The Truth Is Out There....

The Eterna Files
by: Leanna Renee Heiber

Review by: Mark Palm

Forgive my cheesy tag-line, but when you write a conspiracy-laden novel about secret government agencies investigating the paranormal, and put the word “files” in the title, my mind is always going to think of Chris Carter’s television series “The X Files.” The Eterna Files by Leanna Renee Hieber is something quite different, however. It’s more of an historical novel about the paranormal, and while is was fast paced and inventive it didn’t quite live up to my hopes. It’s a good book, but I think that it could have been great.

Queen Victoria picks Harold Spire of the Metropolitan Police, a dedicated and conscientious detective, to lead Special Branch Division Omega, whose task is to secretly investigate supernatural cases. He is assisted by researcher Rose Everheart and a team made up of scientists, scholars, assassins, con-men, and circus-performers. Their first job is find something called The Eterna Compound, which promises to grant immortality. The lab in New York City where it was developed was destroyed, but the Queen is certain that some of the compound still exists.

A secret American team is also searching for Eterna. Clara Templeton, a medium who helped start the project at the behest of Mary Todd Lincoln after Abraham Lincoln was assassinated, leads her team, along with her guardian Senator Rupert Brooke. They are joined by Franklin Fordham, who is a “sensitive”, and Louis Dupris, Clara’s secret lover, a practitioner of Voodoo, Voudoun, who died in the Eterna accident. His ghost haunts his twin brother, Andre, who takes on his brother’s identity.

There is a lot more than this going on, as each team races to secure Eterna for their own county, and the novel moves back and forth covering each group's trials and tribulations. I give Ms. Hieber credit for ambition, and as I said earlier, the pace of the novel is quick, and the primary characters, particularly Spire, Everheart and Clara, are well-drawn. I feel that Ms. Hieber may have bitten-off more than she can chew, however. It certainly is possible to write a novel with a lot of characters and a lot of plot-lines and make it work, but it’s tricky, and The Eterna Files, while good, didn’t quite hit the mark.  The other main problem I had with this book is that it doesn't really end as much as it just stops. I can fully understand and appreciate that if a novel is going to have a sequel, then the whole story may not be told in just one book, but I believe that a single novel has to stand alone to be considered a total success. The Eterna Files was good enough for me to enjoy it, and Ms. Hieber showed me enough that I look forward to the next book, assuming there is one, but I can’t give this one a rave review.

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