I'm not great at doing book reviews. I just tell you what I think and what I feel. I don't get into an analytical discussion of a novel, and I seldom quote passages or phrases from one. But I make a rare exception here. Valjeanne Jeffers is a poet. The opening paragraphs of her novel, Immortal, read as pure poetry, to me:
"She was in the basement again. It was pitch black, the only illumination a glowing, quarter moon etched into the floor. A burst of light split the darkness, and she moaned low in her throat.
Please, I don't want to see anymore. . .I don't want to look.
Yet her feet moved of their own volition, inching toward the mark. . .and the twisted bundle now lying in its center. A man was curled upon the stone. He wasn't breathing, and his limbs were tiny and withered. But she knew he wasn't dead. He wasn't human."
And then we're off into one of the strangest science fiction/fantasy novels I've ever read. Valjeanne Jeffers has masterfully succeeded in combining drug addicts, addiction and rehab with shape-shifting, time-travel, demons, past lives and haunted dreams, and the sheer beauty of horror to create something that is truly unique. I applaud this novel and look forward to reading the next two volumes in this wonderfully original series. Bravo bravissimo, Valjeanne!
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