Beyond the Night

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The first book in a brilliant new paranormal series called "electrifying...brilliantly conceived and executed" (Library Journal) by Colleen Gleason, writing as Joss Ware. A man with no future . . .When Dr. Elliott Drake wakes from a mysterious fifty-year sleep, the world as he knew it is gone. Cities are now desolate, and civilization is controlled by deadly immortals. Stranger still is Elliott's extraordinary new "gift"--he has the power to heal, but it comes with fatal consequences.A woman with a past . . .Jade barely escaped the immortals and is now hell-bent on revenge. She trusts no one . . . until Elliott. His piercing gaze and tempting touch shatter her defenses, but the handsome doctor seems to have dangerous secrets of his own. Is it safe to trust him with her heart?If they are to survive in this dark new world, Jade and Elliott must work together to fight the forces that take them beyond danger.Beyond desire.From Publishers WeeklyIn Ware's profanity-saturated debut, Dr. Elliott Drake and his friends Quent and Wyatt are trapped underground and knocked unconscious when the immortal Strangers arrive to destroy human civilization. The trio awaken after 50 years, unaged, and escape the cave to find that two of them now have odd powers and everything familiar has vanished. After six months of wandering amid desolation, they rescue some teens from an attack of quasi-humans with the help of Jade, a mysterious woman on horseback. The teens lead the men to their city of Envy (pop. 2,000), formerly Las Vegas, where Jade draws Elliott into romance as well as efforts to understand and dispel the Strangers' powers. Ware creates a convincing and chaotic world, complete with ocean, elephants and tigers on the Nevada terrain, but the story seems too sparse to fill the planned three books. (Jan.) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. From BooklistWhen Dr. Elliott Drake and his friends arrive in Sedona, Arizona, they plan on spending a few days, not 50 years. But while they’re exploring a cave, an earthquake strikes, and the next thing Elliott knows, it’s the future, and the world is a very different place. Now survival is the only thing that matters, and if Elliott and his friends can just get past the roaming gangs of zombie-like creatures known as gangas, they just might have a chance. So far Elliott’s only hope is a mysterious woman named Jade. Convincing her to trust him isn’t going to be easy, but Elliott soon finds that nothing in this brave new world is ever simple. Ware’s time-travel tale is dark, dangerous, and deliciously sexy as she packs her wildly inventive plot with plenty of clever twists and pop-culture-inspired turns guaranteed to keep readers tuned in until the second installment in this romantic paranormal series, Embrace the Night Eternal, arrives in early 2010, followed by a third. --John Charles