Review: Unearthly (Unearthly #1)

Unearthly, Book 1 in the Unearthly Trilogy by Cynthia Hand

Published By: Electric Monkey
Publication Date: January 4, 2011
Date Read: May 9, 2026
Genre: YA – Paranormal Romance / Romantasy
Source: Bought
Format: Paperback
Pages: 448

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The heart-wrenching, deeply romantic, angelic fantasy from New York Times bestselling author of the My Lady Jane series, Cynthia Hand. With brand new gorgeous covers for 2025.

Angelic powers, forbidden romance, and the choice between fulfilling your destiny or following your heart’s desire.

Clara has known she is part-angel since she turned fourteen two years ago. But only now, through fragmented visions of a terrifying bush fire, is her Purpose – the crucial rite of passage for every part-angel – becoming clear to her.

When Clara meets Christian, the boy in her visions, he is everything she could wish for – so why does she also have feelings for her enigmatic classmate, Tucker?

Clara discovers that her Purpose is only a small part of a titanic struggle between angels and their destructive counterparts, the Black Wings. And when the fire of her vision erupts and both Christian and Tucker are in danger, who will she choose to save?

Unearthly is a book that has been on my radar for well over a decade. I remember this book first releasing in the early 2010’s… aka the golden age of YA! I had read many fallen angel YA books at this time. Hush Hush, Fallen, Angel Burn, Shadowhunters to name but a few. But for some reason I just never ended up getting to this one, and then I unhauled them many years later. With the publication of these gorgeous new editions, I thought now was the time to finally pick this book up and oh my word, I’m so glad I did, as I really enjoyed this one.

Unearthly follows the story of Clara, a 16/17 year-old ‘angel blood’. She is a quarter angel, and when she starts having visions of her one true purpose in life, to save a mysterious unknown boy from a forest fire, her family ups and moves across the country to allow her to do so. I really enjoyed this concept. I personally think it’s really refreshing and unique to have the female main character as the paranormal creature. In all the other YA Paranormal Romance books I read back in the day, it was always the MMC who has the powers/was a paranormal creature and the girl who get their whole world rumbled by the revelation that a magical creature exists. It was really nice to have it the other way around in this one.

In addition to it being the FMC who is magical, I equally found it refreshing and unique that she had her mother who was half-angel to help her figure things out. I always find in YA books, the parents are so absent, so it was nice to see one where the parents are not only in the book, but a useful source of knowledge and advice. I really enjoyed this part, and while it did get frustrating as we got to the big action ending, it was nice to see a YA character with a relatively positive relationship with a parent.

My one little gripe about Unearthly is that it takes way too long to get to the action. We have Clara who is having her vision right from the start of the book, but we don’t actually get to see this happen until the final 50 pages. While I really enjoyed all the character development, and the budding romance in the book beginning (which was so different to what I thought it would be by the way), it just took a little but too long to get there for me. And once we did get there, it felt rushed and ‘choppy’. It was kind of like ‘ACTION! BAM! DONE! BOOK IS OVER!’. I really would have enjoyed seeing a little bit more development within the action at the end, but I am hopeful we will get more of this in book 2.

I am so thrilled I finally read Unearthly, as it was just so nostalgic and fun for me. I really felt like I was reliving the early-2010s reading this book and it was just so much joy! I am super excited to read the rest of the series in the coming months. I cannot wait to see where the story goes, and the character development. Overall it was just such a fun ride, and I can’t wait to see where it goes next. If you were a big fan of YA books back in 2010-2013 I highly recommend this one to you, it’s the perfect addition to that era of YA.