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Eternally Yours Book Cover Eternally Yours
Kalynn Bayron, Kendare Blake, Kat Cho, Melissa de la Cruz, Hafsah Faizal, Sarah Gailey, Chloe Gong, Alexis Henderson, Adib Khorram, Anna-Marie McLemore, Casey McQuiston, Sandhya Menon, Akshaya Raman, Marie Rutkoski, and Julian Winters.
Young Adult
Viking Books for Young Readers
September 20, 2022
eBook, Hardcover, Audiobook
411

Give in to this irresistible paranormal romance anthology filled with tales of the mortal and the monstrous. In Eternally Yours, fifteen of today’s bestselling writers explore love in its many forms . . .

Contributors include Kalynn Bayron, Kendare Blake, Kat Cho, Melissa de la Cruz, Hafsah Faizal, Sarah Gailey, Chloe Gong, Alexis Henderson, Adib Khorram, Anna-Marie McLemore, Casey McQuiston, Sandhya Menon, Akshaya Raman, Marie Rutkoski, and Julian Winters.

Vampires and merpeople, angels and demons—the stories in this anthology imagine worlds where the only thing more powerful than the supernatural, is love.

A girl in a graveyard goes on an unexpected date, a shipwrecked sailor makes a connection on a forbidden island, a piano melody summons a soul mate. Creatures of folktales and legend, of land and sea, of centuries past and life after life, all wrapped into one spellbinding compendium. Once you sink into its pages, it’ll never let you go.

“Mary, Mary, quite contrary, how does your garden grow ? With silver bells and cockle shells and a bunch of severed heads and stuff.”

I feel like the expectations when you get an anthology is that there will be a few stand-out stories, maybe even a couple by some of your faves, and the rest are….ok.  But have you ever read an anthology that is just 5 stars after 5 stars?  My friends, I would challenge you to pick up Eternally Yours and not have your mind blown at the end of each story.

I was sold on the anthology as soon as I saw the cover, I have no shame in my game, I will 100% buy a book because of the cover, but when combined with the incredible authors there was absolutely no chance I would not be diving in head first at the soonest possible opportunity.  Let us rejoice together at the greatness this anthology contains with works by Kalynn Bayron, Kendare Blake, Kat Cho, Melissa de la Cruz, Hafsah Faizal, Sarah Gailey, Chloe Gong, Alexis Henderson, Adib Khorram, Anna-Marie McLemore, Casey McQuiston, Sandhya Menon, Akshaya Raman, Marie Rutkoski, and Julian Winters.

We begin with a story about a girl turned ghoul who is determined to destroy those responsible for turning her into the undead being she is now, but a surprisingly articulate severed head allows her to see eternity in a different light.  If I told you about a love story between a ghoul and a head, would you think you may have ventured too far into the dark romance genre? Rest assured that it was a sweet YA paranormal romance, that managed to tug some impressive heartstrings in it’s few short pages.  I believe it set the tone perfectly for the stories to follow which all put a unique twist on epic love stories.

“His voice is like a melody— a combination of chords and rhythm and a climbing pitch. He laughs like fire fills his lungs. He stays close to my side like I’m the sun that maintains his orbit.”

If diversity is what you are looking for, this is the perfect anthology to lose yourself in. We are treated to characters from different backgrounds, genders, sexualities and beyond.  I do believe this is the first time I have seen “demisexual” referred to in a book, and Alexis Henderson’s tale poses the obvious question, why should a heavenly being fit into a gender binary once they have taken human form?

“I echo the same promises I made to you a thousand years ago. Yet all that time has not been enough. We have had a thousand years and I want a thousand more.”

Picking up this anthology is a no-brainer if you are looking for love-stories that push boundaries without getting too gritty, and romance is that is intense without much spice.  For this bee, it was a winner all around, and I have a feeling I will be pulling up these short stories when I need a quick, sweet, treat to knock me out of a reading slump.  Congrats to all the contributors on an amazing collaboration!