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Overview
From the author of the national bestseller My Soul to Keep comes a riveting new novel of supernatural suspense — a gripping tale that brilliantly showcases a writer at the pinnacle of her astounding storytelling abilities.
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.
Synopsis
Acclaimed for her riveting fiction, which tests the boundaries of supernatural suspense, Tanarive Due returns with a gloriously imagined tale of an ancient cult's undying powers—now embodied by a child who can grow to become either monster or savior.
Jessica Jacobs-Wolde worked hard to rebuild her life in Maimi after the disappearance of her husband, David, and the death of her daughter Kira at his hand. Four years later, she is still coming to terms with a shocking truth: David, who is part of an ancient group of immortals—a hidden African clan that has survived for more than a thousand years—gave Jessica and their second daughter, Fana, the gift of his healing blood.
Now Jessica is running an isolated clinic in Botswana—one that has swiftly earned a reputation for its astounding success rate in curing desperately ill children—and she hopes to find the tribe of souls with whom Fana truly belongs. Just three and a half years old, the girl is displaying signs of tremendous power—conjuring storms, editing her mother's memories, and striking people down with a thought. Her growing abilities need to be tamed—and soon. Already Fana's dreams are haunted by a shadowy entity, someone—or something—she can only call the Bee Lady.
Unaware that they are being tracked by Lucas Shepard, a doctor from Florida who hopes to save his dying son, and by a group of fortune hunters who will stop at nothing to exploit the power coursing through her veins, Jessica journeys to Ethiopia in search of the Life Brothers. There, she will be reunited with her immortal beloved. There, the full force of Fana's powers will be revealed. And there, Jessica,David, Fana, and the good doctor Shepard, though himself a mere mortal, will engage in an epic and transcontinental battle over the ultimate fate of humanity.
Blending the supernatural with a thrilling vision of our times, this is a powerful and sweeping tale oflove, horror, immortality, and redemption from an astounding storyteller.
Publishers Weekly
Like the hurricane that threatens Florida at its climax, this stunning sequel to My Soul to Keep (1997) is an event of sustained power and energy. Its predecessor introduced Jessica Jacob-Wolde, a journalist who belatedly discovers that her "perfect" husband, David, is a renegade from a secretive 1,000-year-old clan of Ethiopian immortals who will kill to prevent members from sharing their life-extending blood with mortals. David has returned to Africa to do penance among his Life Brothers, and Jessica, whom he resurrected from the dead with a transfusion from himself, follows close behind, setting up a jungle clinic to dispense dilutions of her blood as medicine. Jessica's daughter Fana, whom David did not know Jessica was pregnant with when he transfused her, has begun to show magical powers, and her precocious divinity is the catalyst for a volatile brew of subplots that includes a violent schism among the Life Brothers, an alternative medicine guru's desperate efforts to save his leukemic son with Jessica's blood and a force of unspeakable evil trying to channel itself through Fana. Due exercises assured control over her wildly gyrating story, exploring its drama in terms of African culture, African-American experience and a variety of parent-child relationships. What's more, she fuses clich d themes from a variety of genres jungle adventure, transcontinental espionage, natural disaster into an amalgam that reclaims their powers to excite. A rare example of a sequel that improves upon the original, this novel also should set a standard for supernatural thrillers of the new millennium. Agent, Jack Hawkins. (Apr. 10) Forecast: My Soul to Keep was one of the most talked-about debuts in the horror field since the advent of Stephen King. Expect heavy interest and like sales for this sequel. Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.
Editorials
From Barnes & Noble
The Barnes & Noble ReviewBestselling author Tananarive Due mixes modern-day medicine with an ancient supernatural battle in The Living Blood, a riveting tale of high emotion and sizzling suspense. A young child bears a unique gift, one that comes with an awesome and potentially devastating power. Her fate will determine the fate of several others as well as the future of the world as a whole.
In Tallahassee, Florida, Dr. Lucas Shephard is frustrated over his inability to save his own son, 11-year-old Jared, who is dying of leukemia. But as he sits beside his son’s deathbed, he is haunted by the memory of something he witnessed years before -- a possible miracle -- while working in Africa for the Peace Corps. That remembered scene, and a modern-day reference to a backwoods clinic in Africa that is healing supposedly incurable children, force Lucas to leave Jared’s side and go in search of a cure. Lucas realizes Jared might die while he’s gone, but if he succeeds in his quest, he may find the key that will give Jared his only hope of life.
Thousands of miles away, in a small village in Botswana, Jessica Jacobs-Wolde and her three-year-old daughter, Fana, share a miraculous secret. The blood of Jessica’s ex-husband flows in both their veins -- blood that has the ability to heal or, under certain circumstances, to even bring the dead back to life. Jessica is running a clinic where she secretly shares her blood with deathly ill children who are brought to her. But despite her efforts to keep the operation low-key, word has spread and many now seek her out, among them an evil old man who wants the blood for himself. When young Fana starts to display some amazing but disturbing abilities, it prompts Jessica to leave the clinic and search out a clandestine group of Ethiopians known as the Immortals -- men who hold the secret to the living blood and who have lived and walked the earth for hundreds of years. It’s a journey that sets her on a collision course with death, fate, immortal life, and Lucas Shephard.
The Living Blood is Due’s most ambitious work yet. Her exquisite rendering of her characters’s emotions works to keep this sweeping supernatural epic in balance. Combine that with a uniquely compelling plot and a pace that sizzles, and you get a story that is as miraculous and complex as its youngest heroine. (Beth Amos)
Beth Amos is the author of several novels, including Second Sight, Eyes of Night, and Cold White Fury.
From the Publisher
Publishers Weekly (starred review) Stunning...an event of sustained power and energy....This novel...should set a standard for supernatural thrillers of the new millennium.Peter Straub One of the best and most significant novelists of her generation.
Peter Straub New York Times bestselling author of Mr. X and Ghost Story Smart, soulful, crafty Tananarive Due deserves the attention of everyone interested in contemporary American fiction. In The Living Blood, this young writer opens up realms of experience that add to our storehouse of shared reality, and by doing so widens our common vision.
Tina McElroy Ansa Tananarive Due continues to thrill, intrigue, and frighten us with her special brand of fiction. No one else can capture the particular hum and beat of her vision, which extends from South Florida to South Africa. Tananarive Due is creating classics.