The Everlasting
by Alix E. Harrow
Reviewed by Galen Strickland
Posted November 21, 2025
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I will give you a brief overview of The Everlasting, but refrain from too many details. It is one of my favorite new books of the year, and I am sure it will be appearing on numerous award ballots next year. There is a book within the book, and by the end the title of that book has changed, as have many events, or at least the memory of those events. That book begins as The Death of Una Everlasting, but it eventually becomes The Life of Una Everlasting. If every iteration of the book had been preserved, it would have been The Life and Deaths of Una Everlasting. Please note the plural of the fourth word. Even though the events and characters are unique to this book, they are reminiscent of other familiar tales, most particularly of King Arthur and Camelot, further referenced by the author/translator of Una's history, Sir Owen Mallory.
It is a secondary world fantasy set on the continent later to be known as Dominion, which became an empire that conquered most all of the various peoples on that continent, as well as adjacent lands, such as The Hinterlands. Owen Mallory lives in the capital city a thousand years or so after the height of the empire, the first monarch of which had been Queen Yvane. Now it is just a republic, having lost control of the other regions it had once ruled, although later wars, one for which Owen enlisted, were attempts to regain them. We learn that later, but at the beginning Owen is a scholar, a researcher and lecturer in the Department of History at Cantford College. He had been working on a manuscript for quite a while, one which his adviser thought was worthless. One day he gets a book in the post that appears to be an ancient text. The covers are a rich, red heartwood bound by bronze hinges, the pages of wood pulp paper rather than vellum. He spends several days laboring over a translation, but then one day the book is missing, and in its place is a plain white card with only an address. He wasn't aware of where he was going until he reached that address; the Capitol. He is ushered into an office where he meets someone he had only known by reputation, Vivian Rolfe, the Minister of War. After his stuttering, stumbling attempts to speak to her, she tells him to call her Vivian.
Vivian has the book, handling it in a careless manner that alarms Owen. He is further surprised when she opens it, since the pages are blank. Her intention is for him to write the book in the Old Middletongue, then translate it for a new edition. But how could he do that when he had only read a few pages of the other book so far? It turns out he had written the book, only he had not remembered doing so. The means of that happening occurs to him too late, after the Minister sends him back in time to observe Una's life first hand. When he comes back to consciousness he realizes where he is, in the dense woods near where he grew up, with his hand placed on a very familiar tree. The first line in Una's book, all variations, is: "It begins where it ends: beneath the yew tree." Una approaches him from behind and places the tip of her heralded sword, Valiance, against the back of his neck. Something causes her to hesitate, perhaps a remembrance of his face, his large nose, and anachronistic spectacles. Yes, they had met before. Owen had written the book several times, advising Una of what she needed to do to make sure her history matched his memory of stories he had read as a child. Later, he realizes one of his colleagues had experienced the same things, probably numerous times, but Vivian Rolfe was not satisfied, which caused her to choose Owen as the chronicler instead. Vivian may have expected Owen to fall in love with Una, but maybe not the other way around. Una had been Queen Yvane's champion, the leader of her army of conquest. No matter how disheartened Una had become, regretful of many of her actions, her love for the Queen still dominated her thoughts. Until that changed.
It has been said that history is written by the winners. What if, instead, history had been created by the eventual winner, before the fact? Vivian's changes to the time streams were her attempt to make sure she becomes the new queen when Dominion rises again. She needed Una's story to be the catalyst for patriotic fervor. In addition to this being about greed, avarice, and the desire for power, it is also about love and commitment, a loyalty of a more personal sort. Everything Una and Owen experienced strengthened their love, as well as their realization of how dangerous Vivian was. Would there ever be an end to it if Vivian could come back in time too, and reverse any changes they made to history? Supposedly they were bound to the year of Una's "first" death, and before Owen's birth. If they could find a way to break that, they might find a way to break Vivian. The yew tree is the key. Everything started with it, and would end with it. Again and again. Think of your favorite fairy tale, your favorite hero. Read this book and you just might have a new one. I give this book the highest of recommendations.
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