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The Immortals #1 & 2
Eternal Love
Two passionate paranormal romances in one volume from the New York Times bestselling author.
In Eternity, readers will savor the story of Raven St. James, whose unearthly beauty brought accusations of witchcraft-and a sentence of death. Luckily Duncan, the town minister, saved her life. But Raven could not save him. Now, after three centuries, Raven has found Duncan in the body of a man who has no memory of their past. As Duncan slowly reawakens, they are once more endangered by the evil that tore them apart.
Infinity tells the enthralling tale of Nicodemus Lachlan, who lay dormant in the Scottish Highlands for five centuries after his one love betrayed him. The only thing he remembers is Arianna, the golden-haired lass who touched his soul-and her treachery, which cost him his life. But when Arianna finds a way to bring back her love, the dark power that reunited the two threatens all they hold dear.
In Eternity, readers will savor the story of Raven St. James, whose unearthly beauty brought accusations of witchcraft-and a sentence of death. Luckily Duncan, the town minister, saved her life. But Raven could not save him. Now, after three centuries, Raven has found Duncan in the body of a man who has no memory of their past. As Duncan slowly reawakens, they are once more endangered by the evil that tore them apart.
Infinity tells the enthralling tale of Nicodemus Lachlan, who lay dormant in the Scottish Highlands for five centuries after his one love betrayed him. The only thing he remembers is Arianna, the golden-haired lass who touched his soul-and her treachery, which cost him his life. But when Arianna finds a way to bring back her love, the dark power that reunited the two threatens all they hold dear.
576 pages, Paperback
First published November 6, 2007
3 people are currently reading
295 people want to read
About the author
Maggie Shayne
257 books2,572 followersI live in the teeny, tiny town of Taylor, NY, (Alliteration Alert!) though my mailing address is Cincinnatus, my telephone exchange is Truxton and I pay taxes and vote in Cuyler. All of these are at least in the same rural county in the southern hills of New York State; Cortland County. There are more cattle than people here. The nearest “big” cities are Syracuse and Binghamton and they are an hour away, in different directions, and not really all that big by most standards, though they both seem humongous to me. I look out my window to see rolling, green, thickly forested hills, wildflower laden meadows and wide open blue, blue skies. My road is barely paved. The nearest neighboring place is a 700 acre dairy farm.
My house is a big, century old farmhouse. I moved in here after my divorce in 2006. Just a little over a year later, the house, which I had named, SERENITY, burned. It was 99% gutted, and I lost my two dogs, Sally, an 11-year-old great Dane, and Wrinkles, my 14-year-old, blind bulldog. This was the culmination of my Dark Night of the soul, which had seemed to hit me all at once in 2006-2007. My mother died that year, after a 14 month battle with pancreatic cancer. She was only 60. The youngest of my five daughters had left home that same year, and while that’s not a tragedy at all, it felt like one to me. Then came the divorce. And finally there was the fire--it seemed my darkest night wasn’t quite finished with me after all. I had lost almost everything before that point, and as I poked through the wet ashes and soot the next day, I realized that I had now been stripped all the way to the bone.
No better time to start over. (And no, I didn’t come to that realization that day--there were a few days of wallowing in pity first, particularly the day after the fire, when I hit a deer and smashed up my car, which I was practically living in!)
That’s when I started to laugh. Just sat on the side of the road as the deer bounded, uninjured and carefree, out of sight, and laughed. It was just too ridiculous at that point, to do anything else!
And from there, I picked myself up, and brushed myself off, and said, okay, there’s only one way to go from here. Forward. And that’s what I did. There I was at the age of harrurmphemmph, living in my one, mostly undamaged remaining room, with a dorm-sized mini-fridge, a futon, a TV, my cat (nine lives!) and a laptop. And not much else. (Though thank goodness the room that survived the fire, was a room that had its own attached bathroom!)
Since then I have rebuilt my beloved home, which really has become my haven, my “Serenity.” I share it now with my fiancé, Lance, and we have accumulated quite the little family together. “Little” being a relative term. We have a pair of English Mastiffs, Dozer and Daisy, who weigh 203 pounds and 208 pounds respectively, and a little pudgy English Bulldog named Niblet, who is bigger than both of them, inside her mind. We also have the aforementioned cat, Glorificus (“Glory” for short,) who adores her canine pups and keeps them firmly in line. And we've acquired a pair of stray cats as well, a mother and son, Luna (Lulu for short) and Butters aka Buddy. Lulu showed up pregnant during a lunar eclipse, had a litter, and vanished again. We found homes for all the kittens except one. Butters. We got him fixed and kept him. A few months later, Lulu returned, again expecting. This litter was born on the "Monster Moon." Again, all the kittens were spayed and neutered and placed in homes, and this time we got Lulu to the vet in time to spay her before the cycle could repeat.
Glory is not amused.
She has a story of her own, my old Glory cat, having been with me before the Dark Times descended, she went through it all with me, moved with me, survived the fire, and remains with me still. She's tolerating the newcomers. Barely.
My partner is an artist, a mechanic, a welder and an inventor, and the rumors are true, he is much younger than I
My house is a big, century old farmhouse. I moved in here after my divorce in 2006. Just a little over a year later, the house, which I had named, SERENITY, burned. It was 99% gutted, and I lost my two dogs, Sally, an 11-year-old great Dane, and Wrinkles, my 14-year-old, blind bulldog. This was the culmination of my Dark Night of the soul, which had seemed to hit me all at once in 2006-2007. My mother died that year, after a 14 month battle with pancreatic cancer. She was only 60. The youngest of my five daughters had left home that same year, and while that’s not a tragedy at all, it felt like one to me. Then came the divorce. And finally there was the fire--it seemed my darkest night wasn’t quite finished with me after all. I had lost almost everything before that point, and as I poked through the wet ashes and soot the next day, I realized that I had now been stripped all the way to the bone.
No better time to start over. (And no, I didn’t come to that realization that day--there were a few days of wallowing in pity first, particularly the day after the fire, when I hit a deer and smashed up my car, which I was practically living in!)
That’s when I started to laugh. Just sat on the side of the road as the deer bounded, uninjured and carefree, out of sight, and laughed. It was just too ridiculous at that point, to do anything else!
And from there, I picked myself up, and brushed myself off, and said, okay, there’s only one way to go from here. Forward. And that’s what I did. There I was at the age of harrurmphemmph, living in my one, mostly undamaged remaining room, with a dorm-sized mini-fridge, a futon, a TV, my cat (nine lives!) and a laptop. And not much else. (Though thank goodness the room that survived the fire, was a room that had its own attached bathroom!)
Since then I have rebuilt my beloved home, which really has become my haven, my “Serenity.” I share it now with my fiancé, Lance, and we have accumulated quite the little family together. “Little” being a relative term. We have a pair of English Mastiffs, Dozer and Daisy, who weigh 203 pounds and 208 pounds respectively, and a little pudgy English Bulldog named Niblet, who is bigger than both of them, inside her mind. We also have the aforementioned cat, Glorificus (“Glory” for short,) who adores her canine pups and keeps them firmly in line. And we've acquired a pair of stray cats as well, a mother and son, Luna (Lulu for short) and Butters aka Buddy. Lulu showed up pregnant during a lunar eclipse, had a litter, and vanished again. We found homes for all the kittens except one. Butters. We got him fixed and kept him. A few months later, Lulu returned, again expecting. This litter was born on the "Monster Moon." Again, all the kittens were spayed and neutered and placed in homes, and this time we got Lulu to the vet in time to spay her before the cycle could repeat.
Glory is not amused.
She has a story of her own, my old Glory cat, having been with me before the Dark Times descended, she went through it all with me, moved with me, survived the fire, and remains with me still. She's tolerating the newcomers. Barely.
My partner is an artist, a mechanic, a welder and an inventor, and the rumors are true, he is much younger than I
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Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
August 14, 2016
Our Review, by LITERAL ADDICTION’s Pack Alpha – Chelle:
Here’s my quick and dirty combo review for the set. ☺
ETERNITY:
I am breathlessly wowed!
I have read A LOT of Maggie Shayne books and have loved every single one, so hearing Maggie say that Eternity was "the single best novel I have ever written" both did and did not surprise me.
After finishing the book though, I can sort of see where she's coming from...
Wings in the Night will always hold a very special place in my heart, and I stand my assessment that The Portal series is epic. This book, however, is truly something special and will be one I will read way more than once. I can't wait to continue the Immortal Witches story with Infinity and am thrilled that I finally sat down to enjoy this work of art!
INFINITY:
Another amazing emotional and thrilling read by the talented Maggie Shayne! The story flows fast and strong and ferries along a complicated tale with a very satisfying ending. Very good indeed.
DESTINY:
Wonderful. Takes care of a lot of the series’ past questions that characters that we’ve all been wondering about, brings true love to a beautiful culmination and then leaves us wanting more. This one has a lot of historical detail of an ancient civilization and some readers may not enjoy all of it. I found it fascinating!
OVERALL:
An absolutely amazing series and I can’t wait for more. I know there is a fourth book out there somewhere and I’m hunting it down immediately. Highly recommended!
Here’s my quick and dirty combo review for the set. ☺
ETERNITY:
I am breathlessly wowed!
I have read A LOT of Maggie Shayne books and have loved every single one, so hearing Maggie say that Eternity was "the single best novel I have ever written" both did and did not surprise me.
After finishing the book though, I can sort of see where she's coming from...
Wings in the Night will always hold a very special place in my heart, and I stand my assessment that The Portal series is epic. This book, however, is truly something special and will be one I will read way more than once. I can't wait to continue the Immortal Witches story with Infinity and am thrilled that I finally sat down to enjoy this work of art!
INFINITY:
Another amazing emotional and thrilling read by the talented Maggie Shayne! The story flows fast and strong and ferries along a complicated tale with a very satisfying ending. Very good indeed.
DESTINY:
Wonderful. Takes care of a lot of the series’ past questions that characters that we’ve all been wondering about, brings true love to a beautiful culmination and then leaves us wanting more. This one has a lot of historical detail of an ancient civilization and some readers may not enjoy all of it. I found it fascinating!
OVERALL:
An absolutely amazing series and I can’t wait for more. I know there is a fourth book out there somewhere and I’m hunting it down immediately. Highly recommended!
April 22, 2008
Being that I had just come off of reading JR Ward's vampire novels, I actually feared getting back to Maggie Shayne because she is a much softer writer than Ward. I was scared that after all the raunchy kink that Ward had provided, I'd become bored and complacent with Shayne's lovey dovey story lines of damsel in distress.
Thankfully this wasn't so...
I had read all of Shayne's Wings in the Night Series prior to any other paranormal romance so I was very interested to see if I could find the links between her witches series and the Wings series. Again, thankfully there weren't any. I will say that while I enjoyed this book, I much preferred the second half over the first.
In Eternity, we meet Raven St. James and follow her neverending struggle to find herself (and hide from others) as she learns her new ways of being an immortal High Witch. Smack dab in the heart of witch hunting territory none the less. Her soon to be secret lover ends up following her to America where he becomes a pastor (ha!) and has to sneak around at night to be with Raven. Needless to say the suspicious villagers all have it in for the couple and end up killing them both in the name of cleansing the village of Witchcraft.
The one element that I liked that Shayne includes over and over is the how's of becoming an immortal High Witch. Of course because Raven is already immortal, she revives and lives with her sister Arianna until Duncan (her lover) is reborn. Wrapped around all of this is the villain Nathaniel Dearborne who's a Dark One that wants to kill Raven and take her heart for his own.
I liked Raven's story, but I became bored with the parts after Duncan initially dies and Raven is waiting for him. Even when she goes to him after he comes back to Sanctuary its pretty dull up until they face Dearborne in the end.
In Infinity, we get more information as to how Arianna became an immortal High Witch and more about her lover Nicodimus. This book starts as back story then bleeds into more current events. I think overall I enjoyed Arianna's story more because she was much stronger character than Raven. She had more "meat" by the time I got to the end of the book than Raven did.
I think the best decision is to buy this particular version of the book because both stories are all in one novel, so it helps not to have the break in between because the stories flow very well one right into another. Eternal Love should definitely be read before Immortal Desire as they are in sequence. I gave this one four stars simply because Infinity makes up for the things that Eternity lacked, a strong heroine and a really tense and hard fought romance. :)
Thankfully this wasn't so...
I had read all of Shayne's Wings in the Night Series prior to any other paranormal romance so I was very interested to see if I could find the links between her witches series and the Wings series. Again, thankfully there weren't any. I will say that while I enjoyed this book, I much preferred the second half over the first.
In Eternity, we meet Raven St. James and follow her neverending struggle to find herself (and hide from others) as she learns her new ways of being an immortal High Witch. Smack dab in the heart of witch hunting territory none the less. Her soon to be secret lover ends up following her to America where he becomes a pastor (ha!) and has to sneak around at night to be with Raven. Needless to say the suspicious villagers all have it in for the couple and end up killing them both in the name of cleansing the village of Witchcraft.
The one element that I liked that Shayne includes over and over is the how's of becoming an immortal High Witch. Of course because Raven is already immortal, she revives and lives with her sister Arianna until Duncan (her lover) is reborn. Wrapped around all of this is the villain Nathaniel Dearborne who's a Dark One that wants to kill Raven and take her heart for his own.
I liked Raven's story, but I became bored with the parts after Duncan initially dies and Raven is waiting for him. Even when she goes to him after he comes back to Sanctuary its pretty dull up until they face Dearborne in the end.
In Infinity, we get more information as to how Arianna became an immortal High Witch and more about her lover Nicodimus. This book starts as back story then bleeds into more current events. I think overall I enjoyed Arianna's story more because she was much stronger character than Raven. She had more "meat" by the time I got to the end of the book than Raven did.
I think the best decision is to buy this particular version of the book because both stories are all in one novel, so it helps not to have the break in between because the stories flow very well one right into another. Eternal Love should definitely be read before Immortal Desire as they are in sequence. I gave this one four stars simply because Infinity makes up for the things that Eternity lacked, a strong heroine and a really tense and hard fought romance. :)
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
February 9, 2012
Rated 2.5 stars -- this rating has less to do with the quality of the writing, which is quite good for the genre, and more to do with the fact that I just couldn't get into the whole witchy-romance thing. (In fairness, I got this book from a box that my daughter was donating -- I am genetically incapable of taking a box of books to a donation site without first going through it to see if anything looks interesting -- and so didn't purchase it myself. Shelling out my own money for it might have predisposed me to be more open to the idea of immortal witch romance.) But if you are into this type of story, the play between time periods is interesting. (Since the heros/heroines are immortal, they see a lot of cultural change.) And the thought that living eternally -- on earth, at least -- could get really tiresome makes a lot of sense if you think about it. (After all, almost everyone else in the characters' lives is mortal. This gives the end-of-life leave-taking of friends and family a whole new meaning.) Still, for me, I have come to the conclusion that I can only do paranormal romance when it is either tremendously funny or tremendously scary. For me, this book was neither.
September 27, 2013
Wonderful, Spectacular, Amazing. This is a very Exciting read. If you are looking for a good Paranormal Romance I highly recommend this book.You will find all you need in a paranormal romance in this book. This book is like no other book I have ever read, and I can't explain how much I enjoyed this book, there is just not enough words to describe how Amazing this book is. Thank you Maggie Shayne for The wonderful read.Eternal LoveMaggie Shayne
April 21, 2014
Favorite Witch Series of All Time!!!
Maggie Shayne never disappoints and this series is no exception. I read the books separately years ago and again in this boxed set when it was released. For me to read an entire series more than once is rare. I loved the characters, the story line, the drama, the romance, all of it. Raven (Eternity) is one of my favorite characters ever, and I don't mean Maggie Shayne characters. I mean one of my favorite characters, period. I highly recommend this series!!
Maggie Shayne never disappoints and this series is no exception. I read the books separately years ago and again in this boxed set when it was released. For me to read an entire series more than once is rare. I loved the characters, the story line, the drama, the romance, all of it. Raven (Eternity) is one of my favorite characters ever, and I don't mean Maggie Shayne characters. I mean one of my favorite characters, period. I highly recommend this series!!
April 21, 2014
Do you like to read about magic? Are some of your favorite characters witches? Do you believe that love always finds away? Yes?!? Then this trilogy is perfect for you!
I have yet to read a book written by the wonderful Maggie Shayne that I did not LOVE! And the Eternal Love box=set was no exception. I feel in love with the immortal witch series. Maggie's writing is pure magic! As you read, you will find yourself inside the story - journeying alongside the characters as the struggle to be with the ones they love!
This series is fabulous! Buy it now & you will not regret it.
I have yet to read a book written by the wonderful Maggie Shayne that I did not LOVE! And the Eternal Love box=set was no exception. I feel in love with the immortal witch series. Maggie's writing is pure magic! As you read, you will find yourself inside the story - journeying alongside the characters as the struggle to be with the ones they love!
This series is fabulous! Buy it now & you will not regret it.
July 20, 2012
I absolutely loved this two-in-one. It's full of action, suspense, and (of course) romance. I was reluctant to read the second story because the first had been so good. The second story does start a little slower, but it does not disappoint. Both halves are great reads.
July 2, 2009
This had two stories and I only finished one. It was an OK witch book but not what I expected.
Want to read
April 5, 201099 cents UBS
December 22, 2010
Most intense book I've ever gotten my hands on. Unlike anything I've ever read before
February 12, 2014
Loves this book! I love the characters of Arianna and Raven, I wish Maggie would write another one with them in it!
July 15, 2013
book one I really enjoyed (4/5)
book two I thought dragged (2/5)
average score = 3
book two I thought dragged (2/5)
average score = 3
August 20, 2017
My first intro to Maggie Shayne...now I'm a fan!
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews