Tananarive Due: My Soul to Keep (African Immortals, #1) (1998)
346 pages
English language
Published Dec. 11, 1998
My Soul to Keep is a 1997 novel by American writer Tananarive Due. It is the first book in Due's African Immortals Series and was followed by The Living Blood (2001). The third book in the series, Blood Colony, was published in 2008.
Had a great time with it, almost every prediction I had while reading this book was proven wrong in time— that's what you want in a thriller, right? The dialogue might be a bit stiff here and there, but it's a nice ride with characters that act surprisingly (and thankfully) rationally. Some nice mysticism and grappling with immortality/religion and life-balance.
A vampire novel but without bloodsucking, as a young Black woman finds that her marvellous new husband is a few centuries older than she thought he was, and that he wants to make her and their daughter immortal by killing them both. This was very engaging stuff even if it did push the immortality pretty far: Dawit, the vampire, is also fairly well invulnerable, and decapitation and a stake through the heart have no ill effect on him. The immortals regenerate new heads.
