[Blog Tour] Review: Eterna and Omega by Leanna Renee Hieber

Title: Eterna and Omega
Author: Leanna Renee Hieber
Genre: Gaslamp Fantasy
Series: The Eterna Files #2

Hardcover, 336 Pages
Publication: August 9, 2016 by Tor Books

Source: I received a review copy from the publisher in exchange for a honest review.

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In New York City, fearing the dangers of the Eterna Compound--supposedly the key to immortality--Clara Templeton buries information vital to its creation. The ghost of her clandestine lover is desperate to tell her she is wrong, but though she is a clairvoyant, she cannot hear him.

In London, Harold Spire plans to send his team of assassins, magicians, mediums, and other rogue talents to New York City, in an attempt to obtain Eterna for Her Royal Majesty, Queen Victoria. He stays behind to help Scotland Yard track down a network of body snatchers and occultists, but he'll miss his second-in-command, Rose Everhart, whose gentle exterior masks a steel spine.

Rose's skepticism about the supernatural has been shattered since she joined Spire's Omega Branch. Meeting Clara is like looking into a strange mirror: both women are orphans, each is concealing a paranormal ability, and each has a powerful and attractive guardian who has secrets of his own.

The hidden occult power that menaces both England and America continues to grow. Far from being dangerous, Eterna may hold the key to humanity's salvation.

Eterna and Omega picks up exactly within moments of the first book. Clara, a spiritualist wakes up from exhaustion due to the over abundance of spirits surrounding her in the cemetery when she was burying sensitive information from her former deceased lover Louis. At the start of the book, Clara and the American Eterna team are still investigating the death of Louis and his colleagues and what happened that fateful day when their building blew up. And thanks to Clara’s gifts she was able to communicate with Louis and discovered that evil shadowy creatures, The Summoned were the cause of their death and that without some sort of protection/wards, the creatures will wreck havoc across the country.

On the opposite side of the world in England, the Omega team is getting ready to set sail for America by order of the Queen. The Queen has made the Eterna team out to be the villains and that Omega must retrieve all of Eterna’s work to secure her the cure to immortality. But little do they know that the real threat is the Queen herself. The two teams finally collide with one another but instead of working against each another, they join forces together to beat The Summoned that threaten to take over their world and stop the agenda for an old world.

The stakes are higher in this follow-up to The Eterna Files. Hieber subtly paints a countdown clock without the unnecessary bells and whistle. There weren’t crazy action scenes but I felt the urgency of the plot bouncing back and forth between Eterna and Omega nonetheless. Readers finally get a better understanding of what’s going on and why certain things are happening, especially with Moriel. Like with most stories, I love it when people put aside their differences and work together. I found the most enjoyable party of the story was when Eterna and Omega started working together.

Eterna and Omega was an excellent addition to The Eterna Files Series. I enjoyed it way more than I expected. This is a wonderful Gaslamp Fantasy series (fantasy/historical fiction with Victorian/Edwardian Setting) and if you haven’t tried this genre yet, Hieber’s novels would be a great place to start!

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

LEANNA RENEE HIEBER'S first novel, The Strangely Beautiful Tale of Miss Percy Parker, is a foundation work of gaslamp fantasy and the winner of two Prism Awards. Hieber has been a finalist for the Daphne Du Maurier Award. Rarely seen out of Victorian garb, Hieber often appears at conventions, bookstores, and library events. Her travel schedule and other news can be found at Leannareneehieber.com.

The Eterna Files by Leanna Renee Hieber

Title: The Eterna Files
Author: Leanna Renee Hieber
Genre: Historical Fantasy
Series: N/A

Hardcover, 320 pages
Publication: February 10, 2015 by Tor 

Source: I received a review copy from the publisher in exchange for a honest review.

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London, 1882: Queen Victoria appoints Harold Spire of the Metropolitan Police to Special Branch Division Omega. Omega is to secretly investigate paranormal and supernatural events and persons. Spire, a skeptic driven to protect the helpless and see justice done, is the perfect man to lead the department, which employs scholars and scientists, assassins and con men, and a traveling circus. Spire's chief researcher is Rose Everhart, who believes fervently that there is more to the world than can be seen by mortal eyes.

Their first mission: find the Eterna Compound, which grants immortality. Catastrophe destroyed the hidden laboratory in New York City where Eterna was developed, but the Queen is convinced someone escaped—and has a sample of Eterna. Also searching for Eterna is an American, Clara Templeton, who helped start the project after the assassination of Abraham Lincoln nearly destroyed her nation. Haunted by the ghost of her beloved, she is determined that the Eterna Compound—and the immortality it will convey—will be controlled by the United States, not Great Britain.

When President Lincoln gets assassinated his late wife, Mary Todd, in her grief seeks answers in the realm of the preternatural in hopes of preventing what happened to her husband from ever happening again to future presidents. Mary Todd believed that 8 year-old spiritualist Clara Templeton and her guardian Senator Bishop are the answers to her prayers. She tasks them with finding the antidote to immortality and thus is born the Eterna Compound. However, Lincoln’s widow isn’t the only one looking for the elixir. Fast-forward about 17 years and another group in London, Omega, headed by Detective Spire and Researcher Everhart is doing the exact same. What the Americans and Europeans don’t know is that there’s a mysterious third party looking to derail both groups as everyone races to find Eterna and the elixir of life.

I thought Hieber did an amazing showcasing the plot alternating back and forth between the American and European perspective, especially with the large cast. Readers really get the feeling that they’re transported back to the 1800’s, with Hieber lush descriptions from the scenery down to minuscule detail of the characters’ clothing. It was interesting to see how each group went about their search, and techniques in accomplishing the same goals. While the American team comprised of spiritualists, an occultist and clairvoyant; the European team consisted of a detective, researcher and a couple of circus performers. The eclectic casts certainly shines with their personalities in an otherwise dreary and grim atmosphere of the time, and let’s not forget the abundances of ghosts surrounding them. But in my opinion the characters were the best part of the book, even when character development was lacking. Due to the myriad amount of characters vying for page time and multiple POVs, we didn’t get a lot of background information like other books that have 4-5 main characters.

Overall The Eterna Files was an enjoyable read, and has the potential to be an amazing series (I’m guessing there’s going to be subsequent books with how it ended). The pacing of the book is a bit slow as the author is setting the stage and foundation of her world, but it eventually picked up towards the end of the book with a shocking ending that will have readers begging for a sequel. I can’t wait to see what happens next!