This is a hard review to write. There was so much hype for this book I expected to lust over this series for the next few years, but I’m torn.

Everless follows Jules Ember in a world where blood can buy human time and you can trade your years for material things, or food and rent. When Jules finds out her father is running short on time she heads to the Gerlings’ Estate. There she embarks on her adventure working as a servant earning more time than she could in her village.

There are parts of this book I enjoyed. The magic has strict rules which makes it believable. The plot has the potential to be something special. Darker Shade of Magic special. The cover is beautiful. Who couldn’t pick this book up with a cover like that? The problem is the first half didn’t live up to my expectations. The pace is too slow. It takes three chapters to get to the point.

Everless is it’s another example of a book where the characters could have done with some smart pills. I saw one of the plot twists coming before Jules left her village for the Gerlings’ estate. I won’t give any spoilers, but it would shock me if you didn’t too. The situation with the love interest is creepy. Again, no spoilers, but how could you still have these feelings? Too many of these central characters, Liam and Roan, for example, aren’t developed. I’d like to think most would react in a different way if they were real humans, or at least be more vocal in the reasonings of their actions.

It does get better. Two thirds in, the pace of the book picks up and it becomes interesting. Jules (no spoilers, I promise) heads off on her own and I’m pulled through the pages at a pace I didn’t expect. The magic becomes interesting, rather than stifling and a means of control. The characters and plot gain a sense of purpose.

So, the big question, is it worth reading? Yes, but you’ll want more of the end of this book to devour in the next. It ends strong so don’t give up. It would be terrible to retire such a promising series. I just wish the beginning lived up to the ending.

Intriguing and mysterious, an interesting although not original premise. I'm not sure the bloodiron stuff lent anything to this, the conflict between rich and poor with the feud alchemist and Sorceress would have been enough. Also, I felt it hard to believe how she was so close to the two Gerlings, when she was just a servant. I liked the character of Liam, he was the most intresting. Jules is a good character too. Built up nicely towards the end in preparation for book two.

Oh my god! This book was just amazing. I really enjoyed the concept of this book with you blood being used as time and how it can be turned into blood irons for other people, mainly the wealthy, to use to extend their time alive. I thought it was unique and id never read anything like that. Jules was such a strong character and everything she did in the book was for her father and how much she really cared for him and wanted to help him. There was many twist and turns in this book both with the plot the love interest, as at the beginning it is quite clear who her love interest is but then as the book goes on it begins to change which i liked. I liked how there was a background story with this book and it didnt just start straight from the beginning fresh. I honestly couldnt stop reading it to the point where i stayed up late on a work night just to finish the book even though i had to be up at 6:30am the next morning. I dont regret a thing as i loved the ending and cant wait for the sequel. 

I gave this book a 5 stars and it kicked of 2018 with a bang as my first 5 star of the year.

Jules and her father ran away from the Everless estate after an incident ten years ago. Now, they are poor, living in a place where the currency is time and the payment blood. Her father's time is running out forcing Jules to return to Everless in order to save him. Everless chases up old memories as she reunites with old faces and discovers new mysteries.

I immediately jumped at the chance to review this as I am pretty much insatiable when it comes to high fantasy with female leads. The fascinating concept immediately drew me in, although I must admit I definitely did not expect this to be as good as it turned out to be! I would recommend this one for fans of Sarah J. Maas but be warned it is less romance heavy (but with a clear slowburn in the background that will hopefully be developed in the sequel!).

At first, I was concerned by the seemingly proliferance of character tropes and cliche plot devices; however, this quickly melted away as the characters grew into themselves. Holland actually uses these tropes to great effect, and puts a really subversive take on many of the main threads running through the narrative. It really grew to be one of the strongest parts of the story for me, as she blended the familiar and the unfamiliar in a really unique way. Everless is an exceptional debut and a great introduction to the series, and I am excited to see where Jules ends up here on out. There are some wonderful twists and the social commentary and class dynamics are fully fleshed out in a really fascinating way. While at times it was perhaps a little bit on-the-nose, I really found so much potential in this and I am looking forward for Holland to further develop her world in the sequels.

Nevertheless, I must admit not everything completely worked for me. While I really enjoyed Jules as a protagonist, she often appeared to act irrationally and not true to character. It sometimes felt that her actions and decisions were for the benefit of plot progression and joining the dots, rather than making any narrative sense. I also felt that particular plot twists and Jules' reasoning became a little incoherent and convoluted at times. It was difficult to follow without rereading passages as we go down the labyrinth of the Everless mystery. Further, without going into spoilers, there were some developments that fell flat for me as a bit derivative. These were mainly minor gripes though and understandable as a debut. I have high hopes that Holland will further carve out her own unique world in the sequels.

I really enjoyed the understated approach to the romance in the story. While we know from almost the beginning about Jules' infatuation with the son of the prestigious family, Roan, this does not overshadow the plot. This is maybe part of the reason I enjoyed it so much because I was really not interested in him and had high hopes in another quarter. I am excited as there definitely seems to be hints that this path will be explored in further instalments.

I have been recommending this all over the place, as I really think this has the potential to be one of the next big YA series. Everless was a good start to the series but it was limited by its remit of setting up this new fantasy world. I have massive expectations for the sequel, which I think will really elevate the series for me to full-blown obsession.

Thank you to Netgalley and Hachette/Orchard Books for providing me with a copy to review.

Everless by Sara Holland is one of the biggest YA releases of the year so far. It is a fantasy novel which takes place in the land of Sempera. Back in the old days, alchemy was used to bind time itself to blood iron which is forged into coins. This allows the poor to bleed themselves of time, losing days, months, or decades from their lives in order to pay their taxes and live. The rich, meanwhile, consume the coins and are effectively immortal.

Jules’ family are poor and her father has little time left so she takes a job at Everless, the estate of the wealthy Gerling Family; the place her family ran from when she was a child and witnessed something she should never have seen. Roan, the Gerling heir who Jules played with as a child, is due to marry the Queen’s daughter and dozens of extra servants are needed to prepare, so Jules believes she can go unnoticed and earn enough time coins to keep her family going for years to come. Of course, her plans are upended once she arrives at Everless and discovers she may be more intricately bound up the future of Sempera than she ever thought possible.

Sophie loved the unusual premise of Everless. She found the book a little slow to get going, but once it hit its stride around halfway through, the revelations came apace and she ended up staying awake until 2 am to finish! Some of the twists were easy to see coming but these were so obvious that they disguised others which genuinely caught her by surprise, and Jules’ visit to the village of Briarsmoor was one of the creepiest things Sophie has read in a long time. She is now eagerly awaiting the release of the sequel.

This is another YA read that I've seen everywhere recently and again, the concept is so unique! We are taken into a magical world filled with folklore, where blood can be turned into payments but it takes away some of your time/life. The payments go to the rich family, the Getlings, for protection but as poor get poorer, the rich become richer.

Into this world we follow Jules who tries to eek out a living with her dying father until one day when she takes a job at Everless, the Gerling's vast estate. Everything takes a turn for the complicated when feelings for one of the princes, who happens to be a childhood friend, resurface (as they always do in YA....) and Jules has to make some difficult choices and discover secrets about herself, her parents and the royal family.

I did love the writing as it was so quick, easy and compelling and I also adored the overall story, especially the concept of blood irons and selling the time you have left of your life. The world was interesting and it was an overall, entertaining, enjoyable and fun YA fantasy read that I always devour but it was very YA at times, it was a little predictable and the romance felt very flat and typically YA. I would recommend it but it wasn't quite as incredible as the premise made it seem, for me personally; however, I do want to read there sequel.

Everless is a story that intrigued me by it's concept alone. It's a fresh take on Young Adult fiction, and the world and the lore of Sempera was my favourite aspect of the book. For me personally, while I enjoyed the story I did find it difficult to connect to the characters, and I saw most of the twists coming. The premise of this book is very interesting, and I will be continuing on with the series.

I have to admit that before jumping into Everless I had heard many, many great things about it but despite that, I was admittedly still a little sceptical over how much I would enjoy this after reading so many YA fantasy/dystopian type novels. I couldn’t be happier to tell you how wrong I was to be worried. This book was a fantastic read and I thoroughly enjoyed it, despite the occasional trope-y thing here or there.

I thought that the overall concept for this novel was really interesting and that’s what initially had me wanting to read it. The idea of using time as currency intrigued me and even more so when I found out that this time was withdrawn from people using their blood. It had me thinking about how I would feel if I was told I had to lose a week, month or even years of my life. This concept was also used to highlight social differences with the upper class families having an abundance of time at their disposal versus the poorer families literally scraping together time to pay their bills. I really loved it and it kept me hooked to the story.

Despite foreseeing who the real ‘baddy’ would be in this book (thank you previous years of YA fantasy/dystopian reading), it didn’t spoil the book for me at all. Even right up until the big reveal I doubted myself and so I still had the pleasurable gasp of shock when the baddy was truly revealed. I even felt completely betrayed!

Everless is also laced with folktales and mythology and this was an element I hadn’t expected but really loved. When a book comes with its own set of fairy tales I am all for it and I was really interested to see how these intertwined with the story as the plot moved forward.

The characters in this novel are brilliantly written! I really, really liked Jules (thankfully!) and thought she was a fantastic leading lady. She is strong, sassy, compassionate, driven, loving and flawed! (Yay for flawed leading ladies!) The sacrifice she makes to protect her father really hit me in the heart and cemented my love for her. There are also a whole host of excellent characters, not to mention some swoon-worthy males! I do want to give a special shout out to Ina who I just really thought was adorable and can’t stop loving!

Everless has fantastic world-building, a captivating concept, fully fleshed characters and is a really addictive read! I absolutely cannot wait to get my hands on book 2 and see what happens to Jules next!

Abbey, Sara and myself chose Everless to be our second group read of the year, and it was such a great choice of book!

First of all, I thought both the UK and the US covers were gorgeous, however I am glad I got my favourite cover of the two. The UK cover.

The premise of this book, time as part of the blood, the ability for it to be extracted and turned into currency, is a unique fascinating idea. The writing flowed so easily that we were able to binge it in three days, with regular intervals to chat about what we had read.

I struggled to follow the plot at first, what with Jules going back and forth with her choices (what’s good and what’s bad), but I quickly got into a rhythm and even guessed the big twist at the end. This is not a bad thing, I found myself hoping that it would be the case and was over the moon when I was right because it was written even better than I could have hoped.

I wasn’t sure of Jules at first. Jules made decisions that would effect those around her without thinking about the consequences, and on some occasions couldn’t make her mind up about things. Having said that though, Jules grew into a character that I absolutely loved. Her character arc was great. I also wasn’t sure of Roan and Liam, and even though I saw how their relationships would go with Jules I was cheering it on the whole way. I’m not usually a love triangle fan, but I enjoy love to hate stories so much. I really wanted to like Roan, but something felt ‘too good’ about him and didn’t want to get attached to a character that I was worried would turn evil. Liam, on the other hand, I wanted to hate as much as Jules did, but there was just something that kept me from crossing that line. I loved his character so much.

I cannot wait to get my hands on the sequel. I need to read it like now ❤

This book fully deserves 5 out of 5 stars!

I absolutely loved the cover and the blurb for this book. Plus with everyone talking about it I knew I had to get my hands on a copy and I am so glad I did. The cover is ridiculously pretty.

Jules is a great character. She's headstrong and has a big sense of family. Her romantic interests are obvious at first and then it gets a little more complicated. There are some other great characters in this book that captivate your heart as well as break it.

The idea was one that I had seen before but not executed in the same way. Similar to the film In Time which starred Justin Timberlake, I instantly liked the idea of time being something in the blood which can be taken or added.

There were a few things in this book that I found mind-blowing, like the huge twist at the end. For once, I totally did not see that coming. I also found Junes family revelations to be a shock to me as well.

Overall this book was a great read and I am excited about the next instalment.

This review will go live on my blog April 15th at www.littlenovelist.com/blog once live I will post to Amazon and Goodreads.

I wish I had started to read this book earlier. It was a slow starter but it became a compulsive read. The mystery around Jules and her father's expulsion from Everless was at the heart of the book. It was eventually solved and many other questions were answered at the end. The world which is created is dangerous, almost mystical with haves and have nots. The life of the poor is very harsh. The contrast of life in Everless and outside is well drawn. The theme of the blood iron is interesting. The rich steal time and so society is based on unfair rules. This is an interesting commentary which will probably be developed further. Clearly the first in a series I look forward to the next book. It offers so much, romance as well as all the other genres mentioned previously.

Woah, I enjoyed this more than I expected to. It was slightly predictable and cliche in places, but was also full of surprises too. I loved the world building and learning more about the back story of the 'mythology' or the world. I loved all of the characters too as their depths developed and grew over the book.

I honestly wish I'd read this quicker than I did, I read the majority of the book within about half a day aha, it was slow going at first, but that was mainly due to being really busy and not having much motivation to read at the time haha

I honestly can't wait for the next book

Set in the fictional kingdom of Sempera where your life is measured by the time in your blood and exchanged as currency, Jules is a normal girl trying to get by in life. She and her father were cast out of the Everless estate where the Gerlings rule and where they were once servants, but now her father is struggling to pay their rent with his blood so Jules is forced to return to the palace to earn their keep and protect her family.
I really liked the world that was built in this novel – the idea of blood being currency and your lifeline was really interesting – and the history behind it was brilliant too. It was fantasy without being too out there, mixed in with a bit of YA. I believe it’s part of a series so I’ll look forward to reading the next!

Oh my wowza!

In my opinion, young adult fiction just keeps getting better and better. Everless by Sarah Holland is no exception to this rule. It is bloody brilliant.

Set in a world where blood means survival, our young heroine, Jules, has to make some hard decisions to ensure the survival of herself and her beloved father. However, the decisions that she makes can be costly but without choosing to give herself up to work for the Gerling family – a family whom she and her father fled when she was younger – Jules knows that she and her father will die.

Everless blew me away. With dystopian fiction becoming ever more present due to its current ‘on trend’ status you would think it would be increasingly difficult to make something new, original and damn right gripping but Sara Holland has managed to do so with her impressive novel. Furthermore, the book promises more stories from the mysterious yet dismal society in the land of Sempera.

I will warn you, if you are anything like me then Everless will make you antisocial. Be prepared to cut yourself off from the outside world because you will get sucked into this one.

Everless by Sarah Holland is available now.

For more information regarding Sara Holland (@Sara_Holland) please visit www.sarahollandwrites.com.

For more information regarding Hachette Children’s Books (@HachetteKids) please visit www.hachetteechildrens.co.uk.

Everless by Sara Holland is a surprising read. At first I was expecting a run of the mill YA fantasy with sparky heroine, love interest, magic etc. Well, I suppose the boxes are all ticked (which is good as I do like all of these ingredients) but there seems an awful lot more depth to Everless than other fantasy YA I've read. There's a real depth of emotion felt by the main characters and you really feel for them during the story. At times things turn pretty brutal to be honest and there are a few gasp out loud moments when I genuinely was surprised by the turn of events taken. The ending was very unexpected and has set up rather nicely for a follow on title so I am hoping that is in the works?

Gosh what can I say .. I absolutely loved this book.

Jules lives in a world where the common currency is blood coins, time that is drawn from blood and forged into coins. The rich and wealthy drink them to live longer, while their people die at a younger age because they use their time to help their families.
So does Jules’ father. To save his life Jules has to return to the one place, she swore herself never to go back to. Everless.

I’m going to keep this short because there are no words to describe how much I loved this book. The writing was AMAZING. It drew me in at page one and I got so invested into Jules story and her wellbeing. The worldbuilding was so complex, yet so well done that it almost felt simple. The pacing was just right, not too slow or fast. And gosh the characters. They were so well written.

I really enjoyed this book and can’t wait for the next book to come out.

An unpredictable page-turner, fantastically written! Really enjoyed this one.

What an amazing, captivating and completely breathtaking ride this story was!

This book became straightaway my new favorite novel, and for so many good reasons.

✰ The back story and universe? Clever, original, so so close to the truth, with the few powerful abusing that power in the expense of the more, but with a vital twist. They are not just taking their money. They actually steal their years of life through their blood. This is literally the currency of this world, and despite how frightening it sounds to live in such a world, I loved every bit of it!

✰ The heroine? Brave, intelligent, ready to sacrifice herself for her loved ones, even if that means she will get in trouble. Or, worse... One of my favorite protagonists of all time, hands down.

✰ The characters revolving around her? Her father paying the rent (which translates to "giving his blood and his remaining life") behind Jules's back to protect her and not let her give away her years.
Her strong friend, who I suspect has a lot more to give to the story, and I really missed not seeing her for the better part of the book.
Her childhood friends, who inspired strong feelings in me, because I knew something was not right immediately. But, I was very, very, very surprised when I actually found out what was wrong, and I have to admit, I wasn't completely right...

✰ The writing style? Fantastic, smooth and really making me wonder how this could be the author's first novel? We really need more books by you, Ms Holland.

✰ And, my fifth star goes towards all the things I really want to talk about in this book, but I can't, as they will be extreme spoilers. Such as the incredible revelations you would never imagine, the exceptional villain, and all the amazing twists and turns of the story.

All in all, five stars to a book I will definitely read again (how could I not go back and re-interpret all the shady people's behaviours?), the amazing start to an extremely promising and captivating new series. And, - I really can't contain myself, so - five stars to Jules.