Mirrigold: Mutterings & Musings

Yours Everlasting by Beth Bolden

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I love a good fairy tale and in this, we finally get Evander’s story in all it’s mixed up, sometimes painful, details.

We’ve already met two versions of him, Evrard, his King of the Unicorns character and his kindly scholarly father figure, Rhys, in Grey and Rory’s story Yours, Forever After but here we get to see the real Evander, the Guardian of Secrets who took his job protecting humankind so seriously it cost him everything.

Here we get a narrative that follows all the traditional beats of a fairy tale – there’s betrayal, mystery, a hidden danger, good v evil and magical battles.

But what makes it such a joyous read is Evander’s slow realisation of his love for Marcos, the Guardian of War, and his discovery that his fellow Conclave member has been protecting him from the shadows for all of the thousand years of his exile from the Castle at the Top of the World.

It’s a beautiful moment, one that makes you get that warm, fuzzy feeling in your stomach as our Evander’s not exactly your typical storybook hero. He’s prickly, arrogant, sometimes self-serving and imperious.

He’s also been hurting, cut off from the majority of his magic and his powers for centuries while he fought against the evil of a cult of magic users who shouldn’t have been given the ability.

With loads of daring do’, rescues, close calls and a final confrontation with the big bad, Yours Everlasting does everything it needs to do to round out this duet of stories.

At times I got teary, and that rarely happens, but Marcos’ steadfastness is such a humbling thing to discover and, along with a specific element of the plot I won’t spoil but which has an equally emotional reaction, gave me all the feels.

There’s still potential for more books in this world and I do hope Beth goes back to Grey, Rory and their family and friends at some point in the future.

*As with all Beth’s books, I beta read this one.

#ARC kindly received from the author in return for an honest and unbiased review

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