Tananarive Due: Immortal Series

In September, Tananarive Due returned with the fourth addition to the immortal series that began with My Soul to Keep. Before you visit the latest one, you might want to play a little catch-up first. Here’s more information about those books, including the new “near-future supernatural suspense tale” titled My Soul to Take:

My Soul to Take (2011) – Phoenix Smalls Harris, a talented singer, is approached by Fana Wolde and her organization to assist in spreading Fana’s healing powers through song rather than the “Glow,” a drug crafted from immortal blood. Phoenix agrees, not least because a member of her family has succumbed to the Praying Disease, a virus unleashed by Fana’s fiancé, Michel. The bonds of families, lovers, friends, and fellow believers are tested as Michel tries to eliminate mortal humans and fulfill his interpretation of a prophecy while Fana moves to counter him. Due’s immersive style encourages readers to delve into all of the conflicting viewpoints and agendas with a surprising degree of empathy, giving depth to a complex and powerful conclusion.

Blood Colony (2009) – There’s a new drug on the street: Glow. Said to heal almost any illness, it is distributed by an Underground Railroad of drug peddlers. But what gives Glow its power? Its main ingredient is blood — the blood of immortals. A small but powerful colony of immortals is distributing the blood, slowly wiping out the AIDS epidemic and other diseases around the world. Meet Fana Wolde, seventeen years old, the only immortal born with the Living Blood. She can read minds, and her injuries heal immediately. When her best friend, a mortal, is imprisoned by Fana’s family, Fana helps her escape — and together they run away from Fana’s protected home in Washington State to join the Underground Railroad. But Fana has more than her parents to worry about: Glow peddlers are being murdered by a violent, hundred-year-old sect with ties to the Vatican. Now, when Fana is most vulnerable, she is being hunted to fulfill an ancient blood prophecy that could lead to countless deaths. While her people search for Fana and race to unravel the unknown sect’s mysterious origins, Fana must learn to confront the deadly forces — or she and everyone she loves will die.

The Living Blood (2002) – Jessica Jacobs-Wolde has somehow survived the worst that any mother or wife could ever endure: the deaths of her husband and first daughter. But now, four years later, not only is the nightmare continuing — it may have only just begun. Jessica has discovered the terrifying truth behind the legacy that her husband left to their second daughter, Fana…a legacy preordained a thousand years before her time and drenched in the powerful lifeblood that now courses through her veins. As young Fana begins to display unearthly abilities that are quickly spiraling out of control, she becomes the target of those who will stop at nothing to exploit her power — and the unwitting touchstone in an ancient supernatural battle whose outcome may decide the fate of all humanity.

My Soul to Keep (1998) – 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.

Happy reading, y’all!