Review: Great Fantasy World, Great Fantasy Story
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 07 19, 2012
Immortal Desires is the first novel in Laura Eno's fantasy series "The Well of Souls." When I read fantasy or scientific fiction, I first want to find myself in a well-constructed alternate world. That means I don't want to read a story where anything goes--where the author feels free to interject any kind of ad hoc magic or paranormality to advance the plot.Immortal Desires easily passes that test. Two competing groups of immortals secretly inhabit our world, appearing to be as mortal as any other human. The Aeneas are committed to order. (I wonder if Aeneas is a reference to the founder of Rome, the apotheosis of order.) The Conrí worship chaos. (With these characters, I wonder if their name signifies "contrary.")The Aeneas guard the Well of Souls, where the souls of mortals go to be recycled and meet up with their soul mate in their next life. Which sounds like a joyful kind of reincarnation to me.Unfortunately, the Conrí damaged the Well of Souls a millennia ago, causing some souls to be lost, unable to connect with their soul mates again. But certain guardians of the Aeneas attempt to find these lost souls and recycle them in the Well of Souls.One such lost soul is Deanna Cameron, whose betrothed leaves her at the altar alone in 2011 America. A guardian finds her and reluctantly, rather than recycling her, sends her back to early 16th century Scotland, where she meets her soul mate, Ian Mackay, supposedly the last "laird" of his clan, whose lethal opposing clan bears the name "Cameron."Does Ian die an early death on September 9, 1513, on Flodden Field in dubious battle with the English under Henry VIII, as his tombstone suggests--or doesn't he? And what about Deanna's and Ian's soul-mate sexual obsession with one another? Does that save Ian's clan from ignominy? And what does it do for Deanna?I loved this story.