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wren_in_black 's review for:
An Enchantment of Ravens
by Margaret Rogerson
This is clearly a debut novel. I don't care.
There are definitely some pacing issues with plot. I don't care.
Nothing at all actually happens for about 70% of the book. I don't care.
The world building isn't completely fleshed out. I don't care.
Margaret Rogerson is a goddess of her craft. Something about her prose grabs me and doesn't let me go. This woman could probably write a full novel about nothing more than a plain and unassuming phone book and I'd read every page with wild abandon. This woman was born to write.
I actually read her second book, [b:Sorcery of Thorns|42201395|Sorcery of Thorns|Margaret Rogerson|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1541621322l/42201395._SY75_.jpg|61425757], about a year before I read this one. I do say she grows by leaps and bounds as a writer from this book to her second one, so if you really want to be impressed, read them in the order she wrote them. I am dying for her third book, [b:Vespertine|56980403|Vespertine|Margaret Rogerson|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1615414534l/56980403._SY75_.jpg|89131997] to come out later this year. (Mostly because it definitely looks like the cover artist has painted my friend Dennese on the cover. It's her. You can't convince me otherwise.)
But on to what I loved so much about this book despite its flaws. It's a fabulous character study and a fun adventure. The setting is equal parts beautiful and creepy. The characters are equal parts inhuman and humane. The juxtaposition of opposites plays so well together and I lost myself in reading. I didn't want to put the book down and I got quite mad at my job for interrupting my reading time.
Rook is the character who stands out the most in this story, as he is meant to. As a fairy prince, Rook is glamoured to look like a handsome mortal man. Like all fair folk, he cannot perform any kind of craft. He can ensorcell and enchant and create nature magic from his thoughts and blood. But unlike all fair folk, who do not show any trace of human emotion, there is an inexplicable sorrow just barely visible, hidden away, in Rook's eyes.
When Isobel, our portrait artist heroine, sets to paint his portrait, she paints that sorrow as she sees it. Her painting will change her life forever and possibly all of the fairy world. Unwittingly, Isobel has just set her life and the lives of her family on a deadly collision course with forces her mortal mind has never encountered.
What is she willing to sacrifice to save herself, those she loves, and one she might come to love? How can she remain true to herself when saving those she loves means sacrificing everything that makes her herself?
Pick this one up. Join in me in my cult following of this fantastic YA author.
There are definitely some pacing issues with plot. I don't care.
Nothing at all actually happens for about 70% of the book. I don't care.
The world building isn't completely fleshed out. I don't care.
Margaret Rogerson is a goddess of her craft. Something about her prose grabs me and doesn't let me go. This woman could probably write a full novel about nothing more than a plain and unassuming phone book and I'd read every page with wild abandon. This woman was born to write.
I actually read her second book, [b:Sorcery of Thorns|42201395|Sorcery of Thorns|Margaret Rogerson|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1541621322l/42201395._SY75_.jpg|61425757], about a year before I read this one. I do say she grows by leaps and bounds as a writer from this book to her second one, so if you really want to be impressed, read them in the order she wrote them. I am dying for her third book, [b:Vespertine|56980403|Vespertine|Margaret Rogerson|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1615414534l/56980403._SY75_.jpg|89131997] to come out later this year. (Mostly because it definitely looks like the cover artist has painted my friend Dennese on the cover. It's her. You can't convince me otherwise.)
But on to what I loved so much about this book despite its flaws. It's a fabulous character study and a fun adventure. The setting is equal parts beautiful and creepy. The characters are equal parts inhuman and humane. The juxtaposition of opposites plays so well together and I lost myself in reading. I didn't want to put the book down and I got quite mad at my job for interrupting my reading time.
Rook is the character who stands out the most in this story, as he is meant to. As a fairy prince, Rook is glamoured to look like a handsome mortal man. Like all fair folk, he cannot perform any kind of craft. He can ensorcell and enchant and create nature magic from his thoughts and blood. But unlike all fair folk, who do not show any trace of human emotion, there is an inexplicable sorrow just barely visible, hidden away, in Rook's eyes.
When Isobel, our portrait artist heroine, sets to paint his portrait, she paints that sorrow as she sees it. Her painting will change her life forever and possibly all of the fairy world. Unwittingly, Isobel has just set her life and the lives of her family on a deadly collision course with forces her mortal mind has never encountered.
What is she willing to sacrifice to save herself, those she loves, and one she might come to love? How can she remain true to herself when saving those she loves means sacrificing everything that makes her herself?
Pick this one up. Join in me in my cult following of this fantastic YA author.