Seventeen-year-old Miranda has no idea that she’s being watched—and followed and loved—by a guardian angel. Zachary has known Miranda since the moment of her birth, watching and protecting her—and falling in love with her as she grows into a beautiful, if a bit awkward and insecure, young woman. But when Miranda’s life is threatened by a rogue band of vampires, Zachary falls down on the job. 
He’s been disgraced in the sight of “the Big Boss,” and he’s lost track of Miranda, who has become the gothic Princess to the reigning Dracula, head of a worldwide underground vampire network. So when Zachary is given a second chance to redeem himself, he jumps at the chance to help Miranda find her own brand of redemption. But there’s one little problem. As a human, Miranda was sometimes unhappy, sometimes ridiculed, sometimes disappointed over her parents’ divorce. Life as an eternal, where she has a horde of servants, a killer wardrobe and a tricked-out SUV, is something completely different: “I’m finally the life of the party. All I had to do was die.”
Peopled with vampires, werefolk, angels and other eternals, Cynthia Leitich Smith’s book continues to explore the mythology she developed in her first gothic novel, Tantalize. Riddled with references to popular culture and classic literature, filled with dozens of clever one-liners (“With each button, I feel more like a refugee from the prom of the damned.”), Eternal introduces serious ideas—about loyalty, love, faith and salvation—in a lighthearted guise. Fans of Tantalize and Eternal—especially those frustrated by the cliff-hanger endings of both novels—will be pleased to learn that these parallel story lines will unite in a future series installment. Smith has built on centuries of vampire lore to create a spooky, snarky, supernatural world all her own.
