Beth and Nils were super lucky to be sent an advanced copy of The Everlasting by Alix E. Harrow – being one of their favourite authors, they of course had to buddy read this one together. 

The Everlasting is a particularly twisty book, so they’ve done their best to make this review spoiler-free… Before we dive into their review, here’s the official blurb – so we can establish what is and isn’t known!

A legend. A lie. A love story.

A lady-knight whose legend built a nation meets a retiring historian in awe of her fame. He’s sent back through time to make sure she plays her part . . . even if it breaks his heart.

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, and finally tell a different story, they’ll have to rewrite history itself – and change their lives in the process.

The Everlasting is due for release on 30th October – you can pre-order your copy from Bookshop.org

All quotes are taken from an early ARC and are subject to change upon publication.

What were your first impressions?

Nils: Admittedly this is the first time I’ve ever been nervous to read an Alix E Harrow book because I have loved everything I’ve read by her and her books have never failed to impress me. Yet the last Lady Knight book I read, well actually it was a series, was really not for me, it was immensely disappointing, and so I was worried that perhaps I would feel the same with The Everlasting.

Beth: I think I was the opposite to you Nils, I was so excited to start this one. After The Knight and the Butcherbird earlier this year, which was a short story? Novella? I was desperate to sink back into another of Harrow’s worlds after that wonderful taster. I like to go into books as blind as possible so I was looking forward to discovering what Harrow had in store for us this time. I didn’t quite share your worry Nils!

Nils: Thankfully though Beth, once I started reading disappointment was very far from my mind! From the moment we are plunged into the WW1-esque secondary world of Dominion and met Owen Mallory, our painfully soft Historian and learnt of his obsession with Una Everlasting, I was instantly emotionally invested. I loved that Harrow immediately let readers know that this wasn’t just a Lady Knight tale, this was more the story of Owen who fell in love with Una Everlasting, the Legend, the Hero but also the woman. It was such a good few opening chapters. 

And as we read on, we discover the story is so much more. 

Beth: The opening of this book was like a treasure trail for me; it hooked me and excited me so much! We open with a fairy-tale like excerpt telling of the origins of a legendary knight, which closes with the information that it is translated by an Owen Mallory. We then have some missives between Mallory and a professor arguing over the validity of a finding, and then we’re introduced properly to Mallory himself. By this point I was furiously scribbling notes about Arthurian legend and Thomas Malory and that age-old conflict between myth, story, and history – what if you found a contemporary manuscript that proved King Arthur’s existence? I was all set for hunting for Arthurian Easter eggs and exploring the ideas around myths being confused for historical fact, and wasn’t at all prepared for the journey this book actually takes you on – but was beyond thrilled with what happened next!

Let’s talk about the characters – what did you think of Owen Mallory?

Beth: Harrow’s characters are always such complex creatures, and this was certainly true of Owen. The intricacies of the plot and the unfolding events (which I’m being very careful about) reflect in the way he grows and changes. 

Nils: Harrow is always so damn good at portraying characters, at really getting under their skin so that their motivations, their passions and their flaws are fully exposed if you look closely enough. The way in which Owen grows, learns more about himself, questions his actions and his past deeds is so cleverly done because the way the narrative shapes up forces him to do this, to be retrospective. 

Beth: Yes! I agree it’s so clever how Harrow has managed this. When we first meet him, Owen is a researcher in a college and a veteran, he has a disfiguring injury that awarded him a bravery commendation that he is very bitter about. He isn’t the most reliable of narrators for a variety of reasons; our understanding of him is a gentle untangling throughout the whole story that Harrow handles so well. 

I think an aspect about him I loved the most was his confusion about cowardice and bravery. We’ll talk later in the review about the themes of war and colonialism and the reasons people fight, but it really broke my heart the way he so frequently saw himself a coward. The notion of bravery and how it can be perceived so differently. 

Nils: I loved Owen for so many reasons but one aspect that truly made me feel for him was that he never felt like he belonged. The villagers judge him for being the son of a traitor, for being darker skinned, an outsider from the Hinterlanders, and then his father judges him for going to war and fighting against his own kin. His internal struggles, his loneliness, and his conflicting resentment is just so well portrayed. I really wanted to give him a hug! 

Beth: There was a lot of conflict between Owen and his father because of his beliefs and the fact he wanted to fight for his country but I don’t think his father necessarily judges him for that; Owen is obviously fighting because it’s a way for him to demonstrate that he does belong to this country and is a citizen of Dominion, it’s a way for him to fit in and prove he deserves to fit in. His father, having seen the truth of war, obviously doesn’t want that for his son, and it’s heartbreaking that Owen doesn’t realise that’s his father’s standpoint. It’s so sad that he doesn’t understand his father.

‘He didn’t seem to understand that a man like me would never be wholly beyond suspicion, no matter how ardently loyal, while a man like him would never be wholly condemned, no matter how faithless. That I had always hated him, just a little, for the privilege of his deviance.’

Nils: I think you’re right there Beth, I think his father is more disappointed that he couldn’t shield his son from war.

It is easy to see why Owen is a bit of a dreamer, why he puts Una upon a pedestal, creating an image of her in his own mind that isn’t necessarily a true version of her. He needs Una to quell the loneliness and despair inside of himself, but to truly love someone you need to really see them and that’s what Owen will soon discover. 

And how about Sir Una? Did she break the curse of the Lady Knight for you Nils?

Nils: Oh most definitely! I will say at first because we were viewing Sir Una and her deeds through Owen’s POV, I personally struggled to get much personality from her, I loved her character nonetheless because despite all her recorded legendary legacy, her tale is sad and lonely too, but once the narrative switched to Una’s perspective and Harrow explored her inner turmoil, that’s when I truly loved Una so much! Beth, you felt differently didn’t you? You saw so much of Una’s personality from the beginning didn’t you?

Beth: I did! When you messaged to say you didn’t think she had much personality I was genuinely so surprised! You mention above about Owen putting her on a pedestal, but the whole nation does, she is literally a poster-girl for national identity and joining the war – when we then meet Una herself, it’s clear she’s already on that pedestal in her own time, and hates it. She is clearly painfully aware of how others view her, whether it’s the national hero who wins battles for their Queen, or the monstrous knight who subjected them for their unwanted ruler. Like Owen’s father, Una knows the truth of war and hates herself for the parts she’s played. I saw someone who was isolated and fearful of themselves and trying their best not to get too close to anyone.

‘That lost, fearful expression had returned to your face, as if you had been walking for a long time in a country you did not know under stars you could not name. As if you had forgotten where you had meant to go in the first place, and no longer believed it was worth it.’

Nils: Yes, great point, the whole nation has her on a pedestal, a symbol of their heroic knight. What I loved about Sir Una is the contrast between the historical account of her figure and the actual woman that she was. I mean how much do we actually know about the lives and the mindset of the historical figures we read of? Therefore here we get Sir Una the Legend and then Una the broken woman. Harrow explores both these sides in such a carefully contemplative way, again organically shaping her character to grow and change but also showing how hard those changes were to accept.

Beth: I think this comes into our next question, doesn’t it, because we’re dealing with the stories people tell about a person, and the actual person and who they really are. History is written by the winners, and this is a very difficult lesson for Owen to learn for such a long time. The Una he is presented with is not the Una he thinks he knows, because that Una never existed. 

Nils: Exactly. Just as a last note, I think my aversion to the last Lady Knight series that I read was because it was meant for a younger audience and so I was missing that character depth that I’ve found in The Everlasting. 

Every book or story from Harrow concerns the nature of storytelling, what did you think of this theme this time around?

Beth: As the blurb tells us, Owen is sent back in time to write the story of Una Everlasting, to chronicle her adventures as she lives them – it felt like an Arthurian version of Michael Morcock’s Behold the Man  in that regard, ensuring a story that people rely on happened and so can become a story… But the message surrounding why stories are used also struck me. The story of brave Saint or Sir Una the Everlasting is used, in Owen’s time, to pull a nation together, to give them a sense of national identity and pride, and stir them to fight  for an idea, for an ideal, represented by that figure. It put me in mind of Henry VIII’s obsession with glory in battle against France – he used Arthurian mythology to inspire the nation to support and excuse his goals there. It put me in mind of the Welsh princess Gwenllian, beheaded in battle against the Normans, whose name was then used as a battlecry by the Welsh in subsequent battles. 890 years later, Gwenllian’s story is still told locally; the actual details of who she was aren’t as commonly remembered as why she died.

Stories have power. This is the key element Harrow always returns to, and in The Everlasting, Harrow is exploring their power to drive entire nations and shape a national identity. But as Orwell said, ‘He who controls the past, controls the future. He who controls the present, controls the past.’ Who is writing the story of the past to ensure a particular version of the future plays out?

Nils: Beth makes some absolutely excellent points there and I wholeheartedly agree that The Everlasting showcases how stories have power. Historical ‘facts’ are not always recorded accurately, historical deeds have been shaped by those who wrote it, manipulated by the political state of the world at the time, or even rewritten to become more favourable to the victor. Stories therefore can be just as powerful and deadly a weapon than any legendary sword.

Beth: You can track a similar thing in different editions and translations of the Bible, where different lessons and messages are emphasised to support political needs of the time. 

It’s as I mentioned at the start of our review, too, how entangled myth and legend can become with historical fact. For example, if you go into any Waterstones store, to their history section, you’ll find sections there for various mythologies too. In Wales especially, our myths are closely entangled with our history, there’s a strong sense that these are things that actually happened. It doesn’t help that actual figures from our history have been given a legendary slant, like Princess Gwenllian I mentioned earlier, or Owain Glyndwr, or Llywelyn the Great, or the Lord Rhys. I enjoyed exploring how Harrow examined this notion of blending the mythological with the historical in The Everlasting. 

Nils: Great points. I have to mention my favourite aspect of Harrow’s exploration of stories in all her books is the way she also portrays how emotive stories can be. Offering hope in hopeless times, offering happy endings where those seem impossible. Owen often speaks of how Una saved him, of how her stories gave him a means of escape and intellectual focus. Then as we read further and events become rather twisty Harrow shows that we too can change our story, like Owen and Una, it just takes courage. 

Beth: Oh that is such a good point! I loved when Owen was talking about the different times of his life that Una’s story had affected, because I think we can all relate to that, how different stories stay with us and how important stories can be. 

In her acknowledgements, Harrow says ‘This is a book about love: defiant love, endurant love, love born in a bad world and determined to build a better one.’

What other themes did you pick up on and enjoy?

Nils: Oh gosh the love aspect of this story was amazing, it was so achingly and poignantly done and I just adored Owen and Una’s journey so much. 

Beth: Despite everything we’ve covered in this review so far this story is first and foremost a love story; what love can endure, and what lengths you yourself will go to for love.

Nils: This was by far my favourite of the themes, but there were plenty more that I enjoyed too. The cost of war being one of them. Harrow gives us a well rounded view of the effects of war but not only on the nation or the land, but also on the soldiers who fight in them, the veterans who come back haunted and broken. She gives us a deep dive into how soldiers begin by thinking they’re fighting for a righteous cause, that they’re doing their duty and being patriotic, or even fighting for love, but when they face the reality, the brutality, the violence, the blood and death, the reasons become muddied. They begin to question why they are even there, they begin to question whether it was worth it. Through Owen and Una’s points of view we discover the toll that takes. 

‘Afterward, I had seen myself reflected in the eyes of a young girl – a giant in ash-stained armor, black hearted, bloody handed – and understood there would always be at least one monster left, while I lived.
I could not aide the songs, after that.’

Beth: Absolutely Nils, I thought this was a major theme running through it too. The stories people tell themselves to justify their actions, whether that’s ‘for the good of the nation’ or ‘because my Queen asked it of me’ or ‘I was just following orders’. I loved watching Una and Owen grow the strength to push back against those narratives. When Owen has that moment of ‘wait, are we the baddies?’ For such a long time he has such a naive perspective on war and peace, and why Una fought the battles she did. For Una, she is struggling against the colonisation she had such a pivotal role in, and Owen is almost angry with her for it. History is the written record of the past, but in the act of it being written it will always be subject to the writer’s opinion of that person. 

Favourite quotes? – All quotes are taken from an early ARC and are subject to change upon publication.

Nils:

‘The world might remember you as I wrote you, but I would remember you as you were: hard and strange and silent, your hands bloodied and your soul sick with it. I would remember the line between your brows. I would remember that you were not beautiful, not really, but that the sight of you struck me as a hammer strikes hot iron, reordering my very atoms.’

‘I thought, despairingly, that love didn’t make cowards of us, after all; it made heroes, and heroes usually didn’t survive.’

Beth: I’ve cheated a little and sprinkled some of my favourite quotes throughout the review, just because there were so many of them! But here are some more:

‘I swayed a little, looking up at you through smeary glasses. There was a wet gobbet of something stuck to your cheekbone, steaming faintly in the cold. A bruise was blooming at one temple, and you were scowling down at me like the wrath of God. I thought how funny it was, how baffling, that I’d ever thought you unbeautiful.’

‘Exiles and hungry peasants hid among the trees, and their gaunt faces made the knight wonder… If a throne was a kind of weapon, by which the world was cut into two halves: the dead and the kneeling.’

Overall impressions? 

Nils: There is so much to say about this book but so much that you cannot say because this is a tale that is filled with twists and turns and hidden depths which each reader will enjoy all the more for discovering those nuggets of surprise. We deliberately haven’t mentioned the villain of this novel nor have we really discussed other characters and that is not because Harrow does not include them or portray them fantastically, but it is because it would give away too much. 

Harrow’s prose is as always poetic, meaningful and conveys so much emotion. Her character work is as always top notch, the exploration of themes and politics is thought provoking and relevant to today’s world, but it is also subtly done. The narrative arc of Owen and Una is however the focal point, it is a love story that is haunting, melancholic but oh so beautifully explored. These are two characters that have stayed with me long after I turned the last page. The Everlasting is an evocative and achingly beautiful read, it is one that will seep under your skin and consume you right until the end. 

Beth: As Nils said, we’ve barely scratched the surface of this book in this review and the clever things it does. 

The wonderful thing about The Everlasting is that you can read it for the enjoyment of a story masterfully told, for the enjoyment and pure escapism of following the love story of Owen and Una and get swept along in their tale. But amongst that, it’s also really thought provoking and you can take a much deeper dive if you so wish. I have always loved Harrow’s books for their strength of characters and magical storytelling, but Harrow’s plotting in this story scales dizzying new heights that had me reeling. Her writing is utterly sublime this time round, too; there were so many lines I bookmarked for their beauty or for how they struck me. 

If you enjoy stories that flirt with myths, legends and fairytales, that twitch the curtain hiding behind chivalrous stories of knights, then you too will be swept away by The Everlasting. Without doubt this is my book of the year so far, and it will be a Herculean effort to beat it. 

The Everlasting is due for release on 30th October – you can pre-order your copy from Bookshop.org