The storyline is good, but the last third of the book feels rushed. The beginning and middle have good character development, but toward the end there are too many bizarre actions occurring for the reader to pay attention to the love story, or to even care.

One theme that wasn't fully developed was Abrielle's difficulty trusting Raven Seabern. Ostensibly, Abrielle feels slighted because Raven did not try for her hand prior to her being forced to wed the ogre. She feels his pursuit of her after her widowhood is based solely on her wealth.

In this era of arranged marriages and marriages of convenience, it seems a bit far-fetched that she could in one scene marry a monster to save her family (for his wealth), and in the next refuse to marry a gorgeous man because she's afraid he is after her money - and then base her distrust of him on this erroneous theory. After all, there was no pretense of her being in love with Desmond. This theme did not strike a true chord.

For those who read historical romance novels for the love story, this particular novel is not a good buy. Whereas Abrielle is initially a heroine we can look up to (by sacrificing her happiness for her family), her character becomes weak rather than maintaining that noble bearing. A weak lead female character in a romance novel is disappointing to me.

I've enjoyed many novels by Woodiwiss but did not enjoy Everlasting. The likely reason is that Kathleen Woodiwiss was very ill during the writing of this novel. She died July 6, 2007. The book was posthumously published in October 2007. Mrs. Woodiwiss is credited with the invention of the modern historical romance novel.