Evermore Blog Tour: Review + Q&A!

Posted January 5, 2019 by Melissa in Blog Tour, Book Reviews / 2 Comments

Hey everyone! Today I’m excited to participate in the blog tour for Evermore by Sara Holland hosted by Glasstown Entertainment! This is the sequel to Everless and the LAST book in the duology and omg, IT’S SO GOOD! Without further ado, read on for my book review  & an awesome Q&A with author Sara Holland! ♥

Evermore Blog Tour: Review + Q&A!Evermore (Everless, #2) by Sara Holland
Published by HarperTeen ISBN: 0062653717
on December 31, 2018
Genres: Fantasy, YA
Pages: 368
Format: Paperback
Goodreads
Buy on Amazon
Source: Glasstown Entertainment

I received this book for free from Glasstown Entertainment in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

The highly anticipated sequel to New York Times bestseller, Everless!
Jules Ember was raised hearing legends of the ancient magic of the wicked Alchemist and the good Sorceress. But she has just learned the truth: not only are the stories true, but she herself is the Alchemist, and Caro—a woman who single-handedly murdered the Queen and Jules’s first love, Roan, in cold blood—is the Sorceress.
The whole kingdom believes that Jules is responsible for the murders, and a hefty bounty has been placed on her head. And Caro is intent on destroying Jules, who stole her heart twelve lifetimes ago. Jules must delve into the stories that she now recognizes are accounts of her own past. For it is only by piecing together the mysteries of her lives that Jules will be able to save the person who has captured her own heart in this one.

The Reader’s Review
five-stars

Let me tell you,  what an awesome way to start 2019! Everless was my first 5-star read of 2018, and it’s fitting that Evermore would be my first 5-star read of this year. I am honestly rendered speechless with how much I LOVED Evermore. I just adore it so much and it pains me to have reached the end of this epic journey. ♥

In Evermore you can find a manipulative villain who will constantly catch you off guard. Caro’s actions and centuries-old quest to recover the heart Jules stole from her drives her to madness, while at the same time you’ll discover layers upon layers about this villain, which may change your thoughts about from fear to curiosity and back to mixed feelings. Ultimately, she’s so dangerous but whoa, super intriguing and this villain may be one of my favorite characters of the book!

We also get a great heroine who is burdened by her past. You can TELL how much she suffers, her frustration of being someone whose past lives held great power, but herself feeling a fraud and not completely believing who she is supposed to be to begin with. She goes from believing she’s a common, humble girl working hard to attain blood coins like everyone else, to finding out that she’s the Alchemist who once stole the heart of a Sorcerer, and who has killed all her past lives.

It’s a LOT to take in, and her character realistically battles with that knowledge. Her dread becomes the reader’s dread, to the point of also feeling her exhaustion and just wishing for her to be able to flee and try to escape her fate.

However, as in any story, the easy way is never the option, so Jules journey is packed with magic and wild escapades, danger and heartbreak. I felt so much for her and I can truly say that I love her character so much. As well as Liam, whose company was so precious throughout the novel (and made my heart flutter!).

Final Verdict:

All in all, I’m incredibly sad to see this beautiful duology come to an end since I loved every second of it! There’s just so much left to explore. More of Sempera! More of Everless! More of Liam! I will hold on to that hope that this might not be the last of the Everless world. But as of right now, I CAN say that Evermore is one of my favorite sequels & a great end to an epic duology. ♥️

Q&A with Sara Holland

In Everless and Evermore time is currency, what would you do in such a world to survive?

I think that like Jules, I would find it hard to escape the thought that every hour-coin I spent came out of someone else’s life. So I would try to live very simply and deal with blood-iron as little as possible. I wouldn’t want that to be our world!

Is there a character in Everless or Evermore that you believe is underappreciated (aka deserves a bit more love) and that is particularly special to you?

The boys get a lot of love (and I love them!) but I think Caro deserves a bit more of the spotlight! She’s definitely evil but that’s born out of fear. She truly can’t live in the same world with Jules since she thinks Jules stole her heart, so everything she does, in her view, is what she must do to survive. And even so, her love for Jules still exists, it’s just buried deep… very deep.

What are the top 3 locations to visit in Everless/Evermore?

Everless, the palace of Shorehaven, and the Bellwood campus—especially the Alchemist’s old haunt there, the Thief’s Fort!

What’s Jules (and yours) favorite food/dessert?

Jules is a girl of simple pleasures, so her favorite food would probably be fresh-baked bread. As for mine, it changes every week!

If we were to meet up at a coffee shop with Jules, Liam, and the rest of the characters from Evermore, what would they order?

Hmm, that’s a great question! I think Jules would get a cappuccino. Liam and Stef would get black coffee, Caro would get a tea latte, and Ina would get a smoothie with whipped cream. And Elias would get whatever outlandish seasonal drink they have, like a unicorn frappe.

If Jules could pick up any YA book right now, what would she be reading?

Something not too dark—her life is hard enough—and centered on girls and women and their relationships. I think if she had the context of this world and society, she would love DUMPLIN’ by Julie Murphy or MOXIE by Jennifer Mathieu.

What song pops into your mind whenever you think about the saddest scene in your books? (For future reference, I love to feel all the feels!)

This might be slightly spoilery, but the saddest scene in EVERMORE, for me, is Jules and Caro’s final faceoff in the end. One song I feel like really sums up their relationship is MILCK’s cover of Hozier’s “Take Me to Church.” Hozier’s lyrics feel really applicable to them, with the themes of inverting what society worships and persecutes, and the narrator’s deep, twisted relationship with a mysterious “she.” But though I’d heard the song many times, the resonance of it for Jules and Caro didn’t really hit me until I heard it sung by a woman.

What kind of profession in the Kingdom of Sempera would you love to do?

That’s an awesome question—I would just want to do something peaceful and quiet! Maybe I could teach creative writing at Bellwood or tutor kids in Crofton. Or be a speechwriter for Ina.

What’s your ideal form of transportation when traveling through a magical world?

Transportation is a constant thorn in my side when worldbuilding—I always mess up the travel times and distances, so I would definitely borrow Apparition from JK Rowling if I could!

About Sara Holland

Sara Holland grew up in small-town Minnesota among hundreds of books. She graduated from Wesleyan University and worked in a tea shop, a dentist’s office, and a state capitol building before heading to New York to work in publishing. These days, she can be found exploring the city’s bookstores or finding new ways to put caffeine in her bloodstream. EVERLESS is her debut novel.


2 responses to “Evermore Blog Tour: Review + Q&A!

Leave a Reply

(Enter your URL then click here to include a link to one of your blog posts.)