The Immortality Curse: A Matt Kearns Novel 3

I have really enjoyed the Matt Kearns books and this is now one of my favorites. Matt,the reluctant adventurer,is drawn into a search for the fountain of youth leading him to Canada,Chad and a dangerous and mysterious cave that will change him forever.
The finale of this book is breathtaking . The story is filled with danger,deception and thrills. I highly recommend it.

If you're looking for any sort of continuity in the Matt Kearns series, keep looking. In the last two books featuring our long-haired globetrotter, humanity is brought to the brink of annihilation. Lives are lost by the millions (unless I really missed something) yet almost nothing of those events is mentioned in this book (the same thing happened with the 2nd book not referencing much of the "red mist" disaster from the first).

Anywho...the story is fine, but Matt's flippant attitude to just about everything made it hard for me to concentrate on the story. 7th-grade-level bickering between the MC and the female FBI character (Rachel, I think) was the cherry on top of this story for me.

Beck's Alex Hunter stories are much more enjoyable. Sorry, Professor Kearns. If there was any sort of continuity between novels, I'd be 100% down to finish this series, but for me that missing connectivity is just too much.

I pre-ordered this book and started reading soon as it showed up on my kindle, a little after 12 that eve. I could not put it down. It grabs you on the first page. I had to make myself read it slow, it was so good. I love all of Greig's books and they just keep getting better and better. The descriptions of people and places are so you can see them in your mind. Do yourself a favor and get this book, you will not be disappointed!

I have been a big fan of Greig's since his first book, Beneath the Dark Ice. I have enjoyed everyone one of his books and novella's, including this one! This was a pretty cool interpretation of myths/legends mixed in with "biblical" history to form a really great story. It was very fun to read. I don't want to give anything away so all I will say if that you enjoyed the previous Matt Kearn's stories, you will enjoy this.

Happy Reading!

I just finished The Immortality Curse. I read it in 1.5 days...Greig Beck continues to blow my mind. As with all of his books, I was hooked immediately. There is so much to think about and wonder about in the book. I won't give anything away, but there is mystery, action, adventure, a bit of romance, religious history and a whole lot of "what if?". Matt Kearns is, personally, my favorite of Beck's characters. I love his personality, his penchant for getting into trouble and his love of knowledge. Beck brings that all to life in a wonderful, fun, interesting, and easy to read way. I will be waiting, impatiently, for Mr. Beck's next adventure novel.

I’ve loved every one of Beck’s novels: well researched engaging suspenseful adventures with protagonists you want to root for. Plus, he writes the kind of monsters that make your intestines squirm. This year, Macmillan released a third title based on his paleo-linguist character, Professor Matt Kearns. The Immortality Curse opens in true Beck style with the bizarre and gruesome death of Clarence van Helling, an uber-rich explorer missing for decades on the trail of for the legendary Fountain of Youth. Clarence’s widow, Eleanor van Helling, impervious and somewhat imperial, has been faithfully waiting for his return, but now the grande dame won’t rest, enlisting Kearns’ help to discover the truth of what happened her beloved. But other parties intent on obscuring the 5000 year old mystery are also hot on Clarence’s trail. Hero Matt Kearns is on a surfing holiday and doesn’t want a bar of it, but for Eleanor’s impressive collection of historic artefacts, and the attractive FBI officer, Field Agent Rachel Bromilow, both of which have the young professor drooling.

The Immortality Curse is full of all the things we’ve come to love about Beck’s writing: breakneck pacing, unspeakable monsters, shaky alliances, hostile terrain, and enough hairpin plot turns to give you whiplash. Unlike his Arcadian series, where the protagonist is enhanced to almost superhuman ability, Kearns is a reluctant hero. An ordinary young man, albeit too smart for his own good, he’s a bit of a contradiction: with flailing resolve, slightly compromised morals, and a curiosity that borders on obsessive. The character is sufficiently flawed to be both plausible and likeable, which may explain why many readers are touting this book as one of Beck’s best to date. I expect there will be some who are put off by Beck’s interpretation of the subject matter, the way he has cleverly interwoven biblical references with reasoned conjecture in this frenetic contemporary nail biter, but for pure escapism, there is simply none better.

THE IMMORTALITY CURSE is the third time out for paleolinguist Matt Kearns, first introduced in the opener to the Alex Hunter series. This time out Kearns is enlisted by a very old, very wealthy New York woman to try to find out what happened to her husband who disappeared some 75 years ago on a search for something and who apparently turned up a few days ago in the middle of Canada, seemingly not aged a day, only to rapidly age and be murdered in a most gruesome way by two men in black.

Off we go on a tour of Northern California, New York, Canada, Saudi Arabia and Africa (not to mention other sections taking place in the Vatican and in Turkey, but Matt wasn't in those scenes) in search of, variously, Noah's Ark, the Garden of Eden and the Fountain of Youth. THE IMMORTALITY CURSE is shorter than most of Beck's earlier novels, and a lot sloppier. There are several continuity errors, a bunch of typos and a misspelling here and there. This is much sloppier than the first several of Beck's novels, and continues an unfortunate trend that I have noticed in the last 2 or 3 novels. But I don't think it's going to cost him too many readers, because he still shows the same knack for imaginative plotting, great pacing, and k knowing how to spin a great yarn. I ripped through the book in less than a day, even while stopping frequently to fact-check stuff like a how cool is a Gulfstream 550 and the history of Lake Chad in Africa. One of the things that Beck does well is research and I always learn things from his novels.

Not as good as many of his earlier works, but certainly worth a read for Beck fans or anyone who enjoys fantasy/fiction mixed up with facts, science and mythology.

Recommended.

JM Tepper

I always enjoy Greig Beck's books. I found this one a bit far fetched but I did like it anyway. Funny and entertaining.

Ridiculous storyline. Countless grammatical errors. Factual errors galore.

Greg sometimes I wish I could visualize your imagination when you write these books. A true adventure with great characters. I could not put this book down.