In Kirsten Miller’s The Eternal Ones, Haven Moore is like most seniors in high school, she spends most of her days dreaming about escaping family imposed rules and having freedom as a freshman in college. However, Haven’s reasons for longing to get away far exceed the average teenager’s. Haven has long suffered from fits which give her glimpses into another life and a boy named Ethan (Iain Morrow in this life), whom she has seemingly loved forever. Her grandmother and the small town of Snopes City, Tennessee view these visions as works of the devil and Haven has to do some pretty fancy footwork in order to break free and follow her destiny.
As an avid reader of fiction, I suspend my disbelief but I do it grudgingly. I want the world that I live in to be, for the most part, accurately reflected and I expect that the world built will have rules that I can apply and that I can turn to throughout the book for structure. I want to know that the action taking place before me is within the parameters of that world. The Eternal Ones breaks those rules, but somehow manages to be an appealing and engaging read nevertheless.
It is strongly plotted and in constant motion, but it certainly has its eye rolling moments and does not make always make a lot of sense. A teen breaks away from her family to research reincarnation and find the boy of her dreams, meets him, basically starts living with him while on the run from bad guys, both known and unknown. Apparently reincarnation can be something of a pain. You don’t always find your soul mate, and when you do smooth sailing is not guaranteed since it seems you bring all of your baggage from previous lives with you. Haven has major trust issues and I got whiplash from how she went from trusting to not trusting Iain. She has reason to have questions, but at some point either believe in someone or you don’t. But all in all it’s a fun book – total candy- with a main character you want to smack out of gullibility and a dreamy beau you want to run off with yourself. And yes, it’s the first in a trilogy, but All You Desire, the second book, is out on August 9, 2011. Recommended.
