, Brown, 2010) in a projected trilogy by Cate Tiernan. For the last 100 of her more than 400 years, she has been living the life of a wealthy, hard-partying young woman, numb to the events and the people around her. All this changes after she watches her best friend, Incy, use dark magic to break a man's back in response to a perceived slight offense. To make matters worse, Incy enjoys being cruel. Something Nastasya senses in her friend scares her enough to send her running far away. She finds a safe haven at an organic farm community of other immortals run by River. It is here that that Nastasya meets aloof, handsome Reyn, a man who is curiously familiar and to whom she is attracted. Reyn, it turns out, is linked to her present and to her past. In this community of immortals, Nastasya learns about good and bad magic, comes to grips with what happened to her family hundreds of years ago, and slowly begins to understand the inherited power that she possesses. Kelly Lintz's delivery is spot-on in her portrayal of Nastasya and her witty, sarcastic, laugh-out-loud personality, as well as in relating the events occurring in the story. Listeners will eagerly await the next volume of this intriguing, multi-layered story.-Mary Oluonye, Shaker Heights Public Library, OH

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