Immanuel's Veins

Immanuel's Veins, by Ted Dekker


I would first like to say that I was not interested in reading this book. Twilight, as you can tell from a previous blog, had completely burned me on the vampire idea. Even though I told my husband not to bother with Immanuel's Veins, he bought it for me anyway, and then LOST it. It was supposed to be a Christmas gift! After months, he found it's hiding place and it was by chance that I was all out of new reading material.

After reading it, my opinion has changed. I love it!

It is nothing like Twilight, however parts of it are in first person and you all know how I feel about first person. It is a forgivable offense though, because the other parts are in third person.

In short, the story is centered around two themes: Duty and Love. The main character, Toma Nicolescu, is a hardened warrior, and servant of Catherine the Great. He finds himself torn between his duty of serving the empress and his passionate love for Lucine, one of daughters that he is sent to protect.

Thoughts on the book

1. The vampires are presented in a way that is drawn from the original lore and I LOVE how compellingly sensual they are presented. To me, the strange draw that the vampires have in this is symbolic of the pull that sin has over every human being. I read that a Christian publisher in Holland, who has published other books by Dekker, refused to publish this one because it is too sensual for their readers.

2.  I LOVE how Dekker makes connections with The Circle series in this book. I won't mention them, but if you are a true Circle fan, there are many connections that are mysterious and pull other stories together.

3.  This book reminds me of the redemptive power of Christ's love through his sacrifice for us.

Tuck Everlasting

Tuck Everlasting, by Natalie Babbitt.
Love, love, love this book!! To answer your unspoken question: No, it's not in first person; it's in third person. Ah, third person, the way a story should be written.

I just finished this classic book about a girl, Winnie Foster, and her desire for something more.  It's a simple story with BIG ideas and hard truths. It begs the reader to ask themselves the question: What if you could live forever?

Winnie is a ten year old girl who decides to explore the woods just outside of her overly neat, stuffy home and fenced in yard. On this fateful day she meets Jesse Tuck, a boy who looks seventeen, but is really 104 years old. I know, I know...but it's not like Twilight in the slightest. Jesse, despite his true age, still maintains a youthful spirit and would make anyone want to be seventeen forever. Winnie is drawn to him, but I wouldn't call it love; she's only ten years old afterall. She soon comes to meet his family: Mae, the mother who makes Winnie feel welcome and loved; Miles, the older brother who sees the daughter he left behind when he looks at her; Tuck, the father who envys those that can have the relief of death, explains how dreadful it would be if she revealed the secret of the spring water to anyone. She learns to love this eccentric family as much as she loves her own. The whole time, a stranger in a yellow suit lurks and plots against the family.

I wouldn't change a single thing about this book. It is simple, beautiful, rich and deep. One of my favorite parts is when she pours the water over the toad, giving it everlasting life and then to see the toad again in the epilogue sitting in the middle of the road long after Winnie is gone and buried.


"Your time's not now. But dying's part of the wheel, right there next to being born. You can't pick out the pieces you like and leave the rest. Being part of the whole thing, that's the blessing. But it's passing us by, us Tucks. Living's heavy work, but off to one side, the way we are, it's useless, too. It don't make sense. If I knowed how to climb back on the wheel, I'd do it in a minute. You can't have living without dying. So you can't call it living, what we got. We just are, we just be, like rocks beside the road." Tuck's voice was rough now, and Winnie, amazed, sat rigid. No one had ever talked to her of things like this before.