The addition of Briarsmoor, a town outside of the estate where time is 13 hours behind the rest of the country fascinated me. It reminded me a little of novels like Gilded Cage and The Sin Eater’s Daughter where a rich few control the rest of the population, but where nothing is quite what it seems.

I feel as though I know Everless as well as my own world and it is a setting which has stuck with me since reading. The detail in Sara’s writing is exquisite. When the big reveals for this story began to appear, they were nothing like what I had expected and I was pleasantly surprised. I had even gone so far as to guess the ending. It seemed obvious to me that certain characters would turn out to be something other than what they seemed and that Jules’s story would take a twist. I thought this was going to be a fairly predictable read. Torn between wanting to save her father from dying to pay their way, and returning to a place which could be dangerous for her, Jules returns to the Gerling estate and finds herself wrapped up in something more complicated than she could ever have imagined. Jules and her father had lived on the estate previously but were forced to leave after an unfortunate accident. Her father is bleeding his life away to pay their debts, and Jules has a way to earn more blood iron than they could ever need, but this means working for the Gerlings. Jules Ember finds herself in a difficult position.

The rich Gerlings tax the poor and seem to live forever, whilst the poor are bled to pay their debts. Blood is extracted and bound to iron which is then used to pay debts or consumed to add time to your lifespan. Set in a world where your blood and your time is currency.

Sara holland books