Book Review of Eternal Ones by Kirsten Miller

Title: The Eternal Ones

Author: Kirsten Miller

Release Date: August 10, 2010

What if love refused to die?

Haven Moore can’t control her visions of a past with a boy called Ethan, and a life in New York that ended in fiery tragedy. In our present, she designs beautiful dresses for her classmates with her best friend Beau. Dressmaking keeps her sane, since she lives with her widowed and heartbroken mother in her tyrannical grandmother’s house in Snope City, a tiny town in Tennessee. Then an impossible group of coincidences conspire to force her to flee to New York, to discover who she is, and who she was.

In New York, Haven meets Iain Morrow and is swept into an epic love affair that feels both deeply fated and terribly dangerous. Iain is suspected of murdering a rock star and Haven wonders, could he have murdered her in a past life? She visits the Ouroboros Society and discovers a murky world of reincarnation that stretches across millennia. Haven must discover the secrets hidden in her past lives, and loves¸ before all is lost and the cycle begins again.

Summary from Goodreads.com

My Review: This book centers around Haven Moore, who you are rooting for right off the bat because her grandmother is constantly on her case.  The reason she hounds Haven is because Haven has these “visions”  that literally take her to her past lives.  While her mind is in the past, her body is passed out in the present so everyone thinks she is just unconscious, not traveling to another time.  Haven can’t seem to understand why she keeps having these visions and what they have to do with future, but she knows they are important.  Her grandmother, on the other hand is making Haven’s life miserable!  She is convinced that Haven’s visions are the work of the devil and tells Haven she is sick.  It is infuriating to sit back and watch her grandmother treat her the way that she does.

Unfortunately, Haven’s grandmother is not her only problem since she lives in a very, very small town with people set in their ways.  The town people act one way in public and another in private and if you do not act “the right way” in public you are automatically branded an outsider.  Haven and her best fiend Beau fit that category very nicely and they love that about themselves.  This little town life is starting to suffocate Haven though, and she is ready to get out of dodge and head to New York.  She is not sure why she is drawn there, but she knows that is where her visions lead.  To New York and to Ian Morrow.

I do need to talk a little bit about “the fluff factor.”  If you have not read my blog before, “the fluff factor” is all the stuff that is in books that I feel like doesn’t really need to be there.  Examples: wandering through the woods for 5 pages, walking down the street for 2 pages, basically talking about things that don’t advance the story.  This is frustrating for me because I tend to skip ahead if the story is not holding my attention.  I know, I am totally outing myself with this, but if I am bored, I am skimming.  Haven spent 150 pages just in her hometown alone, before going to New York.  I totally understand that the story needs to be set up and there needed to be time spent in Snope, Tennessee, but I just felt like it was too much time.  There were a lot of important things that happened there for me, but I felt like it could have been cut down a little.  That might just be me being impatient though and wanting to get to the action.

Fast forward to New York, when Haven meets up with Iain I was swept away with the story again.  I was caught up their adventure of getting to know each other all over again and loved watching their love bloom.  While Iain and Haven are inevitable drawn to each other, their love does not come without obstacles.  People are turning up missing and they all relate back to Iain in someway, so Haven starts to grow suspicious.  The rest of the book consists of Haven trying to solve the mystery of the missing people, the Ouroboros Society, and Iain.

While I do like a good mystery, I feel like the fluff came back a little towards the end of this book.  Maybe not so much fluff, as too many obstacles kept coming up.  Haven was a constant see-saw of emotions and it got to be a little much.  She went from trusting Iain with all her heart, to thinking he was a cold-blooded murderer more times then I can count.  I know all of the facts were being presented her in a mixed up way, but I wanted her to be more sure of her love or at least wait until she had all the facts before jumping to conclusions.  That might be part of her growing up too, because she is young and still learning.

One more thing on the ending (not spoilery I promise), I am just not so sure I quite understand Adam as a character.  The way he develops at the end did not fit quite right and I felt like it took away from the story.  I see where Kirsten was going I just felt like there was so much going on at that point, one more thing added on top of just did not make sense.

I did enjoy this book, however, there were points when I thought it was moving a little slow.  The chemistry between Iain and Haven is sizzling and the information about reincarnation was interesting so those parts of the book were great for me.  If you have not read this yet, I say give it a try because you are probably more patient then me and will love it.

Language Love:

There were mornings she woke with her heart pounding wildly and the sensation of arms wrapped around her.  But the feeling slipped away the moment she opened her eyes, and not matter how quickly she squeezed them shut, she couldn’t recapture the contentment she’d felt.

I chose this quote because I feel like this tells a lot about the love between Haven and Iain, just when you think they have recaptured their love it is stolen away from them again.