The Eternal Ones by Kirsten Miller

OK, I'll just come right out and say it: I LOVED THIS BOOK.  It was a stay-up-late, want-to-go-back-and-reread-it kind of book for me.  And that praise doesn't come lightly for me.  I don't re-read books.

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.

Not to say that the book was without it flaws.  The one thing that bothered me was how hot and cold Haven was with Iain.  I mean, the boy whisks her away to Rome, lavishes her with attention and gifts, and pledges his undying love. Sure he lies... about almost everything.  But cut a guy some slack. :)

All in all, I found the romance compelling, gripping, sizzling... all those "book review" words you'd want to print on your cover if you were a published author.  It's those chapters that I want to go back and read again and again.  Those moments were fate and doubt resist combining so that hope can linger just a little longer.  And even though we, as readers, maintain a fragile hope that everything will work out, the ending was completely different than I had anticipated...and oh, so wonderful.

I also loved how much mystery and intrigue was wound into the plot; how characters took on twists of their own; how veiled (and yet realistic) motivations were.  The clues are all there, but as you're carried away on the tide of this story, they don't all click until the end.

So that's my opinion.  But of course, I'm a hopeless romantic who swoons over the idea of love at first sight.  In short, I give THE ETERNAL ONES 5 Greek coins -- the "almost" unattainable HFAC designation.  Check out the trailer below, and then go forth and read the book!