The Eternal Ones

by Kristen Miller

4/5 stars

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.

I devoured this book. Finished it in 2 days, staying up until 3:30 am. There was a mystery to it that kept me reading, plus there were a couple of characters who you couldn't tell if they were good or bad. I liked the idea of reincarnation that was behind this book- the idea that famous people, or people who are super talented at something, are actually these old souls who have been able to hone their talents over the ages. And of course, the idea of an epic love affair that has been repeated in many lives over thousands of years will appeal to most fans of romance. I found the story of the first life where Iain and Haven met, which occurred on Crete around 100 A.D., very interesting. I wish the author had gone into more details about some of the past life love affairs.

One thing that was kind of frustrating was Haven's inability to trust, which was understandable for  her character but still makes the reader want to scream, "Just trust him, already!!" Or it made me want to scream that, at any rate.

It is most definitely the beginning of a series, and leaves a lot of promise for book two. I am hoping for more of the present-day love story between the two main characters in book two, since this first book seemed to gloss over some of their interactions because of trust issues.

If you like a teen paranormal romance series, this is a good one to start.

-Rose