Early Review – The Everlasting by Alix E. Harrow (5/5 stars)

Reading Level: Adult
Genre: Fantasy
Length: 320 pages
Publisher: Tor Books
Release Date: October 28, 2025
ASIN ‏ : ‎ B0DVR1JTYZ
Stand Alone or Series: Stand Alone
Source: eGalley from NetGalley
Rating: 5/5 stars

“Sir Una Everlasting was Dominion’s greatest hero: the orphaned girl who became a knight, who died for queen and country. Her legend lives on in songs and stories, in children’s books and recruiting posters—but her life as it truly happened has been forgotten.

Centuries later, Owen Mallory—failed soldier, struggling scholar—falls in love with the tale of Una Everlasting. Her story takes him to war, to the archives—and then into the past itself. Una and Owen are tangled together in time, bound to retell the same story over and over again, no matter what it costs.

But that story always ends the same way. If they want to rewrite Una’s legend—if they want to tell a different story–they’ll have to rewrite history itself.”

Series Info/Source: This is a stand alone book. I got this on ebook to review through NetGalley

Thoughts: I really, really loved this story. The story morphs and changes so many times from what I thought it was going to be to something different and takes so many unique twists and turns (I did not read the synopsis before I got this book for review). This is an odd blend of historical fantasy, time travel, and romance. I enjoyed this much more than “The Ten Thousand Doors of January” or Harrow’s Fractured Fables series.

Owen Mallory was a failure as a soldier (although most of the nation thinks otherwise) and is struggling as a historian when a book shows up on his desk. It is a unknown volume about the death of Sir Una Everlasting. Everlasting has been a prominent figure in Owen’s life; the stories about her are always there when he needs a morale boost or some direction in life. The mysterious book leads to Owen being called to speak with the nation’s leader, and from there he is plunged back into the past to ensure that Sir Una Everlasting becomes the hero that Dominion needs.

This is an incredibly emotional read that touches on so many things: love, war, loyalty, how legends are made, and how the perception of people changes over time.

This story took a little bit to get going and evolved so much as it went along. As first, I thought it was going to be about a historian tracking down the history of a figure he admired. Then I was excited because he was actually going to be spending time with this mythical figure. Then the story changed again, and you found out this was part of a vicious cycle.

Owen and Una are very engaging characters that are easy to love and root for. Their story was heart wrenching…over and over and over again. This is not your typical romance or love story, and it was refreshing and worked really well for me.

While there was some adventure and fantasy in here this was mostly about the strange (and loving) relationship that Owen and Una develop through these time loops. It was also about a bitter young woman (the queen) who was trying to hold on to power via any means. The queen made an excellent villain and I was somewhat sympathetic to her thinking and plight even though the way she struggled to maintain power was horrific. Although this also makes you think; isn’t most of the ways people struggle to maintain power somewhat horrific?

Anyway, enough babbling on about this book. I loved it. The characters are fantastic; the story is not what I expected and worked really well for me.

My Summary (5/5): Overall I loved this. This was an excellent story full of amazing characters and a storyline that is unpredictable and heartbreaking. This is a unique read that is not your typical romantic fantasy. There is a lot of food for thought here, and this was very hard for me to put down. I thought this was the best Harrow book I had read to date and look forward to her future stories.