Immortal Pleasures
-
-
3.7 • 3개의 평가
-
-
- US$5.99
출판사 설명
An ancient Aztec vampire roams the modern world in search of vengeance and love in this seductive dark fantasy from the author of The Haunting of Alejandra.
“Hauntingly rendered and decadently written, Immortal Pleasures is a surprising and fantastical portrait of one of history’s most fascinating (and perhaps most misunderstood) figures.”—Eric LaRocca, author of Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke
Hundreds of years ago, she was known as La Malinche: a Nahua woman who translated for the conquistador Cortés. In the centuries since, her name has gone down in infamy as a traitor. But no one ever found out what happened to La Malinche after Cortés destroyed her people.
In the ashes of the empire, she was reborn as Malinalli, an immortal vampire. And she has become an avenger of conquered peoples, traveling the world to reclaim their stolen artifacts and return them to their homelands.
But she has also been in search of something more, for this ancient vampire still has deeply human longings for pleasure and for love.
When she arrives in Dublin in search of a pair of Aztec skulls—artifacts intimately connected to her own dark history—she finds something else: two men who satisfy her cravings in very different ways.
For the first time she meets a mortal man—a horror novelist—who is not repelled by her strange condition but attracted by it. But there is also another man, an immortal like herself, who shares the darkness in her heart.
Now Malinalli is on the most perilous adventure of all: a journey into her own desires.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
A great premise falls flat in the execution in this meandering vampire confessional from Castro (The Haunting of Alejandra). For centuries, Malinalli, a Nahua vampire from the 16th century, has been desperately seeking two skulls that once belonged to Chantico, who was "like a mother to when first became a vampire." Malinalli travels to England in pursuit of the skulls, but what she's really seeking is a soulmate. Horror writer Colin catches her eye, but their graphic and often cringeworthy sexual connection ("My ass is like a monstrous squid pulling its prey deeper into its mouth") gets interrupted when Hernán Cortés, a vampire, tracks down Malinalli, who was his former slave and translator, aiming to use her body to create a magical line of beauty products. Malinalli must team up with Judas Iscariot, also a vampire, if she wants to repatriate the skulls, kill Cortés, and save Collin. The narrative suffers from a serious case of "tell don't show" and reads almost like a summary of plot points and backstory. Overlong and over-frequent flashbacks throw off the pacing and defuse the tension even further. Though readers may be drawn in by the Anne Rice-ian quality to Malinalli's claustrophobically close first-person narration, they'll have a hard time seeing this one through to the end.
사용자 리뷰
Could Not Finish
A confusing and contrived plot, some of the worst similes I’ve ever read and a protagonist that never feels real enough to stir genuine empathy in her audience. A book so desperately in need of an editor, I wasn’t sure whether to laugh or cry.