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.
First Published 2025 | Fantasy | US | 311 pages
If someone asked me for a fantasy book with a good romance, I would not recommend this book.
If someone asked me for a fantasy book with a likeable protagonist, I probably wouldn’t recommend this book.
If someone asked me for a good, vibrantly built fantasy book, I wouldn’t not recommend the book, but I can think of better ones.
If someone asked me for a fantasy book addressing pertinent political points for our current mess of a world, I would recommend this book.
If someone says fantasy is just about escapism and therefore somehow less valid literature (not that I think that’s equivalent), I would definitely recommend this book. Because there is nothing escapist about this book.
In short, the fantasy and the romance aspect of this book did pretty much nothing for me. However, after about 15% of the way through the book when I realised that was going to be the case, I decided to start reading it as “speculative fiction” instead of fantasy – I started reading to critically engage with the meaning as the priority, rather than enjoying the story (of course, ideally, we do both each time, but that wasn’t this book for me). Once I did that, I could appreciate the story a lot more.
Our main character absolutely frustrated me (especially as someone who studies history), but he gets good character growth and represents important issues and real flaws that are relevant to our current social atmosphere. In this regards, he reminds me a bit of the protagonist from The Ministry of Time, but with better character development and payoff (if you know me, you know I detested the ending of The Ministry of Time – check out my review).
Also unlike The Ministry of Time, although I don’t love the romance, I don’t dislike it either. I need more on-page growth and less fate/weird time stuff that just makes them predisposed to love each other, but it works in the context of the plot and internal story logic, so it doesn’t annoy me so long as I don’t try and love it for the romance rather than what it actually does well – the social and political commentary. (That being said, it’s not purely instalove – hence predisposed, not predetermined.)
In the end, this book made me mad whilst reading it (a lot), including at the main character (especially in the beginning) but I definitely don’t think it was a bad book. I would like if I had cared about the book because I cared about what happened to the characters – which I mostly didn’t – but being able to care about the book because of the message and because of what possible endings say about our own world (i.e. I cared about the ending on a moral level rather than an entertainment or emotional level), is good enough for me.
(I will also say, I hated our bad guy more than our main character – and that is an important difference between this book and The Ministry of Time.)
Verdict
Some people absolutely loved this book, and I am definitely not one of those people. However, if anyone tries to claim this is a bad book, I will fight.
It is a well-written (in terms of prose), complex and important (in terms of plot) book with absolutely vital commentary on our times. It’s just not the kind of fantasy or romance I prefer, and therefore I will continue to enjoy it purely for its literary value and not much else (the cover is pretty too, so maybe be on aesthetic value in that sense as well).
If you’re looking for a book to make you think, definitely pick this one up – I’ve never written so many notes in a book I started reading for fun (mostly me repeatedly having a go at our MC’s poor historical research practices and awful research ethics).
Alternatively, if you’re more into the wavy-time-romance-fate stuff or Arthurian legend-type fantasy vibes than I am (because really this is lit-fic/dystopia/political commentary meets those two things), then you might also be able to read this book for entertainment reasons as well.
In the end, I gave this 3.5 stars. I don’t know if there would be a way to tell the same story without some of the pitfalls that caused me to dock marks in terms of enjoyment (e.g. the main character annoying me), so I didn’t knock marks for that. I did knock marks for the lack of emotional engagement beyond anger that this story evoked in me, as I think that weakens the message – if I had more emotional involvement or enjoyment then either one could have made this a four star book for me, but since my interest in the book remained on the intellectual level, I can’t really give it above a 3.5 – a high 3.5 though!
Please note that, for me, 3.5 stars is a good rating! See my explanation below (or my star ratings page for a full breakdown of how I award star ratings to books).
At this point we start getting into the books that I enjoyed and would recommend. 3.5 stars is for books I enjoyed but could point out specific flaws or wasn’t super impressed by. This is probably most people’s 4 stars, to be honest. Books that are super enjoyable but lack something a bit deeper, or the opposite – books that are really important but slightly less entertaining (but not boring!) – often get put here.
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I know this book has been exceptionally well-received, so I’d love to hear if you disagree with any of my points in the comments below!
Keira x
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