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African Immortals #4
My Soul to Take
Fana, an immortal with tremendous telepathic abilities, is locked in a battle of wills. Her fiancé is Michel. But Johnny Wright, a mortal who is in love with her, believes that if she doesn’t stay away from Michel, they will become the Witnesses to the Apocalypse described in the Book of Revelation.
Fana and the Life Brothers are rushing to distribute their healing “Living Blood” throughout the world, hoping to eliminate most diseases before Fana is bound to marry Michel. Still, they cannot heal people faster than Michel can kill them. Due weaves a tangled web in this novel, including beloved characters from her bestselling Joplin’s Ghost, in a war of good against evil, making My Soul to Take a chilling and thrilling experience.
Fana and the Life Brothers are rushing to distribute their healing “Living Blood” throughout the world, hoping to eliminate most diseases before Fana is bound to marry Michel. Still, they cannot heal people faster than Michel can kill them. Due weaves a tangled web in this novel, including beloved characters from her bestselling Joplin’s Ghost, in a war of good against evil, making My Soul to Take a chilling and thrilling experience.
432 pages, Paperback
First published September 6, 2011
About the author
Tananarive Due
115 books6,899 followersTANANARIVE DUE (tah-nah-nah-REEVE doo) is the award-winning author of The Wishing Pool & Other Stories and the upcoming The Reformatory ("A masterpiece"--Library Journal). She and her husband, Steven Barnes, co-wrote the Black Horror graphic novel The Keeper, illustrated by Marco Finnegan. Due and Barnes co-host a podcast, "Lifewriting: Write for Your Life!"
A leading voice in Black speculative fiction for more than 20 years, Due has won an American Book Award, an NAACP Image Award, and a British Fantasy Award, and her writing has been included in best-of-the-year anthologies. Her books include Ghost Summer: Stories, My Soul to Keep, and The Good House. She and her late mother, civil rights activist Patricia Stephens Due, co-authored Freedom in the Family: A Mother-Daughter Memoir of the Fight for Civil Rights. She and her husband live with their son, Jason.
A leading voice in Black speculative fiction for more than 20 years, Due has won an American Book Award, an NAACP Image Award, and a British Fantasy Award, and her writing has been included in best-of-the-year anthologies. Her books include Ghost Summer: Stories, My Soul to Keep, and The Good House. She and her late mother, civil rights activist Patricia Stephens Due, co-authored Freedom in the Family: A Mother-Daughter Memoir of the Fight for Civil Rights. She and her husband live with their son, Jason.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 126 reviews
August 14, 2017
While I still love this series as a whole this book was just okay/a little boring to me. It was written beautifully it was almost overly wordy. I wanted more from the end of this series. Will be rereading this series though and will gladly recommend it to people. But this ending wasn't everything that I thought it would be. The growth in the characters and the progress of the story was NOT what I was expecting and I say that in good way. I love how deep this story goes I love the progression of the characters from books 2 to 3, but from 4 I wanted more.
Solid 3 star book.
Series as a whole: 4.25 stars.
Solid 3 star book.
Series as a whole: 4.25 stars.
April 13, 2024
Audiobook (169 hours) narrated by Kim Staunton.
Kim Staunton is the fourth or fifth narrator of the series. This final book has two different narrators, Kim Staunton or Lizan Mitchell. I'm not sure why there's two, but the one at my library was with Kim, while the selection available through audible is with Lizan.
Funnily enough, I had made mention that it was funny that they had changed the narrators from book 3 to 4, and that I had previously had the pleasure of reading with Kim Staunton when I read Kindred, last year. Which, by the way, if you have not read Kindred, you should consider it. The actual book, Kindred, is mentioned in My Soul to Take, when one of the characters finds a copy of it, wet in a puddle. So... even Tananarive Due is throwing out a hint of what your next read might look like.
Anyway, the narration was very good, high quality. The audio and editing is pristine without distortion, erroneous noise or obvious edits.
I found a good range to listen to be from 1x to 2.4x speed. You could listen faster, if you are pressed for time, however, there is more narrative than conversational language in this novel. Kim speeds up her narration during the third person narratives, which is what I based my range suggestion on. She slows down considerably for the conversations, so they sound and feel more natural and go with the personality of the individuals. So if you do pick a faster speed, base it off of the narrative, as that is what you will hear most of, and you won't have to worry about any parts being faster than that.
My Soul to Take is the final book of the African Immortals series.
There's a lot going on in this book, as several things are coming together to wrap up a story that has many branches. Most of these branches don't agree with each other, wanting to be their own tree.
Potential spoilers. I will use spoiler tags but am also talking about previous books, so if you are not caught up, perhaps pass on this review. Thank you for stopping to read my thoughts. I appreciate you and am honored that you care what I have to scribble!
For me the story is good, but the choices of some of the characters, trying to control narratives that are not there's or trying to insert themselves so late in the game when they should have done more a long time ago, makes me angry. This is especially true with Fana's parents, especially Jessica. Sure, Jessica was blindsided in the first book by her husband, but she made so many decisions from that time, including to go back to him.
There isn't a perfect ending, but there really cannot be as the world isn't perfect. There are so many horrible things going on and things have to give so that we can have even a little something, in life, over time.
Tananarive Due takes all of the actual world into consideration, even going through her version of a serious virus. Due is very real with the horrific decisions that had to be made due to all of the ish that the adults messed up over hundreds of years.
I am curious, if you read it, what you felt of the outcome. Did Fana do OK? Do you agree with me about Jessica and could things have been different or do you think it wouldn't have mattered?
Whatever you think, you have to read it first.
Recommend.
Kim Staunton is the fourth or fifth narrator of the series. This final book has two different narrators, Kim Staunton or Lizan Mitchell. I'm not sure why there's two, but the one at my library was with Kim, while the selection available through audible is with Lizan.
Funnily enough, I had made mention that it was funny that they had changed the narrators from book 3 to 4, and that I had previously had the pleasure of reading with Kim Staunton when I read Kindred, last year. Which, by the way, if you have not read Kindred, you should consider it. The actual book, Kindred, is mentioned in My Soul to Take, when one of the characters finds a copy of it, wet in a puddle. So... even Tananarive Due is throwing out a hint of what your next read might look like.
Anyway, the narration was very good, high quality. The audio and editing is pristine without distortion, erroneous noise or obvious edits.
I found a good range to listen to be from 1x to 2.4x speed. You could listen faster, if you are pressed for time, however, there is more narrative than conversational language in this novel. Kim speeds up her narration during the third person narratives, which is what I based my range suggestion on. She slows down considerably for the conversations, so they sound and feel more natural and go with the personality of the individuals. So if you do pick a faster speed, base it off of the narrative, as that is what you will hear most of, and you won't have to worry about any parts being faster than that.
My Soul to Take is the final book of the African Immortals series.
There's a lot going on in this book, as several things are coming together to wrap up a story that has many branches. Most of these branches don't agree with each other, wanting to be their own tree.
Potential spoilers. I will use spoiler tags but am also talking about previous books, so if you are not caught up, perhaps pass on this review. Thank you for stopping to read my thoughts. I appreciate you and am honored that you care what I have to scribble!
For me the story is good, but the choices of some of the characters, trying to control narratives that are not there's or trying to insert themselves so late in the game when they should have done more a long time ago, makes me angry. This is especially true with Fana's parents, especially Jessica. Sure, Jessica was blindsided in the first book by her husband, but she made so many decisions from that time, including to go back to him.
There isn't a perfect ending, but there really cannot be as the world isn't perfect. There are so many horrible things going on and things have to give so that we can have even a little something, in life, over time.
Tananarive Due takes all of the actual world into consideration, even going through her version of a serious virus. Due is very real with the horrific decisions that had to be made due to all of the ish that the adults messed up over hundreds of years.
I am curious, if you read it, what you felt of the outcome. Did Fana do OK? Do you agree with me about Jessica and could things have been different or do you think it wouldn't have mattered?
Whatever you think, you have to read it first.
Recommend.
September 30, 2018
The weakest installment in the series.
June 30, 2015
it was a good ending for this series. wasn't perfect and it was really wordy for the story. meaning the story could have been told with half the imagery. it seemed too much. plus I don't quite kniw what happened to Michel and Fana. and the need for Phoenix perplexed me. she didn't add anything to the story
March 17, 2017
I enjoyed the series, but I will admit that I was not pleased with the ending. It felt too easy for these complicated characters. I kinda wish I didn't read the Epilogue. The book/whole series would have please me more (and I would have given this book 5 stars) without those last 9 pages. Overall, I love Tananarive Due and I especially love this series.
Read
January 15, 2020I was doing the audio version of this series and it was a real downer for the narrator of this book to be so drastically different from the previous books. The pronunciation of some names was way off and how characters were presented vocally was really a stray from the others. Either way, I'm glad it's over. 4 books is too long to be in a series where I'm embedded in the character's lives. Happy with the overall arc of the storyline and characters Due created. Just didn't love the difference in narration. Not to say this narrator was bad, just so different.
January 23, 2021
Hm on my book app it said that this was the first book in a series which was not the case. Obviously there where a lot that I've missed and probably why I didn't end up enjoying this. Should be more careful when I pick up books. But this was well written.
October 26, 2011
Finally...I'm done reading My Soul to Take. This time it took me almost a week to read this book. The first two books in the series (My Soul to Keep, The Living Blood) I pulled all nighters to read because they were just that compelling. The third book...Blood Colony not so much and My Soul to Take...well I'm just happy I finished it. The more I read the more I realize I'm just not a series book reader...especially those that span almost 15 years (My Soul to Keep came out in 1997); just too much time lapsed between each book and with so many characters to keep up with I soon quickly lost interest in most of them since I couldn't remember what made them unique or distinctively previously.
For some reason, My Soul to Take reminded me too much of the Vampire Huntress series from LA Banks (may she RIP) and it was a big distraction for me. In fact, one of the character's names was Carlos...sound familiar to anyone? The good vs. evil, light vs. dark, husband and wife coming together as one on one accord, soldiers/teams sparring against each other, music as a tool for peace, harmony and healing...even the one character who seemed to be the Prince of Death/the anti-Chrisit seemed hauntingly similar.
I still believe that Due has a lot of writing ahead of her with some good storylines as she is an awesome storyteller...but hopefully plots that are fresh and leave these characters behind as I'm done with them and this series. :(
For some reason, My Soul to Take reminded me too much of the Vampire Huntress series from LA Banks (may she RIP) and it was a big distraction for me. In fact, one of the character's names was Carlos...sound familiar to anyone? The good vs. evil, light vs. dark, husband and wife coming together as one on one accord, soldiers/teams sparring against each other, music as a tool for peace, harmony and healing...even the one character who seemed to be the Prince of Death/the anti-Chrisit seemed hauntingly similar.
I still believe that Due has a lot of writing ahead of her with some good storylines as she is an awesome storyteller...but hopefully plots that are fresh and leave these characters behind as I'm done with them and this series. :(
March 10, 2015
i admire the heck out of this series. it's a genre i don't read much at all -- basically never, really -- so i lack terms of comparison and, perhaps more importantly, the language to talk about it. the way i see it, the way it talks to me, it's as a saga in which good and evil confront each other on the bodies and the minds of humans, pretty much like it happens in the real world, except, because this is literature and because it is the particular genre of these books, all taken up a vast number of notches through metaphor.
the metaphor is the blood, which may or may not be the blood of christ. when there is blood there are vampires, but there are not vampires proper here, though there are people who want the blood of other people.
the religious aspect, which is not heavy, could have bothered me, the way it bothers me in all the dreck connected to vatican conspiracy theories and possibly even umberto eco, though i read him a long time ago. but tananarive due uses it only tangentially and above all she uses it more intelligently than i can say. this is not about christianity, really, but about making choices. good choices. impossible choices. choices so important that whichever way you choose someone is going to get hurt and someone is going to get saved.
and yet the difficult, imperfect choices must be made, because even the highest characters of this book are not perfect, because what is good is not always clear, because even when it's clear there is no straight road to it.
i've said this before about other writers who write in this genre -- i think Octavia Butler and definitely Nnedi Okorafor -- whatever this genre is: i perceive in tananarive due the compulsion of the story. i imagine her writing in a sort of writerly trance. i feel as if the story told itself through her. it's just too complex, and the details occasionally leave me breathless. why this detail? what that detail? and yet they seem so necessary, so appropriate, so essential to the fullness of the story.
so i find butler, okorafor, and due not to be awesome stylists, but i find all of them to be incredibly compelling, inspired, deep, and super smart tellers of essential stories.
now: i tried to push this series onto a fellow reader who likes the genre and is a deeply discerning reader, and he couldn't get past book one. i don't understand it when that happens. i don't understand when masterpieces talk to someone but don't talk to someone else who is just as subtle and discerning as the people who are in love with them. my buddy found the books clunky. clunky???? he also finds octavia butler clunky. when he says it i cover my ears with my hands and say la la la.
the metaphor is the blood, which may or may not be the blood of christ. when there is blood there are vampires, but there are not vampires proper here, though there are people who want the blood of other people.
the religious aspect, which is not heavy, could have bothered me, the way it bothers me in all the dreck connected to vatican conspiracy theories and possibly even umberto eco, though i read him a long time ago. but tananarive due uses it only tangentially and above all she uses it more intelligently than i can say. this is not about christianity, really, but about making choices. good choices. impossible choices. choices so important that whichever way you choose someone is going to get hurt and someone is going to get saved.
and yet the difficult, imperfect choices must be made, because even the highest characters of this book are not perfect, because what is good is not always clear, because even when it's clear there is no straight road to it.
i've said this before about other writers who write in this genre -- i think Octavia Butler and definitely Nnedi Okorafor -- whatever this genre is: i perceive in tananarive due the compulsion of the story. i imagine her writing in a sort of writerly trance. i feel as if the story told itself through her. it's just too complex, and the details occasionally leave me breathless. why this detail? what that detail? and yet they seem so necessary, so appropriate, so essential to the fullness of the story.
so i find butler, okorafor, and due not to be awesome stylists, but i find all of them to be incredibly compelling, inspired, deep, and super smart tellers of essential stories.
now: i tried to push this series onto a fellow reader who likes the genre and is a deeply discerning reader, and he couldn't get past book one. i don't understand it when that happens. i don't understand when masterpieces talk to someone but don't talk to someone else who is just as subtle and discerning as the people who are in love with them. my buddy found the books clunky. clunky???? he also finds octavia butler clunky. when he says it i cover my ears with my hands and say la la la.
March 10, 2012
I have absolutely loved this series, and read all of the FOUR books in just a few weeks (despite them all being 400-500 pages). However, I was not very happy with this last (??) book of the series. I really grew to love the main characters from the first three books (Jessica and David/Dawit) and I did not like them in this book. I found them weak and diminished and nothing at all like they were in the previous books. I also did not like what became of Fana in this book, although I understood the plotline of the book. I enjoyed reading the book, I thought the storyline well-developed and well thought out. Maybe I would have felt differently had I not read all of the books all together, right after one another. But having read them all together, I just felt that Jessica and Dawit in this book did not quite match up to the beloved characters of the ones from the previous books. Regardless, I LOVED the series and wouldn't have missed this book in the series. I did enjoy the character development of Fana's "mate" Michel in this book.
December 25, 2024
Let’s normalize duologies
March 8, 2020
This was so..... disappointing. Great writer, I loved the characters originally but I feel like I was reading about totally new characters here. I found myself having to check to make sure I wasn't getting characters mixed up somehow. I just..... sigh. I seriously turned my nose up at how weak Jessica, Fana, and Dawit had become. And then! To have this powerful enemy in Michel and everyone turns into compromising, weak willed pacifists??? I could not have been the only one waiting for Fana to snap out of it, and become the powerful being that was hinted at in all previous books in this series. I don't know what I was expecting from this book but it was a major let down... :(
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
April 27, 2012
this book was brillant. it is all about perspective. truth. faith. courage. compassion. love. redemption. healing. what can i say? i am elated to know that fana, the colony, and her families (old and new) found light in the mdist of shadows. the juicy details were delicious. the compromises are intense. johnny. alex. phoenix. dawit.fana. michel. and every one whose left on earth after the cleansing.....i feel my synapses firing about all the potential. the promise. the hope. the endless possibilities. teach. listen. grow
September 29, 2013
I enjoyed this the least out of the immortal series. I am so use to Mrs. Due making historic correlations throughout her writing. I'm still trying to figure out Phoenix's role in the novel. I simply loved the history in Joplin's Ghost, but found Phoenix's character irritating, and not plausible.
August 23, 2024
The last two books didn’t resonate with me as much as the first two books. Ms. Due is a great writer and there were some really great moments in the last two books. I just don’t believe she brought it all together in the end.
February 22, 2012
My Soul to Take by Tananarive Due is the fourth, and perhaps, final installment of her African Immortals series. I have truly enjoyed this series, and as I anticipated the release of My Soul to Take I read several of her other novels (see my reviews).
The African Immortals Series, is a mixture of Sci-Fi and the paranormal, mixed with religious undertones that mix biblical stories with immortal beings in a good vs. evil battle. The series main character is Fana, whom we were first introduced to as an infant in My Soul to keep (the first installment). Prophecy would have it (as was revealed in Blood Colony) that she would wed Michel, heir to Sanctus Cruor. Fana represents good, in that she wants to use her blood, which has tremendous healing power, to heal the world. Michel, who represents evil, wants to cleanse the world and use mortals as a sacrificial gift. According to the written word, the two are to “become one” for the prophecy to be fulfilled.
When I began My Soul to Take, the first thing that caught my eye was the year 2016. My first thought was okay, ten years have passed, but as I continued to read, this became a point of contention for me, which I will explain in a bit. The story opens up with Carlos Harris who is in Puerto Rico searching for his missing mother. I didn’t remember a character named Carlos from the previous books, but that was okay. To my surprise, Ms. Due decided to introduce characters from another novel of hers titled Joplin’s Ghost. A book I simply loved and highly recommend. Carlos Harris is the husband of a musical protégé by the name of Phoenix. In Joplin’s Ghost, Phoenix had a supernatural encounter with the ghost of renowned Ragtime entertainer Scott Joplin. I was so excited and couldn’t wait to see how Due was going to incorporate these two in the living blood storyline.
I am not sure if I over-anticipated this novel, if it was the period of time between the last installment (Blood Colony, 2008), or that 2016 date that kept gnawing at me, but I was continuously distracted as I read the book. The year, the year, the year…okay, the reason the year holds so much significance for me is because it was engrained in my mind that in Blood Colony, Fana, whom I believe was seventeen at the time, asked Michel to give her ten years and then she would marry him. Blood Colony began with a year also, 2005. That’s at least ten years right? Well this is where I became confused. There is a part in My Soul to Take where Fana, who is now about eighteen, speaks about a year having passed and it is time to honor her commitment to Michel. Pump the brakes! Was the engagement one year or ten years, and if only one year, how did we get to the year 2016; and if ten years, what happened in the previous nine years, and why isn’t Fana twenty-seven? This takes me back to the beginning, because the story began around 1997, which would make Fana about eighteen in the year 2016, but only seven or eight during the Blood Colony era (scratching my head). Now throw Phoenix and Carlos into the mix, and I’m thinking, what was the timeframe for that story, “Oh boy!”
My Soul to Take, by no means is a dud, but it didn’t measure up to my expectations either. Phoenix and Carlos never felt right in the story, and didn’t seem to add much to the main plot. There was a lot of focus on the cat and mouse games of Michel and Fana, and although I didn’t want them to marry, I enjoyed how Due was able to soften my disdain for him. The story included many of my favorites, like Dawit and Jessica—Fana’s parents; the blood brothers, Fasilidas, Teka, Mahmoud, and others, as well as Fana’s friend’s Johnny and Caitlin. Perhaps I secretly wanted the story to pick-up where it left off, and for Johnny to rush in and save the day.
As I turned the last page there were still some unresolved matters and I wasn’t quite sure what really became of Fana and Michel at the end. Is Ms. Due setting the stage for another installment, or is this really the end? But isn’t that what great storytelling is all about? The story may not go in the direction we want it to go, but when we turn the last page there is still a yearning for more. I truly wish that someone like George Lucas would pick-up this series and transform it into an epic trilogy. My Soul to Take will make for some awesome book club discussions, of which I would love to participate in one. Maybe Ms. Due can put together a live on-line discussion similar to the Facebook live chats Oprah Winfrey conducted for her Lifeclass show. This would give all of Due's faithful readers a chance to have an open dialog about the series, and this installment in particular. I think it would be a huge success.
My final rating for My Soul to Take is 3.5,mainly because I had to pull out my copy of Blood Colony to connect the dots. Aha! The introduction began in 2005, but chapter one was set in the year 2015. Whew! I feel so much better. Still, I need to better understand what happened to make Fana concede on her demand for a ten year engagement…was it because Michel was playing dirty and casting down plagues, or was it his threats to begin the cleansing? Maybe in a few months I will go back and reread My Soul to Take. If so, I will definitely reconsider my rating.
Much Love,
Tracy
www.TracyLDarity.com
The African Immortals Series, is a mixture of Sci-Fi and the paranormal, mixed with religious undertones that mix biblical stories with immortal beings in a good vs. evil battle. The series main character is Fana, whom we were first introduced to as an infant in My Soul to keep (the first installment). Prophecy would have it (as was revealed in Blood Colony) that she would wed Michel, heir to Sanctus Cruor. Fana represents good, in that she wants to use her blood, which has tremendous healing power, to heal the world. Michel, who represents evil, wants to cleanse the world and use mortals as a sacrificial gift. According to the written word, the two are to “become one” for the prophecy to be fulfilled.
When I began My Soul to Take, the first thing that caught my eye was the year 2016. My first thought was okay, ten years have passed, but as I continued to read, this became a point of contention for me, which I will explain in a bit. The story opens up with Carlos Harris who is in Puerto Rico searching for his missing mother. I didn’t remember a character named Carlos from the previous books, but that was okay. To my surprise, Ms. Due decided to introduce characters from another novel of hers titled Joplin’s Ghost. A book I simply loved and highly recommend. Carlos Harris is the husband of a musical protégé by the name of Phoenix. In Joplin’s Ghost, Phoenix had a supernatural encounter with the ghost of renowned Ragtime entertainer Scott Joplin. I was so excited and couldn’t wait to see how Due was going to incorporate these two in the living blood storyline.
I am not sure if I over-anticipated this novel, if it was the period of time between the last installment (Blood Colony, 2008), or that 2016 date that kept gnawing at me, but I was continuously distracted as I read the book. The year, the year, the year…okay, the reason the year holds so much significance for me is because it was engrained in my mind that in Blood Colony, Fana, whom I believe was seventeen at the time, asked Michel to give her ten years and then she would marry him. Blood Colony began with a year also, 2005. That’s at least ten years right? Well this is where I became confused. There is a part in My Soul to Take where Fana, who is now about eighteen, speaks about a year having passed and it is time to honor her commitment to Michel. Pump the brakes! Was the engagement one year or ten years, and if only one year, how did we get to the year 2016; and if ten years, what happened in the previous nine years, and why isn’t Fana twenty-seven? This takes me back to the beginning, because the story began around 1997, which would make Fana about eighteen in the year 2016, but only seven or eight during the Blood Colony era (scratching my head). Now throw Phoenix and Carlos into the mix, and I’m thinking, what was the timeframe for that story, “Oh boy!”
My Soul to Take, by no means is a dud, but it didn’t measure up to my expectations either. Phoenix and Carlos never felt right in the story, and didn’t seem to add much to the main plot. There was a lot of focus on the cat and mouse games of Michel and Fana, and although I didn’t want them to marry, I enjoyed how Due was able to soften my disdain for him. The story included many of my favorites, like Dawit and Jessica—Fana’s parents; the blood brothers, Fasilidas, Teka, Mahmoud, and others, as well as Fana’s friend’s Johnny and Caitlin. Perhaps I secretly wanted the story to pick-up where it left off, and for Johnny to rush in and save the day.
As I turned the last page there were still some unresolved matters and I wasn’t quite sure what really became of Fana and Michel at the end. Is Ms. Due setting the stage for another installment, or is this really the end? But isn’t that what great storytelling is all about? The story may not go in the direction we want it to go, but when we turn the last page there is still a yearning for more. I truly wish that someone like George Lucas would pick-up this series and transform it into an epic trilogy. My Soul to Take will make for some awesome book club discussions, of which I would love to participate in one. Maybe Ms. Due can put together a live on-line discussion similar to the Facebook live chats Oprah Winfrey conducted for her Lifeclass show. This would give all of Due's faithful readers a chance to have an open dialog about the series, and this installment in particular. I think it would be a huge success.
My final rating for My Soul to Take is 3.5,mainly because I had to pull out my copy of Blood Colony to connect the dots. Aha! The introduction began in 2005, but chapter one was set in the year 2015. Whew! I feel so much better. Still, I need to better understand what happened to make Fana concede on her demand for a ten year engagement…was it because Michel was playing dirty and casting down plagues, or was it his threats to begin the cleansing? Maybe in a few months I will go back and reread My Soul to Take. If so, I will definitely reconsider my rating.
Much Love,
Tracy
www.TracyLDarity.com
September 6, 2011
The story begins with Carlos. His mother went missing in Puerto Rico then he receives a phone call that simply said she was dead. So Carlos goes to Puerto Rico to find out what is going on. While there, he stumbles into a group of people that are trying to hide a serious outbreak, which one of the victims is Carlos’s mother.
Phoenix, Carlos’s wife is a former rock star that is asked to perform a charity concert. Reluctantly agreeing to, while performing she finds that a lump in her breast is gone along with a stomach bug that Carlos picked up. The people in the audience are also cured.
We learn that Fana, an immortal that has healing properties in her blood, treated everyone at the concert. But she took a risk to do so. The immortals are all former people that have been given blood to keep them immortal except for Fana and Michael. They are the only two immortals that were born immortal. Although they are destined to marry, they have different feelings on humans.
Michael thinks that humans are a plague on this earth and has been using his blood to start all the different outbreaks of illnesses around the world. Fana feels that they should protect everything and everyone so she has been trying to heal all the outbreaks.
The story is mainly a conflict between Michael and Fana and within Fana about what she should do with her engagement to Michael. I didn’t realize that this was the last book in the African Immortals series. I’m sure if I read the series from the beginning I might have felt differently about it.
There is a good basic plot but I got bored with the back and forth between Fana and Michael. I could not even finish the book. I admit that I looked at the few other reviews out there and saw that Phoenix was supposed to be immortal but when I skimmed the rest of the book I didn’t really see much about her. It might have been a good book, but this one was not my cup of tea.
I received this book free from the Simon & Schuster Galley Grab Newsletter.
Phoenix, Carlos’s wife is a former rock star that is asked to perform a charity concert. Reluctantly agreeing to, while performing she finds that a lump in her breast is gone along with a stomach bug that Carlos picked up. The people in the audience are also cured.
We learn that Fana, an immortal that has healing properties in her blood, treated everyone at the concert. But she took a risk to do so. The immortals are all former people that have been given blood to keep them immortal except for Fana and Michael. They are the only two immortals that were born immortal. Although they are destined to marry, they have different feelings on humans.
Michael thinks that humans are a plague on this earth and has been using his blood to start all the different outbreaks of illnesses around the world. Fana feels that they should protect everything and everyone so she has been trying to heal all the outbreaks.
The story is mainly a conflict between Michael and Fana and within Fana about what she should do with her engagement to Michael. I didn’t realize that this was the last book in the African Immortals series. I’m sure if I read the series from the beginning I might have felt differently about it.
There is a good basic plot but I got bored with the back and forth between Fana and Michael. I could not even finish the book. I admit that I looked at the few other reviews out there and saw that Phoenix was supposed to be immortal but when I skimmed the rest of the book I didn’t really see much about her. It might have been a good book, but this one was not my cup of tea.
I received this book free from the Simon & Schuster Galley Grab Newsletter.
February 15, 2012
Tananarive does what she does best...weaves a story. A masterful tale that keeps the reader engrossed from start to finish. Even though I missed Blood Colony, this was easy to follow and so well written, I am going back to read Blood Colony and may just start from the beginning of the series.
Thank you for putting a beautiful end (maybe) to a beautiful tale.
Thank you for putting a beautiful end (maybe) to a beautiful tale.
May 22, 2017
I think I may have the first, and maybe only critical review of this book. I've been looking all over the internet for discussions and reviews but I haven't been able to find any. Due herself, seems to have lapsed in excitement with this book, barely promoting it in her FB page when it was released.
Im also ruffled because its a black author and I had such high hopes, and I loved the fact that I was supporting a black author, that she represented black women, that she was someone other than Toni Morrison or Octavia Butler, and that mostly all of the characters were ethnic, main characters were black or african. You know how few black main characters there are in literature? Here I hit the holy grail. Were all of the books perfect? No, I disagreed with some of her vision (some of it challenged my views on masculinity/feminism, etc), but I went along with the story, letting her guide me through the journey, and it was a mostly good journey. But with any journey, you expect to be led to a destination... yeah, IMO the journey just goes awry in the last book, and sadly the destination is this weird point. For four long books, you've gone through peaks and valleys, made left turns and right turns, got led up this steep hill, and then suddenly you're dropped off on the side of the road. Then you're just standing there looking around like "this cant be it" "you're just going to leave us here?" "this isn't what I signed up for". Existential crisis like "where am I?" "where did this path lead me?" "what does it all mean?"
I don't think I've read such an anticlimactic climax. I wish I hadn't read it, to be honest. The structural integrity of the characters was compromised in this book. After reading the first three novels, the main characters were nothing like themselves previously. David/Dawit, Jessica, and Fana are shells of their former selves, the characters we grew with during the past three novels were not the same ones present for the fourth. I felt that she had so much room in this book to develop Fana's relationships and explore her "gifts" but she missed the mark. Maybe this volume was rushed or Due was forced and/or tired of writing the series. Unfortunately this novel did not live up to the previous three.
The ending, quite frankly, feels like a middle or transition, not the climax. I became more and more nervous as pages started to dwindle and the story hadn't progressed as Due led her readers to feel. There was so much information in the front end of the book, that the lack of balance at the end felt clumsy and irresponsible. It felt rushed with very little thought put into tieing up the lose ends, the unanswered questions, and the final conclusion. The ending feels like she was setting up to write another volume, but sadly she's stated numerous times that this is the final book in the African Immortals series. Why create this world, and in your final book give us a sad little 5-page epilogue to conclude what should have been a marvelous climax.
In order to process this book in a way that I could walk away partially satisfied, I had to re-read certain excerpts, disregarding whole sections of story lines.
If you read this book (and I almost want to warn people to stop at book 3, knowing what I know now) read it through the first time and evaluate how it makes you feel, if you feel it brings a solid conclusion to the series, then that is great. I, on the other hand, had to re-read this book skipping:
(a) over any reference to
(b) Phoenix. She simply didn't belong in this book. Her character adds nothing but filler, as if Due had to reach a page quota. I don't know if Due didn't want to do any additional character development for My Soul to Take, or if she was drawn to a character from a book that has ZERO connection with the current novel and wanted to do more with her but didn't have enough content to write a sequel to Joplin's Ghost, but Phoenix's story line is clunky and doesn't go with the African Immortals.
(c) And finally, skip over Epilogue, it will completely break your heart. It left me so saddened for a fictional character. His character shouldn't have been written if that is what Due had planned for him (and us).
Good and Evil make a compromise
Since closing the book for the first time, my head swirled with questions. Did I miss something? Did the antagonist, Michel, somehow become a protagonist? Why did our main protagonist, Fana, change so drastically? Fana changes so suddenly in the last chapters that the readers wont even recognize her, especially if you've read the series and watched her character development from child to adult. Still the reader is confused what to expect, will we get our old Fana back, or are we left with this husk of a shell that Fana has become?
Im also ruffled because its a black author and I had such high hopes, and I loved the fact that I was supporting a black author, that she represented black women, that she was someone other than Toni Morrison or Octavia Butler, and that mostly all of the characters were ethnic, main characters were black or african. You know how few black main characters there are in literature? Here I hit the holy grail. Were all of the books perfect? No, I disagreed with some of her vision (some of it challenged my views on masculinity/feminism, etc), but I went along with the story, letting her guide me through the journey, and it was a mostly good journey. But with any journey, you expect to be led to a destination... yeah, IMO the journey just goes awry in the last book, and sadly the destination is this weird point. For four long books, you've gone through peaks and valleys, made left turns and right turns, got led up this steep hill, and then suddenly you're dropped off on the side of the road. Then you're just standing there looking around like "this cant be it" "you're just going to leave us here?" "this isn't what I signed up for". Existential crisis like "where am I?" "where did this path lead me?" "what does it all mean?"
I don't think I've read such an anticlimactic climax. I wish I hadn't read it, to be honest. The structural integrity of the characters was compromised in this book. After reading the first three novels, the main characters were nothing like themselves previously. David/Dawit, Jessica, and Fana are shells of their former selves, the characters we grew with during the past three novels were not the same ones present for the fourth. I felt that she had so much room in this book to develop Fana's relationships and explore her "gifts" but she missed the mark. Maybe this volume was rushed or Due was forced and/or tired of writing the series. Unfortunately this novel did not live up to the previous three.
The ending, quite frankly, feels like a middle or transition, not the climax. I became more and more nervous as pages started to dwindle and the story hadn't progressed as Due led her readers to feel. There was so much information in the front end of the book, that the lack of balance at the end felt clumsy and irresponsible. It felt rushed with very little thought put into tieing up the lose ends, the unanswered questions, and the final conclusion. The ending feels like she was setting up to write another volume, but sadly she's stated numerous times that this is the final book in the African Immortals series. Why create this world, and in your final book give us a sad little 5-page epilogue to conclude what should have been a marvelous climax.
In order to process this book in a way that I could walk away partially satisfied, I had to re-read certain excerpts, disregarding whole sections of story lines.
If you read this book (and I almost want to warn people to stop at book 3, knowing what I know now) read it through the first time and evaluate how it makes you feel, if you feel it brings a solid conclusion to the series, then that is great. I, on the other hand, had to re-read this book skipping:
(a) over any reference to
(b) Phoenix. She simply didn't belong in this book. Her character adds nothing but filler, as if Due had to reach a page quota. I don't know if Due didn't want to do any additional character development for My Soul to Take, or if she was drawn to a character from a book that has ZERO connection with the current novel and wanted to do more with her but didn't have enough content to write a sequel to Joplin's Ghost, but Phoenix's story line is clunky and doesn't go with the African Immortals.
(c) And finally, skip over Epilogue, it will completely break your heart. It left me so saddened for a fictional character. His character shouldn't have been written if that is what Due had planned for him (and us).
Good and Evil make a compromise
Since closing the book for the first time, my head swirled with questions. Did I miss something? Did the antagonist, Michel, somehow become a protagonist? Why did our main protagonist, Fana, change so drastically? Fana changes so suddenly in the last chapters that the readers wont even recognize her, especially if you've read the series and watched her character development from child to adult. Still the reader is confused what to expect, will we get our old Fana back, or are we left with this husk of a shell that Fana has become?
September 18, 2011
Carlos Harris has just traveled to Puerto Rico after hearing the news that his mother is dead. When Carlos arrives, he learns that his mother did not just death of nature cause but of something much worse. Bad enough that the government is trying to keep it under wraps. The only thing Carlos knows is that the virus is air borne in nature.
Phoenix Harris is a famous singer and wife to Carlos. Phoenix is approached by a man named John Wright. John’s employer wants Phoenix join them on stopping the spread of infection. Currently, all John’s employer wants Phoenix to do is agree to a benefit concert. Phoenix is reluctant at first but than Phoenix agrees to the concert. After Carlos and Phoenix meet Fana, they know there is no turning back. Fana is to be engaged to Michel. Michel is ruthless and is the polar opposite of Fana. Instead of wanting to cure people, he would rather kill them. Is Fana and her band of Life Brothers strong enough to defeat Michel?
My Soul to Take is book four in the African Immortal series. While, I have not read any of the prior books one through three in this series, I had no problem getting into the story and quickly catching up to speed to what was happening in the series. My down fall to not having read any of the prior novels and of course this could just be me but I felt like if I had started at the beginning, maybe I would have been more connected to the characters. Aside from this fact, I did like the story. The beginning started out at a good pace, than it got slow at times and towards the end it picked up again. I liked the idea that Fana recruited Phoenix to help heal people through the power of Phoenix’s music. As they say, words can be very powerful. I will check out more of Mrs. Due’s in the future. My Soul to Take does have some bite to it.
Phoenix Harris is a famous singer and wife to Carlos. Phoenix is approached by a man named John Wright. John’s employer wants Phoenix join them on stopping the spread of infection. Currently, all John’s employer wants Phoenix to do is agree to a benefit concert. Phoenix is reluctant at first but than Phoenix agrees to the concert. After Carlos and Phoenix meet Fana, they know there is no turning back. Fana is to be engaged to Michel. Michel is ruthless and is the polar opposite of Fana. Instead of wanting to cure people, he would rather kill them. Is Fana and her band of Life Brothers strong enough to defeat Michel?
My Soul to Take is book four in the African Immortal series. While, I have not read any of the prior books one through three in this series, I had no problem getting into the story and quickly catching up to speed to what was happening in the series. My down fall to not having read any of the prior novels and of course this could just be me but I felt like if I had started at the beginning, maybe I would have been more connected to the characters. Aside from this fact, I did like the story. The beginning started out at a good pace, than it got slow at times and towards the end it picked up again. I liked the idea that Fana recruited Phoenix to help heal people through the power of Phoenix’s music. As they say, words can be very powerful. I will check out more of Mrs. Due’s in the future. My Soul to Take does have some bite to it.
October 1, 2017
The series, which began as a tale of Jessica Jacobs-Wolde finding out that her husband David (Dawit) is an African-Immortal with "Living Blood", has now come full circle as their "bloodborn" daughter, Fana, fights to use her blood, which has tremendous healing power, to cure the world's worst maladies, while her prophecy-designated betrothed, Michel (introduced in "Blood Colony") besets the world with a plague, part of the prophesied "cleansing" where the majority of the world's population will be sacrificed. A very fine finale to the series, though I still think the first two books are the best, while this one is slightly better than the third, "Blood Colony". One interesting twist here is the incorporation of characters from another Tananarive Due novel, "Joplin's Ghost", musician Phoenix Harris and her husband, Carlos. (In Joplin's Ghost, Phoenix had a supernatural encounter with the ghost of renowned Ragtime entertainer Scott Joplin.) My impression is that this worked well, although I have not yet read that novel and so was not previously acquainted with these characters' history (a situation I now feel compelled to rectify very soon). Highly recommended!
March 22, 2020
I really wanted to like this book, I truly did. I lost interest in this book about halfway through. I read all 4 books back to back, with that being said the random flash backs and reminders of the previous books was very annoying. I wish there was a prologue or one chapter to review instead of the random placement. Maybe for someone who didnt read the entire series this would was helpful.
As far as the characters I really liked the idea of Fana and Michele but not like this.
There was no point to emphasizing how much Fana and Michele's mom looked alike, if that storyline would go no where.
Phoenix and her families storyline was pointless and added nothing to the story. I would have preferred to read more about Caitlyn or Johnny's family's. What ever happened to them, or Omari (from The Blood Colony). Why did Khaldun not make another appearance?
As far as the characters I really liked the idea of Fana and Michele but not like this.
There was no point to emphasizing how much Fana and Michele's mom looked alike, if that storyline would go no where.
Phoenix and her families storyline was pointless and added nothing to the story. I would have preferred to read more about Caitlyn or Johnny's family's. What ever happened to them, or Omari (from The Blood Colony). Why did Khaldun not make another appearance?
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
November 6, 2013
I usually don’t read science-fiction, but I really enjoyed this story. This is the first and only book in the series that I’ve read but now I’m obsessed and I have to read everything else. The only reason I didn't give it a 5 is because I felt compelled to do a little background research on the characters and I don't like my novels to have homework.
August 6, 2020
I loved this series, and these characters. But the last installment had too many characters, I think, introducing new characters while not providing enough focus on those we’d come to care about. I listened to all 4 books in this wonderful series, but found the narrator on this one annoying in her use of different voices, especially Fana’s. That really took away some of its power for me.
November 3, 2019
the series is easily 5 stars. however this book wasnt it for me it got very y.a. and Michel and Phoenix seemed forced n Jessica irritated mute throughout bit out a great series
September 25, 2025
It took me almost 3 months but I finished all 4 books. Though I really enjoyed this series, I am not too fond of how it ended. The last book ended as if we should have expected a 5th book...maybe it's just me.
March 30, 2023
I’m obsessed with Due! She’s Brilliant.
September 11, 2025
Loved the series as a whole, but this book was my least favorite. I could have ended with book 3 and been okay.
But I will recommend this series. It is a fascinating story.
But I will recommend this series. It is a fascinating story.
June 12, 2026
Part 1: The Spoiler-Free Snapshot 📸
(deciding whether to add to the TBR.)
1. Quick Stats 📊
Final Rating: ⭐⭐ .75/5.0
Genre: Black Horror / Afrofuturism, Supernatural Thriller, Urban Fantasy
Pitch: A young woman must accept her terrifying supernatural heritage and outrun an ancient cult to stop a looming global apocalypse.
The Synopsis (No Spoilers) 🤫: Fana, a young woman born with the blood of ancient African immortals, possesses terrifying, reality-bending supernatural powers. When a sinister, millennium-old cult seeks to exploit her unique abilities to trigger a global apocalypse, she is forced to go on the run. To survive, Fana must quickly learn to control her gifts, rely on a network of immortal protectors, and outmaneuver her hunters before a devastating biological plague destroys humanity.
2. Read or Shelf? ⚖️
👍🏾Read it if:
📖 You love complex, culturally rich Afrofuturist world-building rooted in deep African mythology and history.
📖 You enjoy high-stakes supernatural thrillers that blend apocalyptic bio-horror with intense psychological depth.
📖 You want a mature, horror-forward alternative to classic supernatural tropes, featuring a unique take on biological immortality.
👎🏾Skip it if:
📕 You are looking for a fast-paced action book from page one; the slow-burn, heavy world-building setup requires patience.
📕 You expect a completely fresh narrative framework; the story structure shares noticeable beats with traditional supernatural-chosen-one arcs.
📕 You want a highly satisfying, flawless conclusion to a long-running series, as some final-installment plot elements may leave you wanting more.
Part 2: The Deep Dive
(A technical breakdown of the craft and execution.)
1. The Breakdown 📉
The Writing ✍🏾: (Style, pacing, and flow)
📚 Style
🖋️ Atmospheric & Intense: Deeply evocative prose that builds a heavy, creeping sense of dread.
📖 Culturally Rich: Grounded in vivid African mythology, history, and deeply authentic Black perspectives.
📝 Psychological Depth: Focuses heavily on the internal trauma, moral dilemmas, and emotions of the characters.
⏱️ Pacing
⏳ Slow-Burn Setup: Starts with careful, deliberate world-building and character development to set the stakes.
📈 Accelerating Danger: Mid-book events trigger a rapid cascade of threats that raise the tension.
⚡ Breathless Climax: Finishes with a high-stakes, fast-moving race against time and a global apocalypse.
🌊 Flow
🔄 Seamless Perspectives: Smoothly shifts between multiple character viewpoints without breaking the narrative momentum.
🔀 Timeless Transitions: Effortlessly weaves ancient history and flashbacks into the modern-day thriller plot.
🔮 Cinematic Rhythm: Uses poetic yet accessible language that creates highly visual, movie-like scenes in your mind.
The Characters 🎭: (Development, archetypes, and motivations)
📈 Character Development
Fana: Embarks on the most intense evolution, transitioning from a sheltered young woman overwhelmed by her telepathy into a decisive figure embracing her volatile, god-like heritage.
Johnny Wright: A normal mortal forced into rapid psychological growth, shedding his ordinary worldview as he accepts a cosmic role to prevent an apocalypse.
Khaldun: The oldest living immortal who must break his centuries-long detachment from human affairs, relearning empathy and urgency through his bond with Fana's family.
🌌 Character Archetypes
The Reluctant Messianic Figure: Fana, who holds immense reality-bending power but longs deeply for a normal, peaceful life.
The Weary Guardians: Jessica and David (Dawit), Fana's parents, who use every ounce of their mortal instincts and immortal strength to shield their daughter from external threats.
The Ageless Mentor: Khaldun, the originator of the immortal line, who guides the younger generation through ancient history and lore.
The Apocalyptic Zealots: Michel and his fanatical followers, who act as the central antagonist force pushing the world toward a purge.
🎯 Character Motivations
Fana: Driven by a desperate need for identity and mastery over her terrifying psychic abilities before they destroy those around her.
Jessica & Johnny: Deeply motivated by survival and protection, fighting a race against time to keep loved ones safe from a global threat.
Michel & The Cult: Driven entirely by fanatical cleansing, seeking to unleash a devastating biological plague to reset the Earth.
The World/Atmosphere 🌍: (Setting, vibes, and world-building logic)
🗺️ The Setting
🌐 Global Scale: The setting shifts between ordinary American suburbs and sprawling international landscapes, emphasizing a global crisis.
⏳ Secret History: The world operates on the logic that an invisible, ancient society of African immortals has influenced human history for millennia.
☣️ Bio-Horror Realism: The atmosphere blends supernatural fantasy with the gritty, grounded dread of a modern medical thriller and a viral pandemic.
🕯️ Vibes
🚨 Creeping Apocalypse: A heavy, suffocating sense of an impending doomsday that grows stronger with every chapter.
👁️ Paranoid Isolation: Constant tension driven by the feeling that enemies, cultists, or spies could be hiding anywhere.
🖤 Mythic Melancholy: A dark, poetic mood that reflects the immense weight, loneliness, and burden of living forever.
⚙️ World-Building Logic
🩸 Bloodline Magic: Supernatural power is strictly biological, tied directly to the rare, regenerative blood of the immortal Living Blood line.
🧠 Heavy Consequences: Immortality is not a superpower; it comes with profound psychological trauma, memory loss, and emotional detachment over time.
🧬 Science Meets Myth: Ancient curses and divine gifts are recontextualized as genetic anomalies and real-world biological plagues.
The Emotional Core 🔥: (The central themes or "the point" of the story)
At its heart, My Soul to Take is not just an apocalyptic thriller; it is a deeply human story about the heavy burdens of inheritance, survival, and connection.
👑 The Weight of Legacy and Destiny: The central conflict explores what happens when you are born into a legacy you did not choose. Fana’s struggle highlights the emotional toll of carrying immense, destructive power and the painful choice between pursuing personal freedom or accepting a grueling cosmic responsibility.
💞 The Endurance of Family Bonds: The story anchors its supernatural stakes in the fierce, protective love between parents and children. It examines how far ordinary mortals and detached immortals will go to shield their family, proving that emotional intimacy and loyalty are the ultimate weapons against despair.
⏳ The Burden of Immortality: The narrative strips away the glamour of living forever, exposing it as a source of profound loneliness, grief, and emotional numbing. The story hinges on the idea that mortality—and the fragile, temporary nature of human life—is actually what gives existence its meaning, empathy, and beauty.
🛡️ Survival Against Existential Dread: In the face of a looming global plague and fanatical hatred, the book serves as a metaphor for resilience. It underscores humanity's capacity to find hope, maintain morality, and forge alliances even when staring down a seemingly inevitable apocalypse.
2. Audiobook Performance🎧
Narrator(s): Kim Staunton
Listening Speed: 2.0x
Format: Single Narrator
Listening Length: ~8 hours and 13 minutes (Original runtime: 16 hours and 26 minutes)
The Performance (The "Acting")🎬
🗣️ Distinction: Impeccable character separation. The narrator handles smooth transitions between Fana's youthful intensity, the ancient gravitas of the older immortals, and the frantic panic of the mortal characters without needing jarring vocal distortions.
❤️ Emotional Connection: Highly profound. The performance expertly taps into the deep psychological trauma, maternal terror, and heavy existential dread pulsing through Tananarive Due’s writing, making the apocalyptic stakes feel intimately personal.
🎯 Fit: Flawless. The narrator's naturally rich, measured cadence provides the exact atmospheric weight required for a sprawling, mythic Afrofuturist horror story. At a 2.0x playback speed, the performance maintains sharp clarity and morphs the deliberate slow-burn tension into an urgent, breathless race against time.
3. A Balanced View ⚖️
✅ Positive Takeaways:
✨ High-Octane Highlights: The book features fantastic, beautifully executed action sequences that raise the stakes and break up the heavy atmosphere.
✨ Compelling Romance: The romantic elements are well-crafted, offering a genuine, anchoring emotional connection amidst the looming global chaos.
✨ Cinematic Potential: The rich imagery, deep mythology, and high-stakes thriller elements give this story incredible visual potential. If executed correctly, this entire series would make a phenomenal television show or movie adaptation.
🤔Constructive Thoughts:
🛠️ A Deflated Finale: Ultimately, this final installment of the series felt somewhat disappointing. After looking forward to it so much following the strength of Blood Colony, the overall execution of the book did not feel fully satisfying as a conclusion.
🛠️ Familiar Parallel Beats: Throughout the reading experience, there were a striking number of similarities to Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight series. While Due’s work is significantly more adult, horror-centric, and grounded in complex themes compared to Meyer’s YA romance framework, the structural parallels were hard to ignore.
🛠️ Pacing Imbalances: While the breathless climax delivers on a high-stakes race against time, the transition from the extensive, slow-burn world-building in the first half to the rapid-fire resolution at the end felt rushed, leaving a few compelling lore threads and character arcs slightly under-developed.
Part 3: The Deep Discussion (Spoilers Allowed) ⚠️
The "After-Party"—only read this if you've finished the book or don't mind the twists.
1. Final Verdict👩🏾⚖️
Final Rating: ⭐⭐ .75/5.0
Ultimately, My Soul to Take lands as a bittersweet conclusion to a deeply ambitious saga. While the book struggles slightly under the weight of its own legacy, I thoroughly enjoyed Due's distinct Afrofuturist horror identity, which remains remarkably rich and atmospheric throughout. The striking structural similarities to Twilight did not pull focus from Due's mature narrative; rather, seeing these parallel beats executed through such a gritty, adult lens simply left me deeply curious about whether Meyer was actually inspired by Due’s foundational work. The main drawback remains the pacing choices, which prevent the book from reaching the fully satisfying heights established in Blood Colony. However, despite these narrative flaws as a final print installment, the vibrant world-building and high-stakes action prove that this universe is ripe for a screen adaptation—if given the right platform, it could easily transform into a groundbreaking television series or film.
2. The Feels (Emotional Impact) 💓
I have to admit, it’s incredibly tough when a final installment you’ve been eagerly anticipating doesn't quite stick the landing. After absolutely loving Blood Colony, my expectations were sky-high, which made the narrative shortcomings here sting just a bit more. I found myself caught in a strange emotional tug-of-war while reading: I was genuinely swept up in the intense action sequences and deeply invested in the romance, yet I kept noticing striking similarities to the Twilight series. The more I read, the more I found myself appreciating Due's framework separately from Meyer's—Due's world is so much more mature, genuinely terrifying, and rooted in deep horror rather than YA romance. It actually made me wonder if Meyer got inspiration from Due's earlier work. Ultimately, I left the book feeling a lingering sense of disappointment, mourning the completely satisfying conclusion I wanted for these characters, while still holding onto hope that a screen adaptation might eventually give this brilliant universe the flawless execution it truly deserves.
(deciding whether to add to the TBR.)
1. Quick Stats 📊
Final Rating: ⭐⭐ .75/5.0
Genre: Black Horror / Afrofuturism, Supernatural Thriller, Urban Fantasy
Pitch: A young woman must accept her terrifying supernatural heritage and outrun an ancient cult to stop a looming global apocalypse.
The Synopsis (No Spoilers) 🤫: Fana, a young woman born with the blood of ancient African immortals, possesses terrifying, reality-bending supernatural powers. When a sinister, millennium-old cult seeks to exploit her unique abilities to trigger a global apocalypse, she is forced to go on the run. To survive, Fana must quickly learn to control her gifts, rely on a network of immortal protectors, and outmaneuver her hunters before a devastating biological plague destroys humanity.
2. Read or Shelf? ⚖️
👍🏾Read it if:
📖 You love complex, culturally rich Afrofuturist world-building rooted in deep African mythology and history.
📖 You enjoy high-stakes supernatural thrillers that blend apocalyptic bio-horror with intense psychological depth.
📖 You want a mature, horror-forward alternative to classic supernatural tropes, featuring a unique take on biological immortality.
👎🏾Skip it if:
📕 You are looking for a fast-paced action book from page one; the slow-burn, heavy world-building setup requires patience.
📕 You expect a completely fresh narrative framework; the story structure shares noticeable beats with traditional supernatural-chosen-one arcs.
📕 You want a highly satisfying, flawless conclusion to a long-running series, as some final-installment plot elements may leave you wanting more.
Part 2: The Deep Dive
(A technical breakdown of the craft and execution.)
1. The Breakdown 📉
The Writing ✍🏾: (Style, pacing, and flow)
📚 Style
🖋️ Atmospheric & Intense: Deeply evocative prose that builds a heavy, creeping sense of dread.
📖 Culturally Rich: Grounded in vivid African mythology, history, and deeply authentic Black perspectives.
📝 Psychological Depth: Focuses heavily on the internal trauma, moral dilemmas, and emotions of the characters.
⏱️ Pacing
⏳ Slow-Burn Setup: Starts with careful, deliberate world-building and character development to set the stakes.
📈 Accelerating Danger: Mid-book events trigger a rapid cascade of threats that raise the tension.
⚡ Breathless Climax: Finishes with a high-stakes, fast-moving race against time and a global apocalypse.
🌊 Flow
🔄 Seamless Perspectives: Smoothly shifts between multiple character viewpoints without breaking the narrative momentum.
🔀 Timeless Transitions: Effortlessly weaves ancient history and flashbacks into the modern-day thriller plot.
🔮 Cinematic Rhythm: Uses poetic yet accessible language that creates highly visual, movie-like scenes in your mind.
The Characters 🎭: (Development, archetypes, and motivations)
📈 Character Development
Fana: Embarks on the most intense evolution, transitioning from a sheltered young woman overwhelmed by her telepathy into a decisive figure embracing her volatile, god-like heritage.
Johnny Wright: A normal mortal forced into rapid psychological growth, shedding his ordinary worldview as he accepts a cosmic role to prevent an apocalypse.
Khaldun: The oldest living immortal who must break his centuries-long detachment from human affairs, relearning empathy and urgency through his bond with Fana's family.
🌌 Character Archetypes
The Reluctant Messianic Figure: Fana, who holds immense reality-bending power but longs deeply for a normal, peaceful life.
The Weary Guardians: Jessica and David (Dawit), Fana's parents, who use every ounce of their mortal instincts and immortal strength to shield their daughter from external threats.
The Ageless Mentor: Khaldun, the originator of the immortal line, who guides the younger generation through ancient history and lore.
The Apocalyptic Zealots: Michel and his fanatical followers, who act as the central antagonist force pushing the world toward a purge.
🎯 Character Motivations
Fana: Driven by a desperate need for identity and mastery over her terrifying psychic abilities before they destroy those around her.
Jessica & Johnny: Deeply motivated by survival and protection, fighting a race against time to keep loved ones safe from a global threat.
Michel & The Cult: Driven entirely by fanatical cleansing, seeking to unleash a devastating biological plague to reset the Earth.
The World/Atmosphere 🌍: (Setting, vibes, and world-building logic)
🗺️ The Setting
🌐 Global Scale: The setting shifts between ordinary American suburbs and sprawling international landscapes, emphasizing a global crisis.
⏳ Secret History: The world operates on the logic that an invisible, ancient society of African immortals has influenced human history for millennia.
☣️ Bio-Horror Realism: The atmosphere blends supernatural fantasy with the gritty, grounded dread of a modern medical thriller and a viral pandemic.
🕯️ Vibes
🚨 Creeping Apocalypse: A heavy, suffocating sense of an impending doomsday that grows stronger with every chapter.
👁️ Paranoid Isolation: Constant tension driven by the feeling that enemies, cultists, or spies could be hiding anywhere.
🖤 Mythic Melancholy: A dark, poetic mood that reflects the immense weight, loneliness, and burden of living forever.
⚙️ World-Building Logic
🩸 Bloodline Magic: Supernatural power is strictly biological, tied directly to the rare, regenerative blood of the immortal Living Blood line.
🧠 Heavy Consequences: Immortality is not a superpower; it comes with profound psychological trauma, memory loss, and emotional detachment over time.
🧬 Science Meets Myth: Ancient curses and divine gifts are recontextualized as genetic anomalies and real-world biological plagues.
The Emotional Core 🔥: (The central themes or "the point" of the story)
At its heart, My Soul to Take is not just an apocalyptic thriller; it is a deeply human story about the heavy burdens of inheritance, survival, and connection.
👑 The Weight of Legacy and Destiny: The central conflict explores what happens when you are born into a legacy you did not choose. Fana’s struggle highlights the emotional toll of carrying immense, destructive power and the painful choice between pursuing personal freedom or accepting a grueling cosmic responsibility.
💞 The Endurance of Family Bonds: The story anchors its supernatural stakes in the fierce, protective love between parents and children. It examines how far ordinary mortals and detached immortals will go to shield their family, proving that emotional intimacy and loyalty are the ultimate weapons against despair.
⏳ The Burden of Immortality: The narrative strips away the glamour of living forever, exposing it as a source of profound loneliness, grief, and emotional numbing. The story hinges on the idea that mortality—and the fragile, temporary nature of human life—is actually what gives existence its meaning, empathy, and beauty.
🛡️ Survival Against Existential Dread: In the face of a looming global plague and fanatical hatred, the book serves as a metaphor for resilience. It underscores humanity's capacity to find hope, maintain morality, and forge alliances even when staring down a seemingly inevitable apocalypse.
2. Audiobook Performance🎧
Narrator(s): Kim Staunton
Listening Speed: 2.0x
Format: Single Narrator
Listening Length: ~8 hours and 13 minutes (Original runtime: 16 hours and 26 minutes)
The Performance (The "Acting")🎬
🗣️ Distinction: Impeccable character separation. The narrator handles smooth transitions between Fana's youthful intensity, the ancient gravitas of the older immortals, and the frantic panic of the mortal characters without needing jarring vocal distortions.
❤️ Emotional Connection: Highly profound. The performance expertly taps into the deep psychological trauma, maternal terror, and heavy existential dread pulsing through Tananarive Due’s writing, making the apocalyptic stakes feel intimately personal.
🎯 Fit: Flawless. The narrator's naturally rich, measured cadence provides the exact atmospheric weight required for a sprawling, mythic Afrofuturist horror story. At a 2.0x playback speed, the performance maintains sharp clarity and morphs the deliberate slow-burn tension into an urgent, breathless race against time.
3. A Balanced View ⚖️
✅ Positive Takeaways:
✨ High-Octane Highlights: The book features fantastic, beautifully executed action sequences that raise the stakes and break up the heavy atmosphere.
✨ Compelling Romance: The romantic elements are well-crafted, offering a genuine, anchoring emotional connection amidst the looming global chaos.
✨ Cinematic Potential: The rich imagery, deep mythology, and high-stakes thriller elements give this story incredible visual potential. If executed correctly, this entire series would make a phenomenal television show or movie adaptation.
🤔Constructive Thoughts:
🛠️ A Deflated Finale: Ultimately, this final installment of the series felt somewhat disappointing. After looking forward to it so much following the strength of Blood Colony, the overall execution of the book did not feel fully satisfying as a conclusion.
🛠️ Familiar Parallel Beats: Throughout the reading experience, there were a striking number of similarities to Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight series. While Due’s work is significantly more adult, horror-centric, and grounded in complex themes compared to Meyer’s YA romance framework, the structural parallels were hard to ignore.
🛠️ Pacing Imbalances: While the breathless climax delivers on a high-stakes race against time, the transition from the extensive, slow-burn world-building in the first half to the rapid-fire resolution at the end felt rushed, leaving a few compelling lore threads and character arcs slightly under-developed.
Part 3: The Deep Discussion (Spoilers Allowed) ⚠️
The "After-Party"—only read this if you've finished the book or don't mind the twists.
1. Final Verdict👩🏾⚖️
Final Rating: ⭐⭐ .75/5.0
Ultimately, My Soul to Take lands as a bittersweet conclusion to a deeply ambitious saga. While the book struggles slightly under the weight of its own legacy, I thoroughly enjoyed Due's distinct Afrofuturist horror identity, which remains remarkably rich and atmospheric throughout. The striking structural similarities to Twilight did not pull focus from Due's mature narrative; rather, seeing these parallel beats executed through such a gritty, adult lens simply left me deeply curious about whether Meyer was actually inspired by Due’s foundational work. The main drawback remains the pacing choices, which prevent the book from reaching the fully satisfying heights established in Blood Colony. However, despite these narrative flaws as a final print installment, the vibrant world-building and high-stakes action prove that this universe is ripe for a screen adaptation—if given the right platform, it could easily transform into a groundbreaking television series or film.
2. The Feels (Emotional Impact) 💓
I have to admit, it’s incredibly tough when a final installment you’ve been eagerly anticipating doesn't quite stick the landing. After absolutely loving Blood Colony, my expectations were sky-high, which made the narrative shortcomings here sting just a bit more. I found myself caught in a strange emotional tug-of-war while reading: I was genuinely swept up in the intense action sequences and deeply invested in the romance, yet I kept noticing striking similarities to the Twilight series. The more I read, the more I found myself appreciating Due's framework separately from Meyer's—Due's world is so much more mature, genuinely terrifying, and rooted in deep horror rather than YA romance. It actually made me wonder if Meyer got inspiration from Due's earlier work. Ultimately, I left the book feeling a lingering sense of disappointment, mourning the completely satisfying conclusion I wanted for these characters, while still holding onto hope that a screen adaptation might eventually give this brilliant universe the flawless execution it truly deserves.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
November 10, 2017
For me nothing has yet lived up to "The Living Blood" in this series, but this is the book that has probably come the closest. I loved how Due was able to weave characters from "Joplin's Ghost" into this book and make it seamless. It's also really dope to see Fana grow into a woman from the little girl that she was in "The Living Blood". And I even had some sympathy for the main antagonist, Michel. Personally I also love how Due doesn't yet seem to be done with this series. Will we see Fana have children? Will she get back to the young woman she was before, or will she end up like her mother Jessica? Or her father, Dawit? This was a very good read, and I think it sets us up for another great book in the African Immortals series. At least I hope it does.
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