Review: Evermore by Sara Holland (Everless #2)

Evermore (Everless #2)
Sara Holland
Published: Dec. 31, 2018 (HarperTeen)
Purchase: Book Depository or Amazon
Review source: copy provided by publisher in exchange for an honest review

Reviewed by: Amy

Rating (out of 5): 3.5 stars

Note: While this review will be spoiler free, it will reference the previous book. If you haven’t started this series yet, check out VBC’s review of book 1, Everless.

At the end of Everless readers, and Jules Ember, were left with the revelation that Jules is the reincarnated Alchemist of Semprian lore, and the handmaiden to the Queen, Caro, is the much-worshipped Sorceress from the same stories. In the stories it is said that the Alchemist stole the Sorceress’s heart and broke it into twelve pieces before being killed by the Sorceress. Instead of being reincarnated, Caro has lived many centuries, and lifetimes, always awaiting the return of the Alchemist and planning revenge.

Now Jules is on the run, framed for the murders of the Queen and her childhood friend Roan Gerling. She doesn’t know where to turn next, but ends up finding unexpected help from Liam Gerling. Jules knows the number one priority is stopping Caro (The Sorceress) once and for all. To do this, she’ll have to go back to the beginning, where it all started.

I really enjoyed the mythology that Sara Holland built around the Alchemist and the Sorceress. And I loved that a lot of Evermore deals with Jules looking into the past to figure out how to defeat Caro in the present. I liked seeing how Jules’ past lives aligned with where she was in this book.

However, much of what didn’t work for me in the first book was present in this one as well in that Jules has no real plan in place. She finds herself meandering through one scenario to another—which serves the purpose of allowing Jules, and by extension readers, the means of getting glimpses of Jules’s past lives, but I felt like there was no real rhyme or reason for the path that Jules follows. It felt a bit too clunky in places. For all that, like the first book, Evermore, was filled with some truly unexpected revelations. I felt like they were just fit into place because they needed to be, not because they flowed nicely. This is especially true of the romance that develops between Liam and Jules.

I really appreciated the fact that the romance was a secondary point, with all main points focusing on the female friendships (or friendships gone wrong as the case may be). It was heartbreaking to see the relationship between Caro and Jules begin so innocently and then seeing how things quickly turned. But like all good books dealing with reincarnation, I liked that everything seemingly comes full circle.

Evermore definitely reads like the end of a duology. I don’t know if there are any plans for more, but as it stands, I would totally take a collection of short stories that were just of the varying tales of the Alchemist and Sorceress passed along through time. I definitely recommend these two books if you’re looking for an interesting take on reincarnation with a focus on female friendship and could take it or leave it with the romance.

Sexual content: kissing, references to sex