Blue Moon (Noël novel)
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 Cove Art For Blue Moon | |
| Author | Alyson Noel |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Series | The Immortals (books) |
| Genre | Fantasy novel |
| Publisher | St. Martin's Press |
Publication date | July 7, 2009 |
| Publication place | USA |
| Media type | Print Paperback |
| Preceded by | Evermore |
| Followed by | Shadowland |
Blue Moon (2009) is the second novel in the The Immortals (books) series by Alyson Noel.
Plot introduction
While Ever's immortal powers are growing, her true love, Damen's are waning. On a quest to save Damen, Ever will do anything. Just as Ever is learning everything she can about her new abilities as an immortal, initiated into the dark, seductive world by her beloved Damen, something terrible is happening to him. As Ever’s powers are increasing, Damen’s are fading—stricken by a mysterious illness that threatens his memory, his identity, and his life. Desperate to save him, Ever travels to the mystical dimension of Summerland, uncovering not only the secrets of Damen’s past—the brutal, tortured history he hoped to keep hidden—but also an ancient text revealing the workings of time. With the approaching blue moon heralding her only window for travel, Ever is forced to decide between turning back the clock and saving her family from the accident that claimed them—or staying in the present and saving Damen, who grows weaker each day....
Plot
Blue Moon immediately continues the story of Ever, now an Immortal, and Damen from Evermore. While Ever and Damen continue to attend school as usual, Ever begins lessons with Damen to teach her to use her manifesting skills as a new Immortal. However trouble begins when an enigmatic and attractive British boy, Roman, transfers into their school. Aside from a wary Ever and unconcerned Damen, the rest of the student body immediately takes a liking to him that borders on infatuation. Even though Roman makes direct advances of friendship towards Ever and she has no solid evidence that the persona he projects is false, she instinctively feels that something is wrong with Roman and remains guarded. However after investigating his aura, which appears genuine, and voicing her concerns to Damen, who assures her that nothing seems unusual, her fears are abated.
Matters take a turn for the worse when Damen's Immortal powers begin to weaken and he eventually loses his ability to access Summerland, a mystical place between the earthly dimension and the afterlife. Worried for Damen's health, Ever is reassured when the two make plans to spend the night together after attending a play starring their mortal friend Miles. Mysteriously, Damen disappears after the play leaving Ever alone and confused to his whereabouts. During her attempts to locate him, Roman shocks Ever by saying he saw Damen leave, deliberately leaving her behind. Her denial of this possibility is proven wrong the following day at school when Ever witnesses a change in Damen's personality that resembles Roman's carefree attitude. Not only does his personality change, he also seems to have completely forgotten Ever and is instead flirting with Stacia, Ever's sworn enemy. To further confuse Ever, Damen now also has an aura, something he had always lacked as an Immortal.
Ever is left completely abandoned. Roman has turned the entire school against her, and Damen, forgetting his past with Ever, begins to call her a "freak" and a "stalker." Desperate to find a way to save Damen, Ever turns to Ava, a psychic, despite the fact that she used to dislike her for convincing Riley, Ever's deceased sister, to cross over the bridge to the other side and leaving her forever. To Ever's surprise, Ava is not only aware of Summerland but has been attempting to get there for years. Together, they are successfully able to enter Summerland, allowing Ever to seek out the Great Halls of Learning to find a solution to cure Damen. However, bringing Ava to Summerland turns out to be a big mistake, seeing how Ava's only interest is to create big, expensive jewelry to wear. After getting fed up with Ava for not helping her find the Great Halls of Learning, Ever unknowingly wishes Ava away. When Ever discovers this, she's mildly shocked. This is where she meets two twins named Romy and Rayne, who understand why she's there, and show her the way to the Great Halls. Romy always tries to be nice to Ever. Rayne always seems to dislike Ever, though Ever has no idea why. Upon entering the Halls, Ever can't believe how breathtaking the place is. Then, once she brings herself back into focus, she sits in front of a crystal screen. But instead of asking the screen how to fix what's wrong with Damen, she asks it to show her everything she needs to know about Damen, figuring she won't get another chance to find out.
Damen's father was an alchemist attempting to create an elixir for everlasting life; but before it was perfected, a group of thugs killed Damen's parents in an attempt to steal it. After their deaths, Damen is able to use the knowledge he gained from helping his father to perfect the elixir. His attempts to bring his parents back to life are thwarted, and he is sent to an orphanage to "purge the demonic influences within him". In the orphanage, Damen meets Drina and falls in love with her, but she falls victim to the Bubonic Plague (Black Death) as it begins to spread throughout Europe. In order to save her, Damen remade enough of the Elixir for Drina, himself, and the other orphans, creating the first group of Immortals. Drina and Damen remain together for a century, but have become power-hungry and greedy due to their immortality. Upon seeing this, Ever becomes extremely jealous and asks the crystal screen to take her to the end. The crystal screen obliges. The last thing Ever sees before the screen goes blank is an image of Damen dying at Roman's hands, confirming her suspicions that Roman is not the guy he claims he is. Despite Ever's pleas to go back, the crystal screen remains blank.
Upon returning to the real world, Ava teaches Ever how to create a shield for herself to prevent peoples' memories from flowing into her. The next day, Ever confronts Roman and discovers that he is a skilled rogue Immortal and one of the orphans Damen had turned into an Immortal. He is also responsible for Damen's illness, swapping Damen's elixir with a contaminated version, using it as revenge. Roman believes that Damen is selfish for keeping the elixir a secret, whereas he believes that it should be given to whomever wants it. Ever returns to Summerland to try to find a way to stop Roman and save Damen. She asks how she can put things back to they were before. She finds an exact replica of her old den back in Eugene, Oregon. Stunned, she asks if its possible to go back in time. The TV in the manifested den turns on, telling her information about the l'heure bleue, which translates into the blue hour. Ever discovers that this a way to bring her family back from the dead. After she leaves what is later revealed to be the Akashic Hall, the twins appear, asking if Ever found the answers she sought. Ever doesn't respond, wondering what would happen if she went back in time and put everything back the way she feels it's supposed to be. After pondering this, Ever returns to the earth plane, seeking Ava's help once again. Ever explains that she needs Ava's help to break into Damen's house so Ever can replace the tainted elixir with untainted elixir. Ava drives them both to Damen's gated community, telling the gate guard her name's Stacia Miller, who, thankfully, hasn't come around enough to be recognized. After parking the car in front of Damen's house and unlocking the front door with their minds, Ava is amazed at how a seventeen year old like Damen is able to have such a big house. Despite Ever's pleas to stay focused and get the job done, Ava insists on checking the upstairs. Looking around, Ever discovers just exactly how bad it's gotten since Damen started drinking the tainted elixir. For one, Damen's "special room", as he used to call it, has been completely revamped. Instead of all the priceless paintings of Damen, it now has the look of your average bar. Pool table, flat screen TV, well-stocked bar, recliner chairs, the whole nine yards. Seeing this, Ever rushes to the kitchen to replace the elixir. But, upon opening the fridge, Ever is shocked to see that it's stocked with actual food. Steaks, ice cream, beer, pizzas, almost any kind of food you could think of. Ava asks if the flavor of the elixir could've possibly changed, since Ever's determined that the events of the past few days are no coincidence. Ever tastes the tainted elixir, to discover that the flavor did change, and Damen never noticed because he always guzzled it. Just as Ever and Ava are about to swap the bottles, Damen comes in, catching them like that.
Ever tries to explain about Roman, but Damen doesn't listen, convinced Ever is trying to cast a spell to make him like her. He tells both Ever and Ava to leave immediately. Before leaving, Ever sees Damen dumping every drink he had in the fridge including the elixir down the drain, convinced Ever has tampered with them. The next day, everyone knows Damen's side of the story, including two of Ever's teachers, who pull her aside after class. After dealing with then, Ever goes to lunch, where her two best friends confront her about breaking into Damen's house. Ever refuses to listen, focusing instead on Roman, who signals that shes running out of time. Upon seeing that, Ever takes of to Summerland, seeks her way to the Great Halls of learning, and asks if there's an antidote to save Damen. Instead of the answers she seeks, she doesn't get anything. The twins show up, telling her its too late to find an antidote. But instead of listening, Ever takes off, hoping to find the answers she seeks somewhere else. Suddenly, she stops, seeing a vision of all the ingredients she needs in her head. After writing them down, Ever runs into Ava, who has now successfully made the portal to Summerland. Ever tells Ava that she needs her help with her plan. Ava has them both sit down at a French cafe in a quickly manifested replica of Paris that Ava has created. Ever asks her about the blue moon during the blue hour. Ava tells her that the real blue moon only occurs every 3 to 5 years, and that during that time, almost anything can happen. Ever asks when the next blue moon occurs, only to discover that Ava doesn't know. Ava then manifests a laptop for Ever to find out. To Ever's dismay, the next blue moon will be occurring the very next day, which throws her into a bit of a panic. Ava tries to comfort Ever by telling her where she can find most of the ingredients for the antidote, which is at a store called Mystics and Moonbeams. Though the store owner is a little suspicious, she finds everything on Ever's list of ingredients.
After leaving the store, Ever gives Ava some last minute instructions on what to do when she's gone. Upon returning home, Ever begins to make the antidote. Her aunt Sabine almost catches her in the act, but Ever manages to hide it in time. Sabine asks why Ever ditched school. Ever gives Sabine a bogus story about having a headache. After that, Ever breaks down and sobs into Sabine's shoulder, silently saying good-bye. The next day in social studies class, after accidentally saying something that wasn't related to the subject, her teacher asks how Ever knows so much about him. Ever, figuring he won't remember any of it, reveals some little bits about his future. She also encourages him to date her aunt, who her teacher can't seem to get out of his head. Upon entering the lunch room, she discovers that Damen has hit rock bottom. Deciding to fix things before she goes, she wakes up the whole school, who, thankfully, remembers nothing about what happened. Ever brings Damen to Ava's house, who reluctantly agrees to leave Damen in what Ava calls her sacred space. Ever feeds Damen her last bottle of untainted elixir. Having woken up the whole school and bringing Damen back to normal, Ever goes to Roman's house to finish the job, only to discover he's not there. Deciding there's no time to go looking for him, Ever makes the portal to Summerland and heads to the Akashic Hall, where she asks to be allowed to be sent back in time.
Time sends her to the end of her science class at her old school, where she's talking to her best friend Rachel. Although Ever has no memory of anything that happened, she keeps wondering why she acts so weird. She also wonders why she doesn't feel anything towards her boyfriend Brandon. The next day, Ever finds a list of instructions in her back pocket(which she unknowingly wrote before going back in time). Ever throws it aside, thinking she'll sort it out when she gets back from the lake. After a fun and relaxing weekend at the lake, the family heads home. On the way, everything freezes and Riley (her dead little sister) tells her that it was not her destiny to die and she shouldn't have to. They are then hit by a truck. Ever wakes up and remembers everything and rushes to see Damen who is very sick. When she enters Ava's she sees Roman there and Ava gone. She looks into the room to see Damen being surrounded by Rayne. Rayne tells her to not go near the circle where she's healing Damen and not to trust Roman. It is revealed that Romy and Rayne knew Riley because of the private school she created in Summerland, which is why the twins were always wearing private school uniforms. Riley, having made up her mind to cross over, wanted them to watch over Ever after she left. Ever asks Roman why he insists on killing Damen. Roman says that Damen killed Drina, and is simply returning the favor. Ever tells him that Damen didn't do it, she did. Roman appears shocked to hear this, and tells Ever he'll help her.
Roman tells Ever that in order for the antidote to work it needs a drop of her blood. Rayne, tells Ever to not trust Roman, that Romy is getting the ingredients for the antidote and will be there soon. Ever trusts Roman after he tells her his antidote will only work with the blood of Damen's true love, implying that she may not be it. So Ever adds her blood and feeds it to Damen. Damen is back to normal, but he is still unconscious. Roman then reveals that by adding her blood to the mixture, Ever can never touch or kiss Damen again or he will die. Roman wants Damen and Ever to suffer and not be with each other the way he cannot be with Drina. Roman had always loved Drina but she always loved Damen who has always loved Ever. Damen then wakes up, so this conversation is cut short. The novel concludes with Ever and Damen leaving Ava's house with Damen remembering nothing about what happened while under Roman's spell. Fearing Damen will never forgive her, Ever does not tell Damen what she did, and instead drives off, telling Damen that the weekend starts now.
Characters
Ever Bloom She is a 16-year old with blond hair and blue eyes. She has the ability to read people's auras and minds as well as know their history and future only by touch. Her soul mate or "true love" as she puts it is Damen Auguste. She is an immortal, turned by Damen in a car accident.
Damen Auguste He is also an immortal that lived for about 600 years. He has almond-shaped eyes and dark hair. In this book, he is possessed by Roman to hurt Ever for killing Drina (event in Evermore) as revenge.
Roman The enemy of Ever and Damen. He loved Drina, Damen's ex-wife and chooses to take revenge on Ever because she killed Drina, in the previous book, by poisoning Damen's supply of elixir to gain control over him. He flirts with Ever in order to gain her trust, only to break this bond later.
Haven Ever's best friend who takes an interest in Roman. She flirts, in order to make Roman see her, but things don't work in her favor.
Miles He is gay and also Ever's best friend, who takes pride in being an actor. He is always going through relationship problems.
Romy & Rayne Twin girls that are dressed like school girls in Summerland that help Ever find the temples of learning.