Cannonball Read 13

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Search This Site

| Log in
  1. Follow us on Facebook
  2. Follow us on Twitter
  3. Follow us on Instagram
  4. Follow us on Goodreads
  5. RSS Feeds

  • Home
  • About
    • About CBR
    • Getting Started
    • Cannon Book Club
    • Diversions
    • Fan Mail
    • Holiday Book Exchange
    • Book Bingo Reading Challenge
    • Participation Badges
    • AlabamaPink
  • Our Team
    • Leaderboard
    • The CBR Team
    • Recent Comments
    • CBR Interviews
    • Our Volunteers
    • Meet MsWas
  • Categories
    • Review Genres
    • Tags
  • Fight Cancer
    • How We Fight Cancer
    • How You Can Donate
    • Book Sale
    • CBR Merchandise
    • Supporters and Friends of CBR
  • FAQ
  • Contact
    • Contact Form
    • Newsletter Sign Up
    • Newsletter Archive
    • Follow Us
> FAQ Home
> Genre: Fantasy > My Soul to Keep – Tananarive Due (1997)

My Soul to Keep – Tananarive Due (1997)

My Soul to Keep by Tananarive Due

February 4, 2021 by vel veeter Leave a Comment

This is one of those books that’s sort of always been around in my reading consciousness. It came out when I was in high school, and being a big Stephen King fan, and being new to figuring out what books to read on my own, it came across my radar and has stuck with me sense. I’m finally reading it, after reading a different Due book a year or so ago, and it’s actually a lot different than I thought.

I had it in my brain that it would have some similarities to the first book in the Patternmaster (Wild Seed) books by Octavia Butler, or even Bro by Vladmir Sorokin, where an already established novel is given a backstory that fills in a lot of details, but also erases a lot of the fun mystery. Wild Seed by Octavia is, I think, the third written novel but the first chronologically, and it sort of uncomplicates what’s fun and mysterious about the other novels.

Anyway, what I mean here, is that I thought this book would almost entirely take place in the ancient Ethiopia with the founding of the sect of Eternals, and while that does sound interesting to me, and who knows, maybe another of the books here will do that, I wanted contemporary complications. And that’s what we got. Also I think this was about vampires, and it’s not. Anyway, we meet Jessica, a reporter who is about to launch a new book project, married to David, and with one young daughter. Their marriage seems to be going great. She met David in college where he was a young Spanish professor (although his expertise is in music) and he was so alluring and mature, but also young and very beautiful. They get together, they get married, and have their baby. In her new book though, she’s investigating retirement home deaths, and one other death stands out as curious. We quickly find out that David is actually a thousands year old immortal scholar from Ethiopia who drank the blood of an eternal and entered into a pact to keep their secret forever. He’s had many lifetimes, many wives, many children, and the death being investigated was actually David killing her elderly daughter in an act of mercy. This means David’s secret is in danger. And so is Jessica. So it goes from there.

It’s a very 90s book by the way. Sometimes it reads like rom (dram? com?) novel by Terry McMillan, who gets name dropped, or Bebe Moore Campbell, in its discussions dating life in the Black (middle-class) community. And even has some very 90s attitudes about AIDS and homosexuality, that I would hope fade in the background. The ancient history/historical novel aspects when they show up are light (I am not a giant historical fiction fan) and the focus remains of the contemporary story.

(Photo: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/41536.My_Soul_to_Keep)

Filed Under: Fantasy, Fiction Tagged With: my soul to keep, tananarive due

vel veeter's CBR13 Review No:53 · Genres: Fantasy, Fiction · Tags: my soul to keep, tananarive due ·
Rating:
· 0 Comments

About vel veeter

CBR13 participantCBR12 participantCBR11 participantCBR10 participantCBR  9CBR 8

https://www.goodreads.com/user/show/69444656-vel-veeter View vel veeter's reviews»

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.



Recent Comments

  • wicherwill on I have as many emotions inside me as there are genres in this book.did you ever want to gift them a bottle of an oil-based makeup removed (and maybe a serum afterwards)? sometimes all I could think of...
  • KimMiE" on CBR Diversions – It’s Never too Late to Have a Happy ChildhoodOne of my favorites as a child was The Cricket in Times Square, which I re-read, reviewed, and still loved in 2019. I also loved...
  • ingres77 on We’re going to need a bigger boatI like the idea of that page, but it'd be interesting to see some quotes that were legitimately hard to identify.
  • andtheIToldYouSos on I have as many emotions inside me as there are genres in this book.ALWAYS
  • andtheIToldYouSos on Be my friend, Rachel Bloom! Please!I loved the "new chapter!" so much; I was caught off-guard every time and hit with a fit of giggles
See More Recent Comments »

Want to Help Out?

CBR has a great crew of volunteers, and we're always looking for more people to help out. If you have a specialty or are willing to learn, drop MsWas a line.

  • How You Can Donate
  • FAQ
  • Shop
  • Volunteers
  • Leaderboard
  • AlabamaPink
  • Contact

Help Our Mission

You can donate to CBR via:

  1. PayPal
  2. Venmo
  3. Google Pay
© 2021 Cannonball Read | Log in