Thursday Review: Young Hearts (Children of Eternity 3) by Claire Lachance

Samantha Young

Long time ago in the heady days of yore, back in September and October, I reviewed the first two books of the Children of Eternity series, which began with Forever Young and then Young Family.  The first two books chronicle the story of Samantha Young, an amnesiac who lives on an island with about 50 other children who have lived there for over 350 years thanks to the Fountain of Youth.  So now let's get back to it with the third book, which in some ways is the best of the lot.

In the first book Samantha deposed the evil Reverend Crane to free the kids of the island.  In the second book much of their little society was wiped out by a hurricane and the only remaining adult--Miss Brigham--was turned into a baby by the fountain water.  The third story picks up a few years later when Samantha is 14 and officially the head of the island.  The kids have rebuilt much of what has been lost, but a bad harvest and brutal winter has left their supplies badly depleted.  Samantha sees no choice but to finally go to the mainland to get what they need.

Prudence

So she takes her chubby friend Prudence and the nerdy Wendell with her in a crude boat across the Atlantic to a coastal Maine town.  They're picked up by a descendant of the evil Mr. Pryde who used to torment the kids of the island, but this Mr. Pryde turns out to be a nice guy who lets Samantha and her friends stay in his house.  Though she lost her memory, Samantha remembers things like TV, radio, cars, and so forth but for Prudence and Wendell it's a big shock.  Since they've been living with 17th Century technology for centuries, things like cars and TVs seem like magic to them.

Meanwhile, Mr. Pryde's son Joseph finds some ancient Native American caves with a bunch of strange old potions inside.  As a science nerd, Joseph starts to analyze the potions to unlock their secrets.  He does this in large part because he wants to find a way to look all buff and cool to impress Samantha even though she secretly already is crushing on him but doesn't have the guts to tell him.  Joseph is successful, though with the unexpected consequence that he starts turning into a huge douche bag.

When he convinces Samantha to start taking the potions too, her friends begin to notice she's becoming a total bimbo.  She doesn't believe them, thinking they're just jealous of her.  This all leads to an inevitable showdown between Joseph/Samantha and Prudence/Wendell.

Wendell

Back on the island, little Molly Brigham makes a new friend, an old lady named Veronica who has designs on the island's secrets.  [ominous music...]

Where I think this improves on the previous stories is that it gets the story out of the claustrophobic setting of the island and into the wider setting of the modern world.  I mean there's only so much you can do on a tiny rock in the middle of the ocean.  As people saw with "Lost" eventually you have to start doing crazy shit like going back in time and whatnot in order to keep things interesting.

Also while the first one especially was aimed at a younger audience, the third volume is more for older readers with romance and even thinly-veiled sex.  No, Samantha is not Bella Swan, sighing and biting her lip forever and a day before finally having sex on her wedding night.  Though Samantha is also under the influence of the potions.

Since it rotates from Sam/Joe to Prudence/Wendell plus the stuff back on the island it has a lot more epic feel to it than the previous stories.  Which is good, I think.  The story also answers that age-old question of whether a sow and an infant can drive a car.  I'm just saying.

Next week I'll wrap up the series.  Hooray!

Tomorrow you can win a free ebook and get a preview of Michael Offutt's "Oculus" in conjunction with the blogathon of doom!