Customer Reviews

Eternal (Clare Point 1)

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is the first in a series based on a community of vampires who live at Clare Point, Delaware, trying to keep their existence secret from humans having fled vampire hunters in Europe four hundred years before. The Kahill clan, the inhabitants of the village, carry out their own kind of justice on various criminals but we don't learn very much about that. The main hook of the story is FBI agent Fia Kahill who is investigating one murder in Philadelphia when she's called to investigate a beheading in her home town of Clare Point.

When Fia arrives at Clare Point she discovers another FBI Agent from the Baltimore office is also assigned to the case. Initially suspicious of Agent Glen Duncan as he resembles her former evil lover, Ian Duncan, she soon finds that Glen is rather different. However, with another old lover, Joseph, causing her problems and more of the Clare Point vampires being separated from their heads Fia doesn't know what to do and how to solve the crime in her village.

The pacing was a little off with the story dragging through quite a large proportion of this book. The explanation of the vampire world was drip-fed to the reader which made it more interesting but also left me with quite a few questions as to how their lifecycles actually worked. The heroine, Fia, wasn't a particularly sympathetic character whose interactions with other people were usually cold and uninformative. I wasn't entirely sure how she had got her job with the FBI as she didn't seem particularly skilled or diligent in the work.

There were several plot threads in the story that weren't completed or were otherwise unsatisfactory. The past relationship with Joseph seemed to be looming large but then all that suddenly subsided; the relationship with Glen was never fully realised and the final scene where the vampire killer is confronted all seemed rather quick and easy. There were several side characters, such as Arlen, about whom there is presumably more to learn - I imagine these characters will be explored more in future books but it left this book feeling rather unfinished and disappointing.

The writing style was good, apart from the pacing issues, and the description of the strange town of Clare Point with its unusual inhabitants, and how they seemed to Glen, was well realised. However the overall story was rather a disappointment because the murder plot didn't feel central enough, nor did the romance, and the reader was left with rather a lot of filler text.

[...]

I liked this book. It had a slightly different slant to vampires and how they lived and died. I liked how the romance between the two FBI agents progressed and am hoping to hear more of them in the following books. I felt that Fia was able to come to a resolution about the past relationships in her life and move forward. The ending was a surprise, I hadn't expected the killer to be who it was so that was a nice twist.

I loved this whole series of books. I just wish there were more! Just the right mix of Vamp, romance and suspense to make them "can't put it down" books!

My title is my bias for this vampire novel ... and I read a lot of them. My failing point, I'm sure, is comparing the new spate of vampire-oriented fiction to original fiction such as written by Anne Rice, Laurell K. Hamilton, Charlaine Harris & such. All the vampire was taken out of these vampires. They can eat, drink, be in the sun, and sleep like ordinary mortals. What's the fun in that? It's the limitations ... and strengths ... of vampires that make them interesting. These vampires also, apparently, live a life cycle, die & are reborn. So, pretty much these are human vampires. Which makes them ... well, uninteresting.

That said, Eternal is a pretty good, easy read. It's pretty much nothing more than a whodunit, decorated with Fia, a vampire & FBI agent, Glen, FBI agent & soon to be lover ... who remarkably resembles an old lover of Fia's who betrayed her family ... and various denizens of Clare Point, the cloistered community in which the sept lives. The characters are likeable enough, and none really get on the reader's nerve.

Eternal will never be in my top vampire-oriented novels, but more in the middle. The jury's still out as to whether I'll read the 2nd book.

This is a new take on an old story. The author, V. K. Forrest, has gone away from the traditional vampire look and attitude to bring the reader a new empathy for the vampires' plight. "Eternal" introduces us to the Kahill clan and Fia Kahill, Special Agent with the FBI. Fia has to walk the line between FBI agent and member of the Kahill High Council. It is difficult to keep one from interferring with the other. I have read 3 books in the Clare Point series and would love to see a prequal to the time before the Kahill clan moved to Delaware.

I really liked this book. It offers a different view of the vampire world. I do have some unanswered questions and hope they will be addressed in the books to come. The other reveiws were pretty dead on so I won't go into what they have already covered. I have read a lot of vampire story lines and I found this one refreshing. I was able to connect better to the characters rather than the same ole' vampires only come out at night and are vicious killers underneath it all. All in all I will say it was well worth the 50 cents I paid for it at a yard sale!

I liked this book and will get the next ones. The other reviews were correct in that some of the others in the book, like Joseph seemed to have large importance to Fia, but we never could figure out why. So maybe in the next book the questions will be answered. I really liked the way that the relationship between Fia and Glen progressed instead of the normal - wow over night and we are in love and having mad monkey sex.

I liked this book and will read the next one in the series. Fia is a FBI agent and also a Vampire, she's been assigned to work with FBI agent Glen Duncan, who happens to look like the man Fia once loved, and the man who betrayed her. Fia returns to her hometown when she learns that her cousin Bobby has been killed, by what appears to be the calling card of a vampire slayer, but of course Glen doesn't believe in Vampires.

The Vampires in this book all eat food, and Fia's Mother, bakes Muffins and owns a Bed and Breakfast, they also drink ale, Fia gets together with some girlfriends, at the beach and they have Martini's.

At the end of the book we find out who the killer is, but questions still remain, to be answered, so I will be on the look out for the next book.