Unraveling was not a book for me. I didn't like the first book and am only continuing the series because I have the books already. I found the pop culture references annoying and also the slang terms. It got tiring to read. The romance was also just not for me. I wish I had liked this book more....


*Disclosure of Material Connection: I received one or more of the products or services mentioned above for free in the hope that I would mention/review it on my blog. I was not required to give a positive review, only my honest opinion - which I've done. All thoughts and opinions expressed are my own and I only recommend products or services I use personally and believe will be good for my readers. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission's 16 CFR, Part 255: "Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.*

The second installment of the Unblemished trilogy takes off at a brisk pace right where the first book ended. Filled with excitement and nonstop action, this good vs. evil story will captivate readers. The love triangle between Eliyana, Ky and Joshua is well-written and will cause a great deal of rooting for true love to win out in the end. The spiritual theme is integral to the story, yet subtle enough to appeal to a wide audience. This is superb fantasy writing that may just convince non-fantasy fans to give the genre a try.
After saving the Second Reflection and splitting the Void between Ky and Joshua, Eliyana is ready to take on her role as queen. Yet things are changing, and not for the better. Many of the Callings seem to be fading or disappearing, and an attack during the coronation reveals that evil is rampant. She has sworn off love, but her draw to Ky seems stronger now than ever. How can Eliyana help save the Callings when the Verity that she has relied on seems silent?

I unfortunately was not able to read and review this book before the digital ecopy expired. The synopsis sounds great though, so I will be buying a copy of my own to read soon!

So you think you have your happy ending at ready? Think again - and run!

While I like all the imaginative energy put into the creation of this world - I find the plot here quite uneven. There is too much changes of settings and many new revelations, which makes me to question the internal logic of the story. And, unfortunately, I find the novel being quite preachy. I prefer the "Tolkien way", where some messages are just quitely hidden and tucked into the end ropes of the story.
But on the other hand I like that the authoress let her characters to cross into the darker side. And my team Ky seems to go for the victory!

Sara Ella writes so beautifully. I really enjoy her characters. Unraveling is such a beautiful book. Her imagery is beautiful and this book is definitely a contender against her first novel.

This was a decent sophomore book that I thought did a whole lot better than the first book. I couldn’t read fast enough.

I love this series! Sara Ella has created such a vivid, beautiful world with engaging characters. I love Eliyana. She's real to me. I felt every up and down with her. I laughed and cried so much. I just can't say enough about it. Add this book to your must read!

If you read Unblemished and loved loved loved it, then I've no doubt you'll love Unraveling. Unfortunately, I thought Unblemished was a Young Adult fantasy that started well but lost its way.

Unraveling unraveled even more.

While Unblemished was clearly El's story (or Em's story, depending on whether you're #TeamJoshua or #TeamKy), Unraveling has three point of view characters: El, Joshua, and Ky. I found this confusing, as all three stories were told in the first person, and their voices weren't sufficiently different. I continually had to backtrack to the beginning of the chapter to work out which character's head I was in. And that disrupts the flow of the story.

Don't get me wrong: I love stories told in first person (it was one of the strengths of Unblemished). And I love stories told from multiple points of view (although I'm less keen on love triangles). But the three first person points of view in Unraveling weren't sufficiently different for it to work for me.

Unraveling also had all the same issues as Unblemished: endless cliches, endless plot tropes and endless pop culture references. They started feeling tired, as though more effort was being put into being Hip and Relevant rather than delivering a great story.

Overall, Unraveling wasn't awful, but it wasn't my idea of a good read. But it's the second book in a trilogy, and my experience is this is often the weakest. I'm still interested in reading the final book, if only to discover whether#TeamJoshua or #TeamKy prevails.

Thanks to Thomas Nelson and NetGalley for providing a free ebook for review.

Another layer is revealed in a beautifully complex story of hope and the fight for good to win over evil in Unraveling, the second book in the Unblemished series by Sara Ella.

Elyana is now queen but living like a shadow of her former self. Joshua, strong and left in charge, can obviously feel the weight of his responsibilities. The tensions rise between the two when something happens that disrupts the almost-happy ending and sends El to make a drastic choice.

On a race through the reflections, El joins with an unlikely partner to bring and end to the voids rule. But can she do it in time to save the ones she loves?

I really enjoyed this complex book filled with twists, turns, secrets, and surprises! I love Sara’s writing and had such a fun time being shocked by her ever-widening plot. Her creativity is also a highlight in this book as we get to see new reflections and meet different characters that add a lovely dimension to an already fantastical book.



If you like urban fantasy and fantasy elements in books you’re in for a treat with this series. I loved book one and was equally pleased with book two. I have an ARC of book three in my possession and can’t wait to see the conclusion!

I definitely recommend this series!

This is book 2 in the Unblemished series. While I am captivated by the author's storytelling ability, and wholeheartedly recommend this series, I don't feel this book works at all well as a standalone. I read the first one a bit less than a year ago, and even though a good portion of the plot from the previous book is coming back to me as I read, I still think there are some details I can't quite remember. Without the first book, you'll probably feel completely lost. Since there are only three books in this series, I recommend getting all three.

Sara Ella, the author, obviously took her time creating the various realms in this book and filling them with fascinating characters. Because so many of the people in the book have the ability to appear to be something or even someone they are not, it isn't always easy to know where they stand. I enjoyed the many twist and turns the author adds to the book. I also appreciated how she showed good and evil in her book. Her attention to detail is excellent; settings and characters are described so well, I can picture them in my mind.

I absolutely love the author's writing style, and I plan to read the next book soon.

Unravelling is the second book in Sara Ella’s Unblemished trilogy and for me, this book had weak points and strong points - most of them the exact likes and dislikes I had with the first book.

While I enjoy this world, and I think it’s amazingly well thought out, elaborate and magical - sometimes there can be a little bit of confusion for me about the Reflections and the Void/Verity. While there are maps at the start, I think this book could do with a little explanation/reminder about the reflection and which one is which, quick explainer about the Void and Verity and a glossary of characters and who are they separated into their callings.

One of my biggest problems with this book always falls back to the characters though - mainly Eliyana. I just don’t really know why I dislike her so much. She manages to be whiny and annoying all the time and though she wasn’t as many in this book as in the first, I felt her confusion over the Joshua/Ky situation a bit laughable and frustrating as it was pretty clear where she stood. It took her way too long to get there herself.

Ky continues to be my favourite character in this. I like how complex he is, and I also like that he’s not the average handsome guy but he has a bit of acne.

The really big gripe i have with this book is the same as the first as well and it’s all the references to songs, musicals and movies. It’s way too much and way too often. It pulled me out of the story and annoyed me every single time, and sometimes I had no idea what song/musical/classical piece of music the character was talking about so it meant nothing to me and ended up making me wonder if I was missing something by not knowing. I think we could have had moments such as Joshua and Eliyana’s duet where it was just a nice duet and we didn’t need to know it was I See the Light from Tangled.

I’m giving this book a 2.75-3 stars because despite the fact I enjoyed the world and magic again, not to mention Ky, I found myself just wishing the book was over. I will obviously read the last book cause I need to know how it all ends up but this series will unfortunately never be a favourite for me.

Sara Ella is a new voice in young adult fiction. She combines elements from fairy tales and fantasy to create young adult fiction that will captivate the reader.

In Unraveling, Eliyana will be crowned queen soon. Joseph who was raised to be king, wants Kyaphus out of the picture because Eliyana is torn between her feelings for both of them. Those feelings have a devastating effect on those around them.

Eliyana’s dream life begins to unravel. Both Joseph and Kyaphus love her, but who does she really love – the man she fell in love with over the past three years or the one who knows her better but for a shorter time? Our princess faces two charming suitors who care for her differently – which one is her true love? And how will her choice affect those around her? What lengths will they go to, in order to win her hand forever?

Ella gives us a strong heroine who overcome adversity to take her place in the battle of good vs. evil. Callings (gifts) play a role in the story, and are symbols for a life of faith. Ella gives us a tale of the not-so-beautiful-in-our-world princess who is beautiful in another world because of her blemish.

Was confused. It was a second book so I didn't know what was going on.

Format was off it was hard to tell where thing started & ended.

First, I adore this cover! It goes perfectly with this series. And just when you think you have it all figured out, SURPRISE! Her surprises in this book totally fit with the title, because just when you have all the pieces put together Ms. Ella, Unravels it again. I loved Unblemished but I think this one is now my favorite.

Sequels are ever so hard to review, because I don't want to spoil anything for potential readers of the first book. However, I shall do my best :-D

So in this sequel we follow El as she adjusts to all the changes life had brought to her from her journey in book one. But book one's ending was no happy ever after. In fact, it seems the victories of book one are being covered by unexpected bad events causing an unraveling... (The title for this book is spot on.)

I enjoyed this tale. It was a little slow in the beginning---mostly due to my impatience of wanting to see a certain character again---but over all a nicely paced read. Sara Ella really does well with adding unexpected twists to further the story, and I love it when an author can surprise me more than once.

Another thing I liked about this book was that it is one of the first books in awhile that made me happy sigh because of the romance. It has been some time since I have THRILLED with who the heroine ends up with. *sighs and hearts eyes and more sighs*

I also think the world building in this book is even better than book one, as more of the Reflections are shown.

Oh, and the ending! Gah! Not what I expected, but I respect an author who gives me a cliff-hanger ending even if it makes me sad I must wait to see what happens. O_o

Negatives... Hm. Well, like I said, a slow start (again, impatience on my part), but even then it wasn't boring. Just I needed a character to show up ASAP. Haha. Other then that, no big complaint.

In the end, I think this book is a worthy sequel. Action, plot twists, one of the best romances of 2017 so far for me... Yeah, I think I will go ahead and give this books a rating of five.

I had a very hard time reading this book. I just wanted so badly for it to be better than the first book. It wasn't. So much potential with a cool concept and story. Unique "good vs evil" story. We start off with El as Queen. You can read the summary below. The book is not a good standalone book, even with having already read the first book this was confusing at times. Flashbacks/memories, moving through stories of different characters. The book didn't flow well. Sometimes memories were confusing because it wasn't easy to tell that it was a memory.
The author uses several phrases like "Crowe!", "Son of a souless", "oh my Verity!" and so on. It's basically cursing and it gets redundant. I don't mind reading curse words used well and such but after a while I just wanted to roll my eyes. This is one of those books that toes the line just so it can alllllmost be a clean read but it's not good enough. I wouldn't recommend it to tweens or teens for content. OR anyone for story line. I am sorry.

Unraveling
Sara Ella
Series: The Unblemished Trilogy
Hardcover: 368 pages
Publisher: Thomas Nelson (July 11, 2017)


From the publisher:
What happens when happily ever after starts to unravel?
Eliyana Ember doesn’t believe in true love. Not anymore. After capturing the Void and saving the Second Reflection, El only trusts what’s right in front of her. The tangible. The real. Not some unexplained Kiss of Infinity she once shared with the ghost of a boy she’s trying to forget. She has more important things to worry about—like becoming queen of the Second Reflection, a role she is so not prepared to fill.
With the Verity intertwined with her soul and Joshua finally by her side, El is ready to learn more about her mysterious birth land, the land she now rules. So why does she feel like something—or someone—is missing?
When the thresholds begin to drain and the Callings, those powerful magical gifts, begin to fail, El wonders if her connection with Ky Rhyen may have something to do with it. For light and darkness cannot coexist. She needs answers before the Callings disappear altogether. Can El find a way to sever her connection to Ky and save the Reflections—and keep herself from falling for him in the process?



I received this book from NetGalley. I was under no obligation to give a positive review. All opinions are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”

This was a great 2nd book to a wonderful debut from Sara Ella. Our heroine, El, newly crowned queen of the 3rd Reflection continues to discover along with the reader, her Calling, more about the new world she lives in and what...and who her heart really wants. Sara Ella takes us to new locales in this new world without going overboard and starting new people/places for the fun of it. I've read this book twice now and loved it--the light vs. dark, the super creative world, the characters and the fun, quirky, witty humor.