A book review of “The Everlasting” by Alix E Harrow

Originally published in 2025

Genre: Fantasy

Page Count: 311 pages

Within the country of Dominion, there is one legend that is the cornerstone of their national identity. That is the tale of Una Everlasting, a girl who seemingly came out of nowhere many centuries ago beneath a yew tree and was raised a family of woodcutters. One day, she had to leave the village for a bit and when she returned, she discovered that it had been raided and only she survived. She then drew the blade from the yew tree beneath where she had been found and began to travel until she met the one who would become queen. It was there that she was named Una and later would receive her second name. She was knighted and became a national symbol; however, this story does not end without the tragedy of her death.

In the present, Owen Mallory falls in love with this story. He’s a scholar who also became a soldier for a while. It is her story that pushes him forward. It even pushes him into the past after having been sent a mysterious, previously unknown version of her story. He meets her and gets to know her better than a centuries-old story would tell him. He even falls in love with her; however, it still cannot end well. Her story always ends the same way, with tragedy. If they want to rewrite her story, they will need to do more than rewrite it in the present. This is easier said than done.

While reading this novel, I could easily see the inspiration of the Arthurian cycle. The story of Sir Una Everlasting is central to this novel, and it goes way further than how the story impacts Owen personally. This novel delves into how it affects the national identity and propaganda of Dominion.

At its heart, this is a novel about two people from very different periods of time bound by this story. The book is written with both Owen and Una telling each other the story. Because of this, in the narration, there are a lot more second-person pronouns than I’m used to. This did take a few chapters to get used to, but in the end, it made the story feel a lot more personal to me. It also gave me hope that everything would turn out fine.

This was a very nice book to read. It was romantic at times and tense at others, and it was a pleasure to get to know Owen and Una. The side characters and the antagonist were also interesting. I’m glad I read it.

Personal Rating: 5/5

Alix E. Harrow: Starling House

Kentuckylaisessa pikkukaupungissa sijaitsee synkkä vanha kartano, josta kerrotaan karmiva tarinoita. Jatkuvassa rahapulassa kituuttava Opal päätyy sattuman kautta taloon töihin ja joutuu outojen tapahtumien pyörteisiin.

Tarina oli periaatteessa ihan viihdyttävä fantasiaseikkailu ja tykkäsin sen goottilaistyylisestä synkkyydestä. Liian moni asia kuitenkin häiritsi. Henkilöt eivät olleet kovin kiinnostavia, Opal oli lähinnä ärsyttävä ja käyttäytyi kuin pahainen teini, vaikka oli 26-vuotias. Toinen päähahmo Arthur vaikutti aluksi kiinnostavalta, mutta taantui pian aika yksiulotteiseksi. Ja näiden kahden suhde on ihan käsittämätön, en ymmärrä mistä heidän välilleen olisi syntynyt mitään kemiaa.

Muutkin hahmot olivat lähinnä karikatyyrejä: köyhät ja taiteelliset ovat hyviksiä, rikkaat bisnestyypit pahiksia (rikaskin voi olla hyvis, kunhan omaisuus on perintönä saatua). Kiinnostavin hahmo oli itse talo, mutta sen persoonallisuus pääsi harmillisen vähän esiin.

Kirja tuntui myös vähän turhan pitkältä, varsinkin loppuhuipennus jatkui loputtomiin eikä sitten lopulta oikein huipentunutkaan mihinkään.

Kirja on kerännyt paljon kehuja StoryGraphissa, mutta minulle ei nyt oikein iskenyt.

#kirjamastodon #kirjafedi #kirjat #lukeminen #starlinghouse #alixeharrow

Strange Horizons - My review of The Everlasting by Alix E. Harrow 

#bookstodon #bookreview #bookrecs #fantasy #alixeharrow #theeverlasting
http://strangehorizons.com/wordpress/non-fiction/the-everlasting-by-alix-e-harrow/

October Reading Radar For Analogue Worlds In Portland, Oregon

https://investigativegeek.com/2025/10/14/october-reading-radar-for-analogue-worlds-in-portland-oregon/

Cached US Kindle giveaway on bsky: 6 copies of Alix E. Harrow's THE TEN THOUSAND DOORS OF JANUARY, over at https://bsky.app/profile/kithrup.bsky.social/post/3lquwcmlbis2l

#KindleBookGiveaway #AlixEHarrow #TheTenThousandDoorsOfJanuary

Greenteeth

GREENTEETH rating: four stars ⭐⭐⭐⭐.

What a debut! After yesterday–because I read the cozy fantasy GREENTEETH (Orbit/Hachette, February 25, 2025) in a single day–I’m a new fan of author Molly O’Neill. She knows her myths.

A goblin, a river spirit, and a witch walk into a bar. . .no, actually, they walk into the court of the Fairy King and Queen by way of enchanted fairy roads, and are given three quests in order to craft a magic weapon to defeat the bad guy. Can you resist this premise? You aren’t my people if you can.

A preacher shows up in a medieval English backwater called Chipping Appleby and turns out to be possessed by a wicked and ancient being, the Erl King. He doesn’t condemn Temperance Crump to death by drowning out of mere prejudice against healing women: Temperance doesn’t realize what a powerful sorceress she is, and therefore a threat to “Pastor Braddock’s” nefarious plans. Temperance is saved from death by Jenny Greenteeth, also a very ancient being, who lives in the river. As folklorist and podcaster Icy Sedgwick explains in her “Strange River Folklore: River Gods and Dark Spirits”: “[T]he grindylow appears in British folklore as a cautionary tale. Sometimes known as Jenny Greenteeth, the grindylow lurks in English rivers, ponds and marshes. According to the legends, these nasty critters dragged children into the deepest parts of the rivers if they ventured into the shallows.” (icysedgwick.com, “Folklore,” March 13, 2021). Despite her reputation, Jenny is good-hearted and keeps her river quite neat and tidy.

I was delighted with Jenny’s narrative voice from the very first sentence. This is how you do a first-person narrator.

Jenny pulls Temperance into her river cave full of treasures and they become friends. . .mostly. It’s a troubled friendship, full of misunderstandings. Temperance wants to go back to her family (without being executed for witchcraft again) and needs the help of Jenny’s deep power drawn from the river. They are driven to seeking the assistance of the Fairy King when they fail miserably to defeat the evil Erl King who has possessed Braddock’s body.

For three quests you need at least three questers, and the witty goblin Brackus, who sells treasures from the goblin market from his bottomless sack, makes up a third. It’s his idea to seek out the Fairy King who used to lead the Wild Hunt before he went into retirement. As a traveling salesman, Brackus knows the roads, including the fairy roads, and realizes that they will need to tap into far greater power to have any chance against such a foe.

For a bonus quester we have a dog! Lady Creiddylad, the Fairy Queen, equips the group with magic and advice, like Galadriel in Tolkien’s THE FELLOWSHIP OF THE RING (July, 1954), only Galadriel didn’t have a tall, rangy Wild Hunt hound named Cavall to send with the Fellowship. Cavall is itching for a good run.

Fairy court, goblin market goods, epic hound dog, found family, Welsh-ish names, epic journeys: GREENTEETH has everything a fantasy fan needs for a few hours of summer pleasure reading.

The twist/big reveal at the end? Magnificent. I felt dumb for not having predicted it given all the clues, but I’m glad I didn’t. Unless I come across some more super-fun reads, GREENTEETH will very likely make my list of top 10 books of 2025.

Reading in context:

Gender-bending ladyknights seem to be a theme in 2025 fantasy novels, and you can add Temperance and Jenny to the list. You won’t want to miss the third installment in the “Legends and Lattes” series by Travis Baldree, BRIGANDS AND BREADKNIVES (Tor/Macmillan, November 11, 2025), in which rattkin bookseller Fern sort-of-accidentally becomes the squire of Astryx, warrior of legend and ballad, or THE EVERLASTING by Alix E. Harrow (Tor/Macmillan, (October 28, 2025), a time-loop extravaganza starring ladyknight Una Everlasting. The romance in THE EVERLASTING had me in tears, and the depth of Harrow’s character development of the villain was astonishing.

What I’m reading now:

THE STRENGTH OF THE FEW by James Islington (Saga/Simon & Schuster, November 11, 2025), the second novel in the “Hierarchy” series.

#Greenteeth #MollyONeill #fantasy #sff #England #IcySedgwick #fae #cozy #WildHunt #LOTR #Tolkien #LegendsAndLattes #BrigandsAndBreadknives #TheEverlasting #AlixEHarrow #magic

#AlixEHarrow #BrigandsAndBreadknives #cozy #England #fae #fantasy #Greenteeth #IcySedgwick #Legends #LegendsAndLattes #LOTR #magic #MollyONeill #sff #TheEverlasting #Tolkien #WildHunt

#rebsReadings in March 2025, so-so.

#DanaSuffrin #MarieDarrieussecq #TomSaller #JuttaSpeidel #MarthaWells #AlixEHarrow #ElfiConrad #ClaireNorth #bookstodon @bookstodon