New Orleans, Louisiana – Present Day with Flashbacks to 1790

Damien du Bourg sold his soul to the Grigori demon the night he asked Rosa Francis for immortality. A demon herself, Rosa was able to grant Damien his request, and after that the sex between them made the skies pour and the earth shatter. Now, over 200 years later, Damien still resides at the Creole plantation he’s owned since the late 1700s, Rosa de Montana. He’s an eccentric web design businessman who holds the most eclectic sex parties in New Orleans, where he doesn’t participate but makes sure that everyone is having a good, safe, consensual time. For too long to remember, Damien has abstained from sex and instead focuses his attention on making sure that less than gorgeous women feel good about themselves. Perhaps he could be considered the antithesis to a modern day Lothario, but many hearts have been lost in their desire to be Damien’s next lady.

Schoolteacher Marley Turner’s sister Lizzie has been missing since June, when she’d emailed her sister from the Rosa de Montana plantation telling her about the latest love in her life, Damien du Bourg. Lizzie was a happy-go-lucky girl who hardly had a responsible bone in her body, and this latest infatuation was just another in a long list. Marley has now traveled to New Orleans to meet the mysterious Damien to see if he knows where Lizzie is. If any harm has been done to her sister, this timid schoolteacher will make sure that Damien du Bourg is held responsible. What she didn’t count on was falling under the man’s sexual allure and gentlemanly charm. Marley can quite easily see how women will throw themselves at Damien. But she is the responsible one, the woman who is busy rebuilding her virginity (yes, it’s been that long since she had sex last...ugh).

Despite Damien’s attempts to remain separate from those around him and not truly engage in any activities that require emotion, he is still completely drawn in by Marley’s innocent charm. She may be a do-gooder, but her allure is in her loyalty to her sister and seeing that she’s found.

In the middle of the soupy swamp where mosquitoes and other less-than-savory beasts rule the day, will Sophie fall for Damien? Or is she just a-hopin’ and a-wishin’ that he could see the real woman behind the stern schoolteacher persona?

MY IMMORTAL, Erin McCarthy’s latest, is a winner -- paranormal romance at its best. With sexual tension that sizzles and a romance that defies the ages and odds, it’s about time Damien du Bourg met his lady. From page one, where Damien’s wife in 1790 is telling her story of just how many excesses her husband had, and what a heartless bastard he was, I wasn’t sure just how much I’d like the man myself. But since the 18th century, Damien has worked on improving himself and now only lives for others’ pleasures, not his own. For the first time in many years, he wants somebody for himself, and that person is Marley Turner. Maybe she is the cure for what Damien has become...

One of my biggest pet peeves in romance fiction is spelling out this terrible problem for the protagonists where somebody is in trouble, but that problem gets thrown by the wayside when the hormones and sexual escapades take over. Not so in MY IMMORTAL. I tell ya, this book seems like it was personally geared towards my tastes and brings back to mind some of my favorites, like Linda Lael Miller’s vampire series. The tension, sexual and otherwise, is top-notch, but the crux of Marley’s problems still remains first and forefront. But while she worries about her sister, a disappearance of Lizzie is really nothing new. It’s happened before, and weeks later she’ll show up again as if nothing was wrong. Damien sees how afraid for Lizzie Marley is, and slowly the walls around his heart fall away, brick by brick. Even as he contemplates how to woo her, Damien is quickly seeing that Marley is not a one-night woman, but a lifetime mate.

With secondary characters who pop and add even more flavor to an already outstanding story, MY IMMORTAL has the chops for a Perfect 10 rating, which is what I’m giving it. The writing is seamless, the story a page-turner, and the romance is one to defy all odds. What more do you need? Go get it. Now!

Amy Cunningham