Book Review: An Enchantment of Ravens by Margaret Rogerson (Spoiler free)

Hey guys!
Look who finally has a review up!
It has been an age since I posted a review. I am seriously slacking in the reviews on my blog. I’ve been in such a slump for literally all of 2020.

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Synopsis:
Every enchantment has a price.

With a flick of her paintbrush, Isobel creates stunning portraits for a dangerous set of clients: the fair folk. These immortal creatures cannot bake bread or put a pen to paper without crumbling to dust. They crave human Craft with a terrible thirst, and they trade valuable enchantments for Isobel’s paintings. But when she receives her first royal patron—Rook, the autumn prince—Isobel makes a deadly mistake. She paints mortal sorrow in his eyes, a weakness that could cost him his throne, and even his life.

Furious, Rook spirits Isobel away to his kingdom to stand trial for her crime. But something is seriously amiss in his world, and they are attacked from every side. With Isobel and Rook depending upon each other for survival, their alliance blossoms into trust, perhaps even love . . . a forbidden emotion that would violate the fair folks’ ruthless laws, rendering both their lives forfeit. What force could Isobel’s paintings conjure that is powerful enough to defy the ancient malice of the fairy courts?

Isobel and Rook journey along a knife-edge in a lush world where beauty masks corruption and the cost of survival might be more frightening than death itself.

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My Thoughts:
I have seriously mixed feelings for this book. My emotions are all over the place!
On one hand, I enjoyed it, but on the other, I didn’t?

The Writing Style – Wow! This was beautifully written.
This book is full of lush prose. The writing style was seriously a big factor in me finishing this book. It was so lovely to read. It was lyrical without being pretentious and over the top. Everything was described so poetically, it was just so *pretty*
I did like the world Margaret Rogerson created. It was unique and alluring. However, as I explain further down, it ultimately falls flat.

The Plot: Slow paced.
Painfully slow paced. This is a big no-no for me, it was slow for approx 80% of the novel then went insanely fast at the end. There really wasn’t much plot going on. The first half of the novel was really fleshed out and unnecessarily so, I was forever waiting for something exciting or dramatic to happen. When something exciting did finally happen, it was over pretty quickly. I feel like the plot focuses on the less important/more boring aspects in detail, while skimming over the good bits.

It isn’t a long book, 300ish pages, but it felt so very long in places. I expected it to be a quick, easy read, instead it was a bit of a drag and hard to pick back up at times. Which is exactly the opposite of what I wanted, since I was in a huge slump!

I could’ve forgiven the slow pace, had the story actually gone somewhere and there was world building to make up for the slow pace.

World building who?
The lack of world building here was a huge disappointment! The glimpses we see of the world were really interesting and intriguing but we never get any depth. Things are mentioned in passing and never expanding on, a lot more questions were asked than answered. I am a huge fan of detailed world building, that being said, it’s not a requirement, though minimal IS essential. Here we got next to nothing. I just wanted more.
The author’s take on Fae was so unique and interesting, it was different to most Fae I’ve seen/researched previously, again I wanted more. The concepts and ideas were amazing, the execution – not so much. Everything felt underdeveloped.

The Ending: Flat.
The whole book was slow and painful. Then it finally gets exciting towards the end and it is rushed. So very rushed. For the most part, I had no idea where this novel was leading… Then towards the end it got increasingly more obvious. I’m not mad at how things turned out at the very end but getting to that ending fell flat for me. It had so much potential.

Characters: Meh
I didn’t really feel strongly towards any of the characters. I neither loved nor hated the main character, Isobel. She was just an okay protagonist. Isobel wasn’t anything special or exciting but she wasn’t awful either.
Rook was slightly more interesting at first, being Fae, but he was underdeveloped, in my opinion. I still feel I don’t really know much about him. Ultimately, both Rook and Isobel are forgettable characters that won’t be staying with me in the future.

Characters can really make or break a book for me, I tend to favour character driven novels over plot, this book basically had neither for me. Although, I was indifferent to the characters, so they neither made nor broke the story.

Rating: 2.5 Stars

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Have you read An Enchantment of Ravens? What were your thoughts?