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Wednesday, November 3, 2010

Review: The Eternal Ones by Kirsten Miller


Release Date: August 30, 2010
Publisher: Penguin
Genre: Paranormal, Romance (sort of)
Age Group: Young Adult
Pages: 420
Source: Penguin Australia

Blurb (from Penguin Australia)

Haven Moore has always known she's different: there are the talents that can't be explained; the knowledge of places she's never been; and then there are the visions that overwhelm her - terrifying visions of a life that ended tragically two decades earlier and more than a thousand miles away in New York City. The citizens of Haven's rural, highly religious community, believe that she's been possessed by a demon. But this is no demon: it's reincarnation.

Haven journeys all the way to Manhattan in search of clues about her past life and a decades-old murder. One wrong move could lead her into the clutches of the sinister villain at the center of a conspiracy much larger than she could have ever imagined. But if she makes the right choices, Haven will find the answers she's been seeking her entire life.

This is an epic and thrilling romance set in the snake-handling churches of Appalachia, the dusty ruins of ancient Rome, and the grand mansions of Manhattan. The Eternal Ones tells the story of the first battle in a war between undying love and eternal evil.

The Quickie Review

So I’ve mentioned this before about a hundred times but I am a huge sucker for romance in novels so from simply reading the blurb of The Eternal Ones I was sure I’d fall in love with it I mean the whole premise of eternal love and searching every lifetime for your soulmate super duper romantic. Alas however romance was seriously lacking, I mean there was a bit but not much at all, the story was more of a mystery which worked quite well as it had me double guessing myself a couple of times, I thought I knew what happened but then I was thrown through the loop again. So basically if your looking simply for romance this probably wont be the best book to read however if you enjoy a little mystery you should definitely give this a go.

The Full Blown Review

Ever since Haven Moore was little she has had visions from a past life as a girl named Constance - all of which involve or are about the love of her life Ethan - making Haven very different from the rest of the inhabitants of the small, tight knit community of Snope City. Consequently when living in a small community such as Haven does being different is never a good thing even when Haven hasn’t had any visions in years. Soon however Haven’s visions suddenly return when she sees Iain Morrow an impossibly handsome and rich movie star on TV who Haven’s convinced she’s met before but how exactly? Could this Iain actually be Ethan, Haven’s true love? Now with the visions back Haven’s grandmother along with the rest of the inhabitants of Snope City are convinced Haven is once again possessed by the devil. Haven’s only real friend and confidant is Beau who can really understand what Haven has to go through everyday with the stares and whispers as being gay in this small town is also not very fun. Soon it becomes clear to Haven that she must go to New York and meet with Iain and discover about her past life. However once in New York things don’t turn out as expected, something sinister is going on involving both Iain and the Ouroboros Society (a society whose members have all led multiple lives), secrets are being kept and Haven must find out what’s going on before she gets herself into trouble and loses Ethan all over again.

I’ve never read anything dealing with reincarnation before that said I find the whole concept really fascinating I mean being able to come back from a past life, pretty cool. Miller’s description of Haven and Iain’s past lives was so detailed and interesting, whilst Miller concentrated on Haven’s past life as Constance in the visions, the very beginning of the love affair between Haven and Iain was detailed so the reader knows how it all started and let me tell you what a beginning!

Haven was a strong lead character, I especially loved her interactions with her grandmother, which I’m sure were unintentionally hilarious, well they were for me. Nothing seemed to phase Haven she knew what she had to do and she did it. Whilst many girls would take the gorgeous looking Iain’s words as gospel Haven always questioned what he was or wasn’t telling her which is refreshing. That being said however her indecisiveness towards Iain did cheese me off a bit, I mean pick your position and stick with it! The supporting characters were also well developed with my favourites being Beau, Haven’s best friend and Haven’s mean, nutty, tough as nails, take no crap from anybody (phew that’s a lot of adjectives) grandmother Imogene Snively who has to have one of the best surnames ever!

I love how Miller took us on a journey from the small rural town of Snope City to the bright lights of New York and then to the ancient city of Rome. I particularly relished the parts in Rome as I absolutely adored Rome when I was there and with Miller’s descriptions I could perfectly picture the beautiful settings such as such as the bustling piazzas and the magnificent buildings that make up Rome which surrounded Haven and Iain.

The stunning Piazza Navona which was described in the book

A fair portion of the start of the book is dedicated to Haven’s back story and her life before she leaves for New York which I really found interesting. I love reading about the different dynamics of societies and Miller did not disappoint when describing Snope City and its inhabitants as well as the day to day life experienced by Haven. Miller does such an excellent job describing the prejudices and fears that can surface in small towns where people who are different find themselves on the wrong side of the majority who I guess are just scared of people who are different as they don’t fit into their narrow view of what they define as ‘normal’, but really who’s to say what’s normal anyway, okay so that will be the extent of my philosophizing in this review I getting a bit off track.

Haven’s story really starts to pick up once she gets to New York and is confronted with the mystery of Constance’s death which she must solve in order to work out who she can trust. Whilst at first it appears simple to Haven that Iain is her one and only, and she can trust him entirely her view begins to change can she really trust Iain because if she can why is he hiding things from her and telling her to stay away from the Ouroboros Society? The last quarter of the book really picked up the pace and was really engrossing as the mystery was coming to a pretty spectacular conclusion where many of our questions were answered, my main one being can Haven trust Iain or not, because frankly I had no idea!

What did irk me sometimes was Haven’s attitude towards Iain, boy was she a flip flopper, I was like girl just pick whether you’re going to trust him or not. At one point in the story she decided that she could trust him and then all of a sudden she didn’t and then once again she changed her mind and went back to him, can you say frustrating! Perhaps I’m being to hard on poor Haven I mean I’ll admit that I was pretty flummoxed at who to trust or what was going on sometimes especially when I thought I knew what was going on, oh how wrong was I, don’t you just love that in a book when you have no idea what’s going to happen next, I know I do.

The Eternal Ones was a thoroughly enjoyable read even though the romance aspect was not as all encompassing as I believed it would be as the mystery aspect really kept me on the edge of my seat waiting to find out what was going to happen next. Whilst the ending did conclude nicely there is definitely room for a sequel which will hopefully delve more into Haven and Iain past lives.

Rating

3.5 out of 5

There’s Another Book?!?

Yes indeed there will be another book in the series here’s what Kirsten has to say about it –

It is action-packed. Haven is forced to infiltrate the Ouroboros Society in order to save someone she loves. I won't say more for fear of giving too much away. But I'll be posting updates on my blog over the next few months!

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Romy @ Lost.in.Stories
Greetings fellow blog readers, welcome to my blog and thank you for stopping by. Now you may be wondering who is lost.in.stories? Well lost.in.stories is also known as Romy, a 23 year old graduate student from Australia who loves to read. I read (maybe devour would be a more appropriate word) largely young adult novels, with a particular love of fantasy and paranormal novels, however I am also a sucker for a good romance.
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