REVIEW: Eternal by Virginia Gamsky Hust

Title: Eternal (Sons of Heaven #1)

Author: Virginia Gamsky Hust

Publication Date: January 7^th 2013

Publisher: Virginia Gamsky Hust and Sarah Maddox

Format: E-Book

Pages: 346

Rating: 4/5
Blurb: Three hundred years of penance, of suffering through an immortal life has left Maura praying for salvation. She joins a group bent on gaining back their souls by awakening The One and after a rather bleak few years in Cairo she thinks they’ve found him. But after a meeting with her sire goes terribly wrong she is trapped in the enemy camp. How far will she go to survive? Gabriel is a normal, if rather jaded private detective living in Seattle Washington, until a beautiful woman shows up at his practice, claiming to be a vampire and asking for his help. Suddenly his life is turned on its head as he is introduced to the underground society of Fallen Angels bent on finding their savior.

Review: I feel like most people would experience a kind of fear going into a Young Adult Vampire novel nowadays, and in the case of ‘Eternal’ I was no exception. Fortunately, ‘Eternal’ is a different type of vampire novel. There aren’t any human/vampire love plots, instead there are angels, action and lots of travelling. This is definitely a book you want to get your hands on!

The action started pretty much straight away, there wasn’t really a period at the start of the book that was dedicated to life before the main event of the book, it was already building up to everything that was going to happen. Due to this there wasn’t really a time to get to know each character at the start, instead small things were given away throughout the book when certain things happened or when things were mentioned. I found this much better than being told everything about everyone from the start- there are quite a few characters and so in that sense, intense descriptions all at once would have been quite annoying.

I loved both Maura and Gabriel, who were the two central characters. They were different from one another in some ways, but there were moments in the book were you could see similarities in the way they acted. I really enjoyed seeing that aspect, even more when I could see the contrast in their personalities further on. Despite the two central characters, this book isn’t technically two perspectives- while each character is doing different things, it is written in third person so there isn’t any of that trying to work out which voice it is thing with split perspective books.

Despite loving both Maura and Gabriel, I think my two favourite characters in the book were Selena and Mishra. I don’t know why but they were the two that really captured my attention, both for different reasons. I loved Selena because she was sweet, while Mishra’s backstory interested me.

One thing that had me slightly confused were the names of the characters- a few characters actually had more than one name, which while I understood the reasoning, sometimes I had to pause and think which character was speaking. However, this didn’t really taking anything away from the reading experience for me, and by the time I’d reached halfway I had a much clearer understanding.  

As an Australian, I loved the fact that they travelled to Australia in the book. I also loved all the other places that were included, I only wish that some of the places had been explored a little more as I think  I would have enjoyed learning some more about places I’d never been and knew next to nothing about. I found the aspect of the different countries and culture within the book to be very interesting, definitely different to things I’d read in the past.

Another thing I enjoyed was the little bits of humour that were spread across the book, while a lot of it was quite serious and incredibly interesting- there were one-liners and whatnot that had me giggling. There were other moments that had me wanting to crawl up in a ball until things got better.

I actually managed to finish the last 200 or so pages in one sitting, just because I found it completely impossible to tear myself away from my computer screen. The build-up to the main event of the novel was really well set out, as was the pacing of the rest of the book. I only wish there has been a little more focus on Maura towards the end, though I did enjoy the parts with Gabriel. That ending though, honestly guys- it was absolutely brilliant. I seriously cannot wait until the next installment!

Thank you to the lovely Virginia Gamsky Hust for giving us the chance to read and review this amazing book!