The Eternal Ones by Kirsten Miller

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Series: The Eternal Ones #1
Copy obtained: UK Book Tours
Publisher: Razorbill/Penguin
Released: July 2010
Rating: 2/5

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 really wanted to like this book. I liked the ideas of it, it sounded a bit different to most of what I read and I thought it would make a nice change. It started out alright, although it took me several days to read about 60 pages because I was so sick, but then I started improving and was able to read more. And I realised just how slow it is to actually get anywhere to start with. Haven doesn't even meet Iain until halfway through the book, and then things start happening very quickly, but Haven can't make up her mind if things are good or bad and who the bad guys really are. Not to mention making a couple of very dumb decisions because Iain is hot and says the right things.

I don't mind books confusing me when it's hard to figure out what's going on. I do mind when it's because of a constant back/forth where things are one way, then they're the other but there isn't any real evidence of which way things really are. I got so tired of Haven that I almost didn't finish the book, and probably wouldn't have if not for having had 2 DNF's right before it (unheard of for me!) and not wanting to make it a third.

The thing is, this isn't a badly written book, nor are the ideas bad. I actually really enjoyed the premise and learning all about how reincarnation works in this story. How Haven discovers things and I really enjoyed the set up of her being in a small town and the issues involved there, along with the issues in her home life. Plus, I really loved her best friend Beau, and I also found myself really enjoying the small role Leah, a girl from Haven's school, plays as well. I enjoyed the flashbacks to Haven's previous life and seeing some of that play out and how it mirrored current events. But Haven and her attitude were too much for me. I didn't get on with her at all and once I was out of my flu haze, and paying attention to more than the words on the page, I was kind of annoyed that it took so long for Haven to actually get anywhere.

A lot of promise for sure, and a book I'm sure plenty could get on with very well. But it didn't work for me despite some very good moments, and some very interesting world building. I won't be bothering with the second book.