I received a complimentary copy of this book from BookLook Bloggers.

Unblemished by Sara Ella is a fantasy story about a young girl, Eilyana, in her seventeenth year of life. She has low self confidence due to a large red mark on her face and wishes she was invisible. However, there is a young man in her life that has been extremely kind and encouraging to her, and she is in love with him.

Tragedy strikes and Eliyana’s world begins to crumble. She runs out into the city at night, and that’s when she begins to see that her life isn’t exactly what she thought it was.

I am new to reading fantasy stories. I never really cared for them in the past, and Unblemished is one of two or three recent fantasy stories I have read.

Can I just say “wow”? This book is packed with so many things that make a great story. It has suspense, a couple of scenes are a little scary, and there is plenty of romance. I completely fell in love with a character named Ky. I was also frightened for Eliyana several times, but all of the romance in the story seemed so strong and sweet, and some of it came across as really pure.

Sara Ella did a fantastic job of creating characters that made me love and care for them, want to see them succeed, as well as some that made me hate them and want to see them destroyed, or at least defeated. There were a lot of characters and a lot of plot twists that moved the story along and kept me guessing at what was going to happen next. Ms. Ella certainly kept me riveted, to the point that I was always disappointed when I had to put the book down and wait to pick it up again the next day.

Unblemished certainly made me think about how easily we can become ensnared in things that are not for our good, or for anybody’s good, by the choices we make and in our actions. This is one of the rare books that continues to take up space in my mind as I continue to consider the characters and the things that happened to them, and that may yet happen to them.

Yes, Ms. Ella left an open ending, leaving me with lots of questions. This is the only thing I didn’t like about the story, although I will say, it wasn’t as much of a cliffhanger as some I’ve read. But I do so hope that she’s planning on writing another book to continue the lives of some of these characters.

If you are a fan of fantasy stories, I’m fairly certain you’ll enjoy this one.