Review: Perpetual

Reviewed by Shelly
 

This is my second novel for this author and I couldn’t wait to read her latest creation.

Mercy Green is immortal. You would think that’s enough to keep her out of the limelight and away from getting discovered but no, not her. Mercy doesn’t really mind being immortal because she’s had enough time to come to grip with that means. What really keeps Mercy from enjoying life is that she just doesn’t care anymore. After many long years – centuries of living a boring and unvaried life, she’s become jaded and apathetic towards humans. She has no interest in finding any other immortals such as herself either. How long can she go one not caring about anything or anyone? Anyone except Adam, that is.

Adam is a just another human who Mercy works with at the local Birchwood Creek animal shelter. With his appreciative and optimistic love of the world around him, Mercy finds herself drawn to the unfettered kindness that Adam projects. He’s a nice guy who does what he had to do so he can also spend time doing his real passion – painting.

This was a hard read for me. It’s told in first person, and for me that always poses a challenge because of the limited view that I get into other characters. Along with that, I thought the first half of this book was slow. It’s Mercy and only Mercy. Due to the choices she’s made you would think it would be hard to feel pity for her, but I found myself doing exactly that. She’s led an extremely lonely life in a world where there are many people around her. What a hard thing to impose on oneself.

Adam is a great guy who seems genuine in his affection for Mercy. But he’s had a troubled past and I wonder how much influence his past will have on his relationship with Mercy. Maybe the second book will answer that question for me.

It’s not until Mercy is attacked at her home do things finally start getting interesting and worth the read. She finds herself the pawn in a game where she doesn’t understand the rules or even the participants. While going about her business one day, in walks some other immortals, like Nick. What a character he is – looks like a teenager but has the mouth of an 80 year-old man in a room full of candy stripers ready to give a sponge bath - total perv. I thought the secondary characters were really interesting and fun to get to know. There’s Emily, the 1980’s teenager with the strength of Goliath; and Ben the leader of the pack. They provided a good rounding to the story. The bad buy is totally awesome and does some things that made my jaw drop in awe.

In the end, the story was a good one and I can’t wait to see what the second story has in store.

Happy Reading folks!

Rating: B-

*ARC provided by author for review

Click to purchase: Amazon

Perpetual

by Michaela Debelius

Release Date: January 7, 2013