Ever Blessed is the debut romantasy novel by Australian author, Olivia O’Flynn, following a fierce warrior princess, Elva, and talented witch, Innes as they each embark on their own life-altering journeys.

I think Ever Blessed has the potential to lead a great romantasy series. While a little stilted at first, the novel contains two separate romantic arcs with some of my favourite tropes. We get an arranged marriage with forced proximity, and a fated mates (known as twinsouls) storyline, with a healthy dose of miscommunication and misunderstanding thrown in the mix.

I really enjoyed the magic system and found it quite intriguing! Ever can be wielded by gods, witches, danann (giants) and humans that are Ever Blessed, but it is still quite mysterious and I don’t think we’ve seen its full potential yet. This book would definitely appeal to you if you enjoyed Throne of Glass —while vastly different in storyline and with some added spice, Ever Blessed reminded me of the tone of the first couple of books in the series.

I will definitely be keeping an eye out for future books in the Tides of Ever series. This was a great debut novel and I can see the potential in the characters and storyline developing as the author really finds her voice. The mythology and lore surrounding the storyline has some beautiful complexity to it, and I’d love to see this explored further in subsequent books.

Special thanks to Harper Collins Australia for giving me the chance to read an Advanced Reader Copy of Ever Blessed.

A great fantasy read, with lots of world building and history around magic, myths, gods, witches and giants. Sometimes I felt a little lost with what was what, and who was who, so I hope that there is a glossary in the print book that defines the words that are new to us. I enjoyed the slow burn and banter between Elva and Fynton. I loved the queer normative world, as well as the twinsouls (fated mates) aspect of this book. This was one of my most anticipated reads this year, I do wish I loved it more.

'She was made of magic & wrath'
3 stars for this debut novel from Olivia O'Flynn.

I did enjoy this easy read however it did take me a bit to sit down and get into it.

I liked the Dual plotlines of Elva and Innes, however at times i did find myself skimming over paragraphs. I loved the story of Elva and Fynton more than Innes and Remi. I don't know what it is but i love a good married off to a warring kingdom trope. Their love was a slow burn and then you slingshot to Innes where is was love at first sight. I'd prefer the waiting game than the instalove.
This book has great world building, adventure, tonnes of magic (the Ever) and mythology thrown in as well.

I would read the next book but i think i would add it to my TBR pile first.

** Thankyou to NetGalley & Harper Collins for this eArc
Happy reading!

'Ever Blessed' is the first book in an adult romantasy series from Australian author Olivia O'Flynn, and it is a promising beginning!

Thank you to NetGalley and HarperCollins Publishers Australia for providing me with an eARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

In a world where a type of magic known as 'Ever' was once plentiful, wielded by witches, danann and gods alike, a blight now afflicts the land as the supply of Ever diminishes. A century ago, the gods won a war in which it was determined that they alone should control the Ever, and to this day anyone else found to be capable of accessing Ever - the 'Ever Blessed' - are executed. In this book we follow the perspectives of two Ever Blessed individuals who are forced to conceal their magic. Elva is both a princess and a warrior, and at the beginning of the book has reluctantly agreed to marry the crown prince of a neighbouring kingdom in order to stop the drawn out fighting for resources between the nations. She hides from everyone around her that she possesses a tiny amount of Ever, just enough that she can sense when others around her are wielding it. Innes is a witch from a region protected from being found by a magical barrier. She is tasked with travelling to a nearby kingdom in order to find out why the Ever dwindles, as the barrier is fading and it's fall will mean inevitable persecution for all witches within.

I really enjoyed the world-building and plot set-up for this book. The magic system was interesting, with each type of magical being wielding Ever in different ways, and there was a lot of intrigue throughout. However, as can often happen with dual perspective books, I was much more interested in one perspective than the other. This romantasy leans heavily in the romance direction, and there are romantic plotlines in both characters' perspectives. While I enjoyed the slow burn of Elva's romantic plot, Innes' romance was instalove - quite literally. The world this book is set in has a magical soulmate connection called a 'twinsoul', which means that Innes falls literally instantly upon touching the other person. While Elva's chapters featured a good mix of world building and romantic tension, Innes' chapters were almost entirely devoted to her budding romance and I was a little disappointed that Innes' main personal conflict was brushed off so easily.

This book has a lot of promise as the introduction to a larger world and premise. I'll be keeping my eye out for future installments for sure!

ever blessed is olivia o’flynn’s debut novel. rich in detail and the world’s extensive histories, olivia o’flynn has introduced a unique magic system based around a person’s ever, a form of magic the characters beliefs and identities are centred around. few humans have access to the ever except for the ever blessed, mortals gifted by the gods themselves, but anyone who has been discovered with accessible ever is persecuted. the world the characters find themselves navigating is fraught with dangers, from internal conflicts and external threats, as the ever is fading and slipping through divine control. this book blends rich magic and political tensions within a slow-burning romance; all within a crumbling world struggling for survival amongst the chaotic turmoil unfurling across the kingdoms. olivia o’flynn’s style of writing delivers an epic, detailed narrative that is complex and multi-layered, and her level of world-building is considerable with a natural insertion of an incredible cast of lgbtqia+ characters and the way it’s presented as within this world.

i love the idea of the dual perspectives and the two interwoven stories as they follow different aspects of the world, giving us an interesting and thorough way of exploring the conflict and the environment without relying on one character’s perspective. however, as much as i love this concept, this book is dense in world-building, with a strong emphasis on heavier details around the intricacies of the world’s beliefs and the magic systems, all told through the perspectives of innes, a witch who travels to vicenttia to source a solution to the blight, and elva, a woman warrior who has been betrothed to fynton, the prince of the clochain, to secure a strong, political marriage to protect their people. it was unclear whether innes and elva’s journeys followed the same timeline, or how much difference and distance was between them, and as we followed two distinct storylines a vast majority of this book’s beginning felt rushed and incomplete.

naturally, fantasy books will have incredible world-building; the world and its environments are vastly different from reality so there’s an expectation of there being elaborate exposition. however, i believe it’s fair and reasonable to withhold some details and information if the narrative is set across multiple installments, as you can then slowly unravel the world’s complexities without overwhelming the reader. with how much information was released within a short period, it was difficult to follow the details and remember the information as it was often shared all at once and never reiterated. at times, this made the book feel slow and almost tedious to read with its indigestible content. the author’s use of the ‘tell not show’ method was one of my biggest issues with this book, which failed to make this book engaging. a majority of this book was told through extensive paragraphs of world-building and information dumping, without engaging dialogue or scenes, resulting in no critical thinking or thought processes.

♡ elva + fynton
of the two perspectives, elva and fynton were the most interesting. a marriage of convenience set between two warring kingdoms, not fuelled by enemies to lovers as commonly featured in romantasy. i appreciated the slow burning, natural progression of elva and fynton’s relationship and the way their mutual feelings of attraction unfolded. it wasn’t instantaneous, nor convoluted; and while there aren’t deeper feelings involving love or affection, the physical attraction they shared was honest and natural. it takes over half of this book for the characters to acknowledge each other’s presence and begin growing feelings, and this comes down to the dual story-telling format this author used. due to the lacking scenes between elva and fynton, it does become easy to view their relationship as rushed.

♡ innes + remi
queer representation is something that we need more of in fiction and as excited as i was for remi and innes, the instant-love between them watered down the relationship, making it feel inauthentic and underdeveloped. it’s difficult to balance fated mates—or in the case of ever blessed, a twinsoul—and romance, and more often a fated mates approach results in rushed development and underwhelming connections shared between the two characters. i love slow burning romance and yearning from afar, as it allows readers an opportunity to learn more about the characters, but also come to appreciate the relationship developing across the scenes. unfortunately, remi and innes were a letdown, which is really a shame because they were perhaps the two most interesting characters in this entire book!

with some refinement on the world-building, clear direction on the two coinciding storylines and further development on the relationships, ever blessed would have been a significantly more engaging fantasy romance! the last 40 odd percent of this book had by far the most interesting and compelling moments and exchanges in dialogue, and if this was the standard from the beginning i feel i would have not only rated this book higher, i’d also feel more inclined to continue this series.

I was so excited to receive an e-arc of Ever Blessed but unfortunately it missed the mark.

For a book that had characters in their early 30’s, they read as the average YA- new adult late teens- early 20’s. This book follows dual plot lines, one of which following Elva and the other following Innes. The idea of a dual plotline was very interesting in theory however it was not executed properly. Both plotlines felt incomplete and rushed as the book was trying to fit too much into the word count. I think it would’ve been better to split this book into 2 and allowed each characters story to develop, breathe, and grow. Due to the dual plotlines, it felt like for most of the book nothing was happening. Jumping between the two perspectives did not allow for their respective storyline’s to develop till 50% into the book, rendering the first half pointless.

One of the main issues I had with this book however was its lack of narrative features in the way it failed to even include a basic narrative function of show don’t tell. Most things in this book were told to the reader through long paragraphs or pages of world building and info dumping which resulted in no critical thinking skills or any kind of thought whatsoever going into this book. I think because of the telling and not showing that was done in this book is why I suffered so much to understand the magic system or the politics of this world, because everything was forced down my throat in a way that wasn’t digestible.

The romance between the 2 couples was subpar. It takes over 50% for the fmc and mmc to to acknowledge each other and start to grow feelings, but considering the first half of the book there are barely any scenes between them, even once they do start blossoming something at 50% it feels insta love and rushed. This is the same with the second perspective and her love interest, while I love seeing queer representation in books, this one started out really good but very quickly turned insta love and rushed as well.

Also I feel it’s important to mention there was an attempted rape scene in this book but it was handled so poorly in the way it was literally a sentence or two and then never mentioned again. I have been seeing sexual assault scenes in romantasies become more ‘popular’ for a lack of a better word and I think authors need to stop using people’s trauma and their real experiences as filler scenes in a book, or for a way to set up the mmc’s first move towards the fmc. Very rarely does any kind of sexual assault or harassment further the plot or character development and this is an instance where it definitely does not.

All this being said however, the book does get better eventually but not until the 60% mark and after you’ve sat through reading pointless conversations and story filler.

In this books defence, it was easy to read. Olivia O’Flynn’s writing style is very simple in the way she forms her sentences and structures her paragraphs, but it is in a way that disregards basic narrative conventions and features.

Firstly, thank you so much to Harper Collins Australia for this advanced reader copy. Based on the blurb and the beautiful cover, it was something I really wanted to read!

This romantasy book follows 2 perspectives - Elva and Innes. Both of these characters are LGBTQIAP+ and are strong in their own way, which we love.

The world-building itself was a visual/imaginative masterpiece.

There was definitely a different point of view with the plot lines which I sincerely appreciated. The writing style was right up my alley and the first two chapters had me roped in from the get go.

For me, the pacing of both perspectives seemed strange. Most things happened really quickly and after finishing the book I wondered what the book's timeline was, as it felt like merely a week and that a lot of the story was about the history of the realm. At times, there felt like a disconnection between the characters and plot. The incorporation of mythological elements in the history was welcomed, however, I did get a little lost and overwhelmed with it. Truthfully, I'm still not sure which is which and who is who. I'm also not sure if anything actually got solved in this book. There are many elements of problems, but there was no completion of anything, which felt a little deflating.

Though there was no completion of anything, the ending of this book was captivating, interesting and different, so I look forward to the second book to see where it takes us. The writing style and world-building was enough to keep me interested.

I would like to thank Olivia O’Flynn and HarperCollins Australia for allowing me to review Ever Blessed through being offered an eARC via NetGalley.

This book is full of detailed world building, political intrigue, magic and mythology, a bit of spice and wonderfully interesting characters.

I really enjoyed reading about Captain Elva, warrior princess of Vettona, betrothed to Prince Fynton in the hope of bringing peace to their warring nations.
Also, following Innes story, a healing witch, trying to find a way to save the land from a ravaging blight, was very interesting.

There were a few times where the writing had an innate ability to elicit the feelings of the characters, especially how Elva felt about Advisor Gudren. These were moments of highly immersive storytelling.

I can’t wait to see more of Elva and Innes intertwining story.

Ever Blessed is the beginning of a promising fantasy romance series, and I really enjoyed the collage of different mythology inspirations at play. I will note the romance is pretty light in this book compared to other romantasy books but I suspect the romance will take up more of the plot in the next book. This was great for me as I much prefer fantasy, but heads up so readers have appropriate expectations.

Captain Elva, warrior princess of Vettona, is promised to Prince Fynton in an effort to bring their nations long-lasting peace. The world they live in has a bloody history of war and vengeful gods, and now the Ever Blessed (those with the innate magical abilities and access to magic's source) are the target. Elva must hide her powers, and play the role of gracious princess to a man she knows almost nothing about for the good of her people. She is also recovering from two heartbreaks, the woman she left behind for her betrothal, and the woman who was killed by Fynton's people in a battle. I think Elva is a decent example of the 'stabby fmc' archetype which I don't love, but she's definitely a strong character and I love that she wasn't made to be naive or infantilised. Fynton was interesting, albeit a little bland, but I didn't get swoon-worthy vibes from him. Avi on the other hand? PLEASE.

The second storyline follows Innes, a witch in hiding, who embarks on a dangerous quest for an explanation and solution for a blight ravaging their land. This brings her into path of a band of Vettonian warriors and into the arms of an unexpected love interest. I much preferred Innes' storyline over Elva's and I wish they were a bit more balanced. Innes has a lot of heart and is willingly to risk her life for the people she cares about, but I felt like she wasn't really a protagonist in her story, everything just kind of happened around her. I also love witches in fantasy in general, so I would've liked more witchy-ness.

Ever Blessed is set in a queer-normative world. There are multiple LGBT characters and relationships which aren't painted as unusual or shameful which is always fantastic. I just really struggled through the middle third of this book, it had a super strong orientation and the ending did a bit of work to redeem it, but I mostly remember struggling to pick it back up.

I am undecided about whether I'll continue the series, but I probably will if I can find a comprehensive recap of book 1 when the time comes because I wouldn't read this again.

I really enjoyed this! The characters were fun and the plot was what I was looking for. I'm here for a fast paced plot. The writing was amazing

I'm really looking forward to reading the second book

In a world on the brink of collapse, Ever Blessed weaves a tale of political intrigue, ancient magic, and the fragile balance between love and duty. The ruling Gods control the Ever, a powerful magic that sustains the lands, but as the magic begins to falter, the Gods turn their wrath on the Ever Blessed—mortals gifted with its diminishing power. With the world in chaos, Elva, the warrior princess of Vettona, is thrust into a fragile alliance with Fynton, the heir to the rival kingdom of Clochain. Though promised to him in marriage, Elva struggles with growing feelings for the man she can’t trust, leading to tension and emotional complexity.
Simultaneously, Innes, a Witch who hides her bond with the Ever, embarks on a dangerous quest to cure the blight that threatens her world. Her path unexpectedly crosses with Elva’s kingdom, forcing Innes to make a heart-wrenching decision between her love for a warrior and her duty to save her people.
With a vivid backdrop of a dying world, Ever Blessed is a gripping blend of political intrigue, shifting allegiances, and emotional stakes. Both Elva and Innes face personal and external battles, making choices that could reshape their fates. The novel explores themes of love, loyalty, freedom, and the cost of making the wrong decision in a world where even the Gods are not above vengeance. It's a story that leaves you questioning: can love truly save the world, or will duty reign supreme?
One of the most powerful aspects of Ever Blessed is the LGBTQ+ representation. Elva's internal struggles, as she navigates her feelings and the expectations placed upon her, resonated deeply with me. The emotional depth of her journey made me tear up, and the way the book handled her story made me feel so seen and understood. It’s a beautiful, authentic portrayal that I will always cherish.
The slow burn of Elva and Fynton’s romance was worth every moment of anticipation. Their journey is one of emotional growth, trust, and tension, and when their connection finally ignites, it’s nothing short of powerful.
This was my first Olivia O'Flynn book, and I can without a doubt say that I will forever be reading any book she puts out. Her masterful world-building, complex characters, and emotionally charged storytelling have made me a devoted fan. Ever Blessed is a captivating read that ensures I’ll be eagerly anticipating her future works!
This book was an easy 5-star read for me, and I will forever be recommending it to anyone and everyone who will listen to me!
Thank you so much to NetGalley and HarperCollins Australia for allowing me early access to read the uncorrected reading copy ARC— all opinions are mine alone.