The Everlasting by Alix E. Harrow: a review

a fable of power and great love

The Everlasting begins where it ends: beneath a yew tree. Its first chapter, The First Death of Una Everlasting, reads like a eulogy written for a nation’s best. We’re told that Una, knight of the realm, died for her queen, and that sacrifice birthed a great nation. But the story we’re given isn’t the one that was. It’s one version, one fate. But in Harrow’s brilliant book, fate can be rewritten.

Owen works as a historian in the republic of Dominion. Una’s legend is its founding myth, and Owen’s job is to preserve it. When he receives an anonymous envelope containing what appears to be the original manuscript of Una’s story, he doesn’t just read it—he enters it. He finds himself in the past, with Una still alive and her final history unwritten. Now his task is to make her the hero his country’s myth demands.

The novel’s looping structure—built on repetition and return—is a tricky one and Harrow never once falters in its execution. Owen evolves slowly and believably. At first, he trusts the fables he’s been told, and is sure of the necessity of shared history. But slowly he begins to question who and what Una’s legend serves. Una, too, transforms and together they take control--or at least try--of her (and now his) story.

Working to maintain the original myth is the nation’s queen. She is--and this makes her far more compelling than most iron-fisted rulers--defined not by cruelty, but by conviction. Like many a zealot, she is sure the stories she spins are the ones others should believe. I found her equal parts compelling and terrifying.

Had this just been a story about national mythmaking, it would have been a stellar read. But at its heart, it’s a love story. Owen and Una are bound not by destiny but by choice, again and again. And that choice is HARD. It often costs them. It requires loss, surrender, and courage. A great love usually does.

How does Una’s story end? That would be telling. I’ll just say that, when it matters, what happens beneath the yew tree is worth every heartbreak the novel offers. I loved everything about this book, even its unusual second-person narration. The Everlasting made me think, made me cry, and made me want to reach for those I love. It has my highest recommendation.

(this book is available at Amazon—I am an affiliate)