May Contain Spoilers
Review:
I loved House Immortal. I purchased it when it was an Amazon deal of the day, and I read it on the plane to Tampa two weeks ago. Everything about it felt fresh and new, and I really liked Tilly. I didn’t like the cliffhanger ending, but since I have the next book in the series cued up on my Kindle, the irritation didn’t last long.
Matilda Case has been living a low profile existence on the family farm, taking care of her senile grandmother, as well as the creatures her father stitched together. Tilly herself is a galvanized, a being stitched together from bits and pieces. When she was a child, she became ill and would have died if her memories hadn’t been housed in the stitched together body. Now she’s hiding out on the farm, pretending to be human, while avoiding allegiance to any particular House. In Tilly’s world, there are only twelve galvanized beings (thirteen, counting Tilly), they gave up their rights to be considered human to stop a war, and now they are possessions, fought over by the powerful Houses that rule a post-apocalyptic Earth.
When the head of one of the Houses, Slater Orange, of House Orange, learns about Tilly, he’s sure that his mind and memories can be stitched into another body, too. With Quentin, Tilly’s genius brother, a prisoner in his House, he’s racing against time to see his dream realized before the disease ravaging his body kills him. With Tilly’s life hanging in the balance, Quentin is reluctantly forced to cooperate with Slater.
Tilly has been worried about Quentin. He hasn’t been home in years, and she hasn’t heard a word from him. When the peace of the farm is shattered by the arrival of Abraham, one of the galvanized, she’s forced to leave her home and pledge to a House. Otherwise, because she doesn’t have any rights under the law, the Houses will fight for her and she could end up with any of them. Determined to make the best of a bad situation, Tilly has decided to use her new connections to locate her missing brother.
That’s the basic plot, and I don’t want to give away any more details. I enjoyed the pacing and the characters. Tilly is one tough, independent woman, and she doesn’t let anyone intimidate her. Because she has the strength of a galvanized, she’s doesn’t back down from confrontations. She’s also basically immortal, which also gives her confidence in tense, life-threatening situations. I guess if I was that hard to kill, as well as that valuable, I wouldn’t be a pushover, either.
There are some light romantic elements between Tilly and Abraham. Abraham also serves as a mentor as Tilly negotiates the confusing new world she’s become enmeshed in. I liked the concept of these powerful, immortal beings that are also powerless in the society they live in. Abraham brokered the peace to end the war, convincing the other galvanized to give up their rights under the law to prevent the slaughter of more humans. Some of the galvanized are not in good situations and they are mistreated by their current contract holders. Once they sign a contract with a House, the word of the House leader is law, and they have to follow whatever orders they are given, whether they agree with them or not.
If I have one complaint about the story, I thought that the pacing got bogged down a little near the end. I didn’t care about another roll call of the galvanized and their accomplishments; I wanted to find out what happened to Quentin and Abraham. Otherwise, I thought House Immortal was exciting, suspenseful, and creative. I can hardly wait to crack open Infinity Bell, the next book in the series.
Grade: B+
Review copy purchased from Amazon
One hundred years ago, eleven powerful ruling Houses consolidated all of the world’s resources and authority into their own grasping hands. Only one power wasn’t placed under the command of a single House: the control over the immortal galvanized….
Matilda Case isn’t like most folk. In fact, she’s unique in the world, the crowning achievement of her father’s experiments, a girl pieced together from bits. Or so she believes, until Abraham Seventh shows up at her door, stitched with life thread just like her and insisting that enemies are coming to kill them all.
Tilly is one of thirteen incredible creations known as the galvanized, stitched together beings immortal and unfathomably strong. For a century, each House has fought for control over the galvanized. Now the Houses are also tangled in a deadly struggle for dominion over death—and Tilly and her kind hold the key to unlocking eternity
The secrets that Tilly must fight to protect are hidden within the very seams of her being. And to get the secrets, her enemies are willing to tear her apart piece by piece.…
FIRST IN A NEW SERIES!