Exclusive interview with author Leanna Renee Hieber and a review of her supernatural novel about immortality
Rating: Three Stars
By Gabrielle Pantera
“The early draft of The Eterna Files was inspired by binge-watching the many seasons of MI-6 and really falling in love with the character dynamics,” says Eterna Files author Leanna Renee Hieber. “All of my books thus far are set in the late 19th century, between the 1860s and 1880s, and all of them are full of ghosts and paranormal activity, so I wanted to play with the idea of what would happen to a pre-MI-6 office dealing with the paranormal. This pulled in my love of The X-files as well. All my hard work in carving out a cross-genre niche in Gothic Victorian Urban Fantasy, a forerunner among modern Gaslamp Fantasy authors, is all coming together in The Eterna Files.”
The Eterna Files is a race between the Americans and the British to find a way to achieve immortality. In 1882 London, Queen Victoria appoints Harold Spire of the Metropolitan Police to head Special Branch Division Omega, created to secretly investigate paranormal and supernatural events. The group’s first mission is to find the Eterna Compound, created in a lab in New York, where American Clara Templeton is also searching for Eterna. As a child she had visions and dreams of future events. Clara invented Eterna, and blames herself for those who died making the compound. Among them was her love, a relationship so secret she can tell no one about her loss.
Heiber’s descriptions of New York and London are vivid. The book is dialog heavy, and there are instances of repetition. Meeting Clara as a child you expect she will be strong, but her character becomes weaker as she gets older, the opposite of character growth. A ghostly woman appears to Clara when something is about to go wrong, but doesn’t help Clara stop bad things from happening. The book ends on a cliffhanger, but there are unanswered questions.
“My work as a Gothic novelist is focused on telling stories of empowered women and unconventional men facing otherworldly danger and rising to brave challenges,” says Hieber. “My characters are quirky and unique, often disenfranchised from society due to their conditions, viewpoints or paranormal status in the world. I love bringing the past to life in a very psychically charged way. I hope my readers will connect to my characters on a mental, psychic and emotional level. My process remains a bit mysterious to me. It’s full of magic and unexpected turns. I wouldn’t have it any other way.”
The Eterna Files is the third book in Hieber’s Gaslamp Fantasy series. It features characters from the prior books. Her first novel, The Strangely Beautiful Tale of Miss Percy Parker began her acclaimed Strangely Beautiful saga. Darker Still began her Magic Most Foul saga for Young Adults, Hieber is a playwright. Her short plays have won regional awards and been produced around the country. She’s adapted works of 19th century literature for the stage. Hieber has won four Prism Awards for excellence in the genre of Fantasy Romance. Darker Still was named an American Bookseller’s Association Indie Next List title and a Scholastic edition “Highly Recommended” title. Hieber says The Eterna Files series has gained Hollywood interest and she’s starting a production company. The Strangely Beautiful Tale of Miss Percy Parker is being adapted into a musical theatre production. A demo album of the show is at http://strangelybeautifulthemusical.com
Hieber is currently working on a revamped edition of The Strangely Beautiful Tale of Miss Percy Parker and The Darkly Luminous Fight for Persephone Parker, to be bound into a single volume as it she’d originally intended. “When the original publisher went bankrupt and the books went out of print, it was utterly devastating to me and to my readers,” says Hieber. “This second-chance resurrection of the full, four-book series with Tor is a dream come true. It follows a group of Spectral Police in 1888 London. It’s Victorian Ghostbusters.”
Hieber is based in New York City. She was born near Cincinnati, Ohio.
The Eterna Files Hardcover – February 10, 2015 by Leanna Renee Hieber. Hardcover: 320 pages, Publisher: Tor Books; First Edition (February 10, 2015), Language: English, ISBN: 9780765336743 $24.99
