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This second book in Julie Kagawa's Blood of Eden series is a great follow-up to the first book. It starts off a little slow (but that might just be because I ended up having to read it in small portions at first), but then picks right up and ends with a gut-wrenching event. And though it very obviously needs at least one more book to finish the series, the story is given a satisfying conclusion . .

. for now.

Publication Information

• Full Title:The Eternity Cure
• Series: Blood of Eden (#2)
• Author: Julie Kagawa
• Publisher: Harlequin Teen
• Publication Date: 2013
• ISBN: 978-0-373-21069-5 (paperback), 978-1-460-31201-8 (e-book)

Find the Cure

When we left main character Allie at the end of The Immortal Rules, she had safely delivered Zeke -- and the hope of a cure to the Red Lung plague -- to Eden. But being a vampire, she couldn't stay, so she was headed back into the wilderness. As The Eternity Cure opens, Allie is suffering from nightmares, and since vampires don't dream, she knows that what she's actually experiencing is the pain and torture of her sire Kanin.

The main plot, this time, revolves around Allie's attempt to find and rescue Kanin from the psychopathic vampire Sarren. It will take her to new places -- the old capital, for example -- and back to old places -- like New Covington. And it will bring back some familiar characters from the first book, both good guys and bad.

And entwined with rescuing Kanin, there is also the matter of curing the plague, which has now taken on a new form, turning humans into zombies and infecting vampires directly (instead of its previous, indirect effect).

Save the World

Something that often seems to happen with sequels is that each time, the stakes have to get higher, so the stories become less personal. Instead of saving a friend, the main character has to save the world. The danger is that less personal can also mean less engaging for the reader, at the same time as the consequences are more dire for the fictional world they're reading about.

Lucky for us, Kagawa is a skilled enough writer that she keeps The Eternity Cure firmly grounded in the personal, while still upping the stakes and working in a save-the-world angle. For main character Allie, the most important thing is saving and protecting those she cares about. Yes, the rest of the world matters, but it's Kanin and Zeke who inspire her to give everything she's got.

Vampire Dystopia

I commented in my review of The Immortal Rules that even though both vampires and dystopias have been "done to death," in the hands of a good writer, they can still be fresh and new. And Kagawa manages to use both vampires anddystopia (and zombies, sort of) and create something fun and very readable, without any feeling that one has seen it all before.

Kagawa's vampires aren't the smouldering sexy superhumans of other books and TV series, nor are they little more than blood-drinking zombies. They're as varied as the humans they were created from, but more powerful. And scary. Through Allie's point of view, we can see that it is possible for a vampire to retain some humanity, but Allie isn't apologetic about what she has become. She's a monster, and she knows she's a monster, but what kind of monster she is is what makes the difference.

Devour This Book

There are some writers who may not produce the most mind-blowing prose, but who never fail to deliver a great story, and Julie Kagawa is one of those writers (though to be fair, her prose is generally quite good). The characters feel real, with the good guys having flaws that only make us love them more, and the bad guys having touches of humanity that make them seem more alive. Except Sarren. There is no good in him whatsoever, but it's a testament to Kagawa's skills of characterization that he is still a compelling character.

My only real disappointment with this book is that it ends on a down note. There is a small ray of hope right at the end, but it's a flickering, uncertain thing, and now I have to wait to find out what's going to happen. It is both a frustration and a joy to want so badly to read the next book right now.



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