The Everlasting (2025) is Alix E. Harrow’s fourth novel, after The Ten Thousand Doors of January, The Once and Future Witches, and Starling House, all of which I’ve absolutely loved. She is one of the authors that helped me discover that historical fantasy is my jam. I was fortunate that she did an event within reasonable driving distance last fall, and I was able to attend.
The Everlasting is somewhat hard to describe, except that it’s primarily about a historical lady knight called Una Everlasting, the subject of myths and stories in their country, called the Dominion, and Owen Mallory, her historian a thousand years in the future. Through magic, Owen is sent back in time by a high-ranking government official to make sure that Una follows the script–she has to die in order for the Dominion to happen.
But Owen falls in love with Una and has to warn her of what’s coming. Sent back in time over and over, they always find their way back to each other, until they’re able to escape together. It’s also very meta-not only is it an improbable love story between a knight and a scholar, it’s about stories and how they can be used to manipulate people.
. . . a nation is a story we tell about ourselves, and stories change, if you let them. Because where there is power, someone will oppose it.
I could not stop reading and probably will read it again sometime. I can’t imagine how Harrow kept the multiple timelines in her head–if you like time travel stories, don’t miss it.
It is weight-neutral; there was no anti-fat bias. It was also queer-friendly, though the romance was a hetero one. The main characters had nontraditional gender roles, with Una as a lady knight, and Owen as a historian who believed himself to be a coward. During their escape, Harrow has them disguise themselves as either two men or two women at various times, in order to better evade their pursuers, stating that “neither of them had ever quite been what they were supposed to be, or acted how they ought to act.”
I simply loved everything about The Everlasting.
Update September 2026: It won the Hugo!!!!!
Reading While Fat 