Review ~ Eternally yours ~ Cate Tiernan

Title: Eternally Yours

Author: Cate Tiernan

Published: November 6^th 2012

By: Hodder and Stoughton

First line: “Vali! Vali! Where is the girl?”

Last line: Hmm.

Fave Line: And just  like that the hills were alive with an overabundance of testerone.

And so we reach the end of another series! Eternally yours is the last in the Immortal Beloved trilogy.  I’ve really enjoyed these books as they added something new and refreshing with the use of magick and whilst there was a relationship in these books it wasn’t the main reason for the story.  The story here has really been Nastasya’s journey from a rather bleak past to the here and now. And what a journey it’s been!

In the second book, Darkness Falls, Nas ended up facing a few rather ugly home truths about Incy, her so-called best friend.  His attempt to take her power put only her life on the line but those of her true friends with whom she lives at River’s Edge.

At the beginning of Eternally Yours we find Nas back at River’s Edge trying to settle back into her own unique brand of normality as well as trying to find a purpose in life that goes beyond everything that has gone so badly before.  This book really takes us on a journey with Nas and it’s quite comforting to see her growing as an individual throughout this finale.  That’s not to say everything goes smoothly. Incy might be locked up, being forced to think about what he’s done but it seems he’s just a small cog in a big wheel.  There are greater forces after Nas’s power and it seems that they’ll do anything to get it.

This turn in events introduces us to a whole new series of characters and I have to say as much as I hated Ottavio, River’s brother, I loved him in equal measure just because he stirred things up.  Be prepared to juggle a lot of names in your head with this book. There are a lot and I mean a LOT of characters to keep tabs on. That also means there’s a lot of action. 

It always takes me a while to get back into the Immortal Beloved series as the writing is narrative in style.  This time around I found it easier to slip back into the format.  The only thing I found frustrating at times was Nas’s attitude.  All well and good to find humour in bad situations but there were times I felt that even she was being overly flippant.  Perhaps this was part of the whole growing process  but at times it felt more like arrogance than ignorance.  My only gripe aside the characters are as ever really well written, River in particular, and then of course there is the lovely Reyn.  What else can I say?  He is as ever, wonderful! I also liked new character Joshua who put a bit of fire in Reyn’s belly and bought out a completely new side to him.  Shove in a few paragraphs about Reyn caring for a puppy and that’s it – stick a fork in me, I’m done! There are the usual highs and lows between Reyn and Nas which I guess was to be expected, but again I think this is part of the learning curve for both of them, especially given their brutal past.

In the end, I got the finale I wanted.  There are a few shocks along the way but then it wouldn’t be a good finale if there weren’t. For me, Eternally yours ticks all the boxes and finishes the Immortal Beloved series off nicely.  I’m looking forward to seeing what Cate has in store for us next!

Rating: 4 out of 5. Reyn and puppies? What more could you possibly want?

Stacking The Shelves #34

Stacking The Shelves is hosted by Tyngs's Reviews and is all about sharing the books you are adding to your  shelves, may they be physical or virtual. This means you can include books you buy in physical stores or online, books you borrow from friends or the library, review books, gifts and of course ebooks!

We love sharing our books with you each week but more importantly we loving see what you add to your shelves. All links added here will take you to goodreads.

Sally's shelves

A fantastic week for me! I won a competition! Twitter users were asked to send questions to Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl as part of a Beautiful Creatures Q&A session.  All those that wrote a question were put in to a raffle and I was one of the lucky five to get picked! How cool is that?! My prize was this really cool Beautiful Creatures manga edition. The artwork in this book is amazing! The second book I got was Shadows by Paula Weston.  I'm still in the process of filling the gap that the Fallen series by Lauren Kate has left  in my life and I think this might do it! I also bought a copy of Scarlet by Marissa Meyer. I loved Cinder so I can't wait to get round to this one!  Lastly I also got a copy of Fragments, #2 of the Partials series by Dan Wells.  I loved Partials and the sequel which is due out at the end of this month looks just as good!

Bungles Shelves

I've finally bought my first physical book of the year!! As you all know I'm not buying new books unless it’s an e-book or a book from a series I already have. So this week my boyfriend bought me A Witch Alone by Ruth Warburton. I'm a bit behind and not read book 2 yet but plan to very soon!! I just love Ruth's writing style. And the book I bought myself is Scarlet by Marissa Meyer. I still haven't read Cinder but something tells me I'm going to love these books!!

So that's us for this week!  So what did you get? 

Tide blog tour!

So, last year we were thrilled to take part in the blog tour for Dreams by Daniela Sacerdoti.  Dreams was a brilliant start to the intriguing Sarah Midnight trilogy. You can read the review for book one here if you haven't already grabbed yourself a copy.

Now however it's time for book two and Midnight Reads will be taking part in the blog tour once again.  On 10th of February we'll be telling you all about Sarah Midnight's favourite tracks and there's plenty more going on besides.  The tour started a couple of days ago and continues into March on a heap of fantastic blogs! You can check out the full schedule here:

Come back soon for more information!