Immortal Beloved by Cate Tiernan

Title: Immortal Beloved
Series: Everlasting Life Book 1
Author: Cate Tiernan

Release Date: 1st October 2010

My Rating: 4/5

Blurb:
New name, new town, new life. Nastasya has done it too often to count. And there's no end in sight. Nothing ever really ends ...when you're immortal.

'After some of the events I've witnessed I felt like I was a shell with nothing alive left in me. I hadn't been going around killing people, but people were hurt -- the memories just kept trickling in like rivulets of fresh acid dripping into my brain until I wanted to scream. It was in my blood, I knew. A darkness. The darkness. I had inherited it, along with my immortality and my black eyes.'

My Review:
I was very skeptical when this title arrived on my desk as I thought it would be another story where "a 'normal' high school girl finds out she is a vampire/witch/wolf and then meets the mysterious boy who also happens to be a vampire/witch/wolf. Blah blah blah" The only reason I picked it up, the blurb didn't really appeal to me and neither did the title, was because I had read Tiernan's Sweep series when I was younger and thought I would give her new writing a try. Boy am I glad I did because what I found was an original take on the life of an immortal.

Nastasya, Nasty to her friends, has lived every kind of life possible in her 450 years. She's not a vampire, she's just... immortal. Yes she can tap into some magikal abilities but she rarely does and prefers to have her fun the 'old fashioned' way; partying with her friends, hooking up with random people and drinking herself into oblivion.

After witnessing her friends conduct unspeakable acts of in-humanity, Nasty has a wake up call. She decides to disappear, and, remembering the kindness of a stranger in a chance meeting decades ago, she heads off to River's Edge in Massachusetts. Here she finds a kind of immortal boot-camp/rehab/retreat; so not her thing, but where else can she go?

Nasty has a mysterious past that she does her best to block out and we slowly (but not too slowly) peel back the layers to discover her secret. We get to see back to different decades of her life and I love the little snippets of finding out what she has been doing for the past 450 years. As usual, there is major sexual tension between Nasty and another character, we get to see Nasty developing a conscious, there is good old fashion rivalry, an interesting cast of characters that you care about, and also the tension of the friends she left behind as they close in on her.

I'm not really a fan of the title and I think it is pretty unoriginal but maybe that's just me. There are quite a few loose ends but that's what you get in a series but it doesn't matter as the sequel is going to be amazing! I can not wait to read it!