The Immortals Series

The Immortals Series Web Site (trust me, it IS worth a browse or two)

My first response upon seeing the whole concept behind this series was FUGETABOUTIT!! Various authors, each writing a sequel to the previous one (I learned my lesson about THOSE from Crimson City) and, WARNING: GIMMICK ALERT... when all four covers are placed together in order, they form a pentagram! ACK!!! GAG!! HURL!!

Yeah, yeah, I hear you- so WTF did I go ahead and read them??!!

Well, because I starting hearing buzz (thanks, Sybil) about the first one, The Calling, and was intrigued enough to give it a try.

So anyway, the goddess Isis decided that she and a some of her goddess posse needed to boink some high-powered mortal men to create this group of immortal demi-god half-brothers. Their purpose is to keep evil in check (dark, evil=vampires, demons, etc; light,good=witches, shifters, etc.) so that the balance between good and evil is maintained. Oh, and the brothers got in each other's faces and pissed each other off, so now they stay far away from each other. One of them was kidnapped and tortured by a demon and is now so bugfucked nuts, he wants to destroy the world since that's the only way he can die. So, the series is ultimately about finding this bugfucked nuts brother and stopping him while also destroying the male/female demon he loves, who still tortures him regularly in one of the most fucked up psycho torture scenes I've ever read. *shivers*

Jennifer Ashley - The Immortals: The Calling (Book 1) - Adrian and Amber

Category: M&Ms - a bit lighter and/or not quite as satisfying as Peanut M&Ms, but still Oh-So-Enjoyable! (B,B-,C+,C)
Flame Height: 6" out of 9"

Now in the first book, The Calling, we learn about the boys and their world. Adrian is still feeling a major guilt trip for not saving his brother from the demon a few hundred years ago. Amber's older sister (an edgier witch than Amber) was murdered by the same demon just a month prior to the start of this book because, as she wrote in her journals, she saw the bugfucked nuts brother while cruising between the astral planes or some such.

So yada, yada, yada, they search for the bugfucked nuts brother, we find shit out, Amber and Adrian fall in love and have wild monkey sex where Amber feels the burn from Adrian's demi-god size Cockzilla.

Then they attempt a ritual where they become the embodiment of the god and goddess. Now, assuming I'm understanding this right, am I the only one that finds it completely creepy and Oedipal that Isis, Adrian's MOTHER, was inhabiting Amber's body to boink her god (still not clear on who, but I think Adrian's father) who was inhabiting Adrian, HER SON'S, body??!!! EEEEWWWW,YUK!!!

Then some other shit happens and the other brothers, summoned through an ancient Calling ritual performed simultaneously by witches around the world, are now going to be forced to join in the search for the bugfucked nuts brother.

So, are you getting the idea that so far this series is a wee bit different than most Paranormal Romances I've been reading lately?

Robin T. Popp - Immortals: The Darkening (Book 2)- Darius and Lexi

Category: M&Ms - a bit lighter and/or not quite as satisfying as Peanut M&Ms, but still Oh-So-Enjoyable! (B,B-,C+,C)
Flame Height: 6" out of 9"

The next Immortal, Cockzilla wielding, demi-god brother hasn’t been back to Earth in 300 years. Why? His goddess/mommy, Sekhmet, has been keeping his life-force in an amulet hung around her neck so he can’t leave and succumb to the pleasures of the flesh like his demi-god half brothers have. THEY never come visit their mamas anymore because they’re too busy boinking and she couldn’t bear for her baby boy to do the same.

Then, when he realizes he’s being Called to Earth because he’s needed to fight evil, he begs Mommy Dearest to let him go. She decides it would be too dangerous for her precious baby boy and refuses. So, in desperation, Darius grabs his life force amulet, smashes it and is immediately zapped to Earth. Except, he goes back not-quite-immortal. Since his life force wasn’t replaced right and becomes a golden serpent tat on his chest, any wound to this new tattoo could be fatal. Now, to make sure his time on Earth is loaded with chuckles, Mommy Dearest tries to throw a hastily created spell on him as he’s zooming away, except the only words that come through create a spell that gives him complete amnesia if he boinks until he releases his luv juices.

Seriously. I swear to you I did NOT just make all that up. These people have ISSUES!

Anyway, Darius is plopped into NYC in front of Lexi, a witch who recognizes Darius from the Calling ritual. She hooks him up by phone with his brother Adrian (from the first book), who explains all the shit that’s been going down on Earth with the demon and their bugfucked nuts brother, Tain. Lexi gives him her business card and they part ways.

Well, Darius, who has 300 years of horny to release and doesn’t know about Mommy Dearest’s fucked-up spell, heads to a vamp club and gets his groove on in a back room with a hot little pink haired chickie. Two problems- as soon as Cockzilla starts to sputter, he realizes that little miss pink hair is actually a succubus who is intent on draining his life force and then he loses all his memories. Doesn’t have a clue who he is, where he is, or why he’s there. All he’s got is Lexi’s business card and he shows up at her office.

Lexi, in addition to being a witch, is a leather clad, badass, bounter hunter, and a werewolf who needs to burn off some of her approaching full moon magic overload with wild monkey sex. Darius, whom Lexi describes as resembling The Rock (*yum*), has some more way cool tattoos besides his new life-force serpent. If he needs a dagger, he touches the dagger tat on his arm and it becomes one. Broadsword? Just pulls the tat on his back off. A key to any lock? Yep, he’s got a tat for that, too. He’s also got a dragon tat on his chest that turns out to be the last of the Bucca demons. Seems the Bucca, Fury, is addicted to feeding off Darius’ life force, and so hangs out on his chest until Darius needs him to kick some ass.

So, after one of Lexi’s witch friends creates a spell that will gradually allow Darius to regain his memories, he hangs out with Lexi and helps her catch bail jumpers like the alcoholic leprechaun, Paddy. And together they save Lexi’s best friend, a TSTL reporter and horny wood nymph, from an evil vampire gang (not to be confused with the not-completely-evil vamp gang that Lexi usually sates her full moon madness with). You know, of course, that eventually they are going to end up bumpin’ uglies and Lexi will have never been filled so full. Only, right in the middle of it, Darius falls asleep. Yep, you read that right. Mommy Dearest chose that time to pull her Precious into the dream plane and have her servant/lover explain about him being not-quite-immortal and about that blow your wad/blow your mind spell.

When he wakes up, Lexi is pissed because he fell asleep and she now thinks she bored him. Darius is too embarrassed to tell her what happened and about the spell. Oh no! Is this the end of their relationship? Yeah, riiiight.

Anyway, a bunch of shit happens, Darius can’t believe his bugfucked nuts brother IS bugfucked nuts and keeps trusting him. Neither the demon or the bugfucked nuts brother is captured and the brothers’ quest to stop their spread of evil continues.

Then we get one of the mushiest HEAs I’ve read in a long time. Almost sweet enough to have me doing the finger-down-the-throat universal sign for "gag me", particularly since it was between two badasses.

I’ve been having a bit of fun writing about these books but, note that, out of all the books that were released this week, THIS was the one I picked up before any of the others.

Since the next book in this series won’t be released until the end of July, that gives all of you plenty of time to catch up. I personally can’t wait for the next installment of The Cockzilla Brothers and the Mommies Who Luuuv Them.

Piquant Opines: RT, RT, Sybil, Sybil,

The rest of the series has already landed in my Constant Cravings list:
3. Immortals: The Awakening by Joy Nash (07/31/07)
4. Immortals: The Gathering by Jennifer Ashley (08/28/07)


UPDATE: Over on The Good, The Bad and the Unread, I asked Jennifer Ashley about the scene that I interpreted as Oedipal. Here's her answer:

"QB: LOL–No, the God and Goddess who embody Amber and Adrian in Chapter 21 are not Isis and his father. I wasn’t thinking that at all. No, no, no.

I was thinking in Wicca terms–the Goddess who takes over Amber is the universal goddess (nature, childbirth, etc.), not a specific goddess like Isis, and the God is the horned god (of virility, growth etc.) Adrian’s father was a mortal priest from Egypt, dead long ago, so it wouldn’t have been him."