Review - Immortal Beloved by Cate Tiernan

Immortal Beloved (Immortal Beloved #1) by Cate Tiernan
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Genre: Paranormal Young Adult
Received for review from Hodder & Stoughton

Rating: 3 stars
Pages: 400

Summary: Nastasya has spent the last century living as a spoiled, drugged-out party girl. She feels nothing and cares for no one. But when she witnesses her best friend, a Dark Immortal, torture a human, she realizes something's got to change. She seeks refuge at a rehab for wayward immortals, where she meets the gorgeous, undeniably sexy Reyn, who seems inexplicably linked to her past.

Nastasya finally begins to deal with life, and even feels safe--until the night she learns that someone wants her dead.

Thoughts: Immortal Beloved is a difficult book to describe.  In a way, it felt like adult fiction.  The main character is 400+ years old, so needless to say, she's a grown-up.  And the trauma she's been through over those past 400 years? Not teenage stuff.

At its heart, Tiernan has written a book about a woman in rehab.  I absolutely loved the main character, Nastasya.  She has had an extraordinary, painful life and watching her deal with that was just stunning.  Nas is tough and self-confident, but is also uncertain about what her ultimate purpose in life is.  She has spent 400 years suppressing all emotion and she finally needs to just deal with it - and with the clever help of flashbacks, we get to go through it with her. I loved watching her transformation, and I actually really related to it.  But plot-wise, Immortal Beloved was a let down.

This is one of those extremely rare books where I loved the main character, but was let down by everything else.  Sure there was a over-arching mystical theme, a few supposedly-sinister characters - but both seemed to be thrown in last minute.  The real drama was Nas dealing with her memories - including an unbelievable-yet-immediate threat on her life was just an unwelcome distraction from the real substance.  I also really disliked Nas's love interest.  They had every reason to want to kill each other, and yet some sort of magical attraction conquered all.  Right.  Sure.  *stabs*  If he dropped dead for the next book, I would not mind at all.

As for the next book in the series... I do look forward to seeing more of Incy, who I found rather adorable in an evil, dark and twisty sort of way.  Is that wrong?  Perhaps.

Bottom line?  I'm not sure how much a teen reader would get out of this book, as some of the themes are rather adult.  But if you are looking for a main character to love, look no further.  Just don't go in expecting a paranormal romance or an action flick - this book is neither.