Review: The Eternal Ones By: Kirsten Miller

Title: The Eternal Ones
Author: Kirsten Miller
Publisher: Razorbill, 416 Pages (August 10th 2010)
From: the Publisher, Thank You!

Synopsis: 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.

Review: 3 Stars - Kirsten Miller’s The Eternal Ones is a story that may have started in the past but it continues in the present. Cloaked in mysteries that run from one life on into the next as our main characters are reincarnated throughout time, Miller’s tale of past lives was a nice change of pace and a welcomed edition to the Young Adult Genre.

Haven, born and raised in a small religious town has visions of people and places she doesn’t know or has never been. These only make her more then an outcast. It was interesting following her as she learns more about herself, her family and these visions. With her best friend Beau by her side she slowly pieces things together and comes to realize just what her visions mean to her in the past and now in the present.

Iain, the rich, dark bad boy of the story is a celebrity of sorts and when Haven catches a glimpse of him on TV one night, she’s more then drawn to him and has no idea why. Iain was extremely mysterious and I often wondered if his intentions were honorable, I mean for me he was just down right creepy at times.

The interaction between Haven and Iain was sometimes predictable and at other times I found myself questioning why either did the things that they did. I enjoyed this for the mere fact that it was a refreshing change of pace to read something about reincarnation.

Their romance through the ages was somewhat timeless yet had its challenges as well - because lets face it, the love might still be there from the many many years that their lives span across, but people change as the times change and can their love survive this life?

And then Beau, he was one of those characters that you’d love if he could walk right off the pages and into your life. He was a great friend to Haven when she had really no one else. He listened and gave some pretty sound advice. I did find myself wishing there was more of him and his back story throughout.

All in all, Miller’s imaginative and descriptive storytelling was entertaining on many levels. Reincarnation is an interesting subject as is and Miller took the idea and was able to write a story many will enjoy. If there was a sequel, I’d read it.

FTC Disclaimer: I did NOT pay for this book, nor have I been compensated at all in any way or means for reading and writing this HONEST review.