Photo Credits: damesophie (pixabay), Gerd Altmann (pixabay), Gordon Johnson (pixabay) Edited by Vaishali Title: An Enchantment of Ravens Author: Margaret Rogerson Publisher: Margaret K. McElderry Books Year of Publication: 2017 Format: Paperback copy Genre/Themes: Young Adult Fiction, Fantasy Romance, Fairies, Fiction, Magic, Young Adult Fantasy Review
I can't possibly begin this review without commenting on the exquisitely elegant, the shining showpiece that is the cover art for An Enchantment of Ravens. Colour me (predictably) enchanted, and also fully unsurprised that this Charlie Bowater creation won the adulation of Goodreads' 2017 Best YA Book Cover. It's one of the most beddable book covers I've seen, and also one that accurately embodies and compliments the story inside of its covers. If Charlie Bowater's graphic murals were sighted by this particular batch of fair folk, I imagine they'd trade enchantments within seconds. Whatever the cause, I've been answering the YA call, fully feeling that it's the place I need to be right now. And scanning through my actual physical bookshelf - for what feels like the first time in an age - I browsed and plucked this slim read which leaned snugly against another novella that happens to belong to a series that is one of my favourite Fae fetishes (Maas fan that I am). While not terribly unique or strikingly apart from the usual fae design, Margaret Rogerson's interpretation of fairy lore was both dreadfully, ceremonially fae in true folklore fashion but also nothing other than what it refreshingly wants to be while still remaining time-honoured to those cruel, cutting trickster traits. And we see that a lot through an immortally imperfect Rook who, as he drags Izzy to pay for her human crime, still manages to feel something as uncommon (to the fairy folk) as love. Isobel's an honoured Crafter; all fair folk commission her to have themselves vainly immortalised in yet another way, and that's to have themselves captured on canvas by her portraiture art. Her Craft. But while most humans are desperate to make use of the enchantments traded to them for their own gluttonous gain, an all-seeing Isobel is much more practical, shrewd and self-aware. She knows the dangers of the Fae and lives to keep her life as small and humble as possible, to keep her aunt and two past-goat siblings safe. She knows the truth of the fair folk is hidden under fine clothing, topical courtesy, elegance and the misleading glamour they wear to hide their truest natures. With fae as her patrons, she's been around enough of them to know what hides under their faux skin, how they twist and turn and promise great and garish things only to sinuously meet their own gain. She's far from indulged in the temptations to ensnare herself in a flawed enchantment. Izzy (as I’ve since named her) works to her own favour, so she only accepts sensibly constructive enchantments. But while humans are easy to needle into lofty spell work, it's the Fae who are positively insatiable for materialism and all human made things. Especially Craft. Craft is a shortcoming for the fae, and therefore a major indulgence, but mostly it’s a desirable mystery because the fae are impotent of the art of art itself. When Izzy hears news that Whimsy's going to receive a visitor who hasn't been seen for centuries, she nervously meets Rook, who's very peculiarly alike and unalike his kindred kind. There's even something a bit more 'human' about this prince of Autumn. And he's just as baffled by her humanity as she is his difference. Rook has loved and lost himself to mortal love before and finds that history is barrelling forth for a repeat that challenges the long held Good Law, because human and Fae are forbidden to mate. But when young, teenaged Izzy paints an uncommon sight in Rook's eyes, he proves himself only to be impetuously conceited as he takes her on a forced trip through an enchanted fae-only forest. The romance (for me) I have to say, was a little too planted on the doorstep. From one scene where Rook and Izzy just meet, straight into another that leaps a few weeks forward and already signals love felt too fast. But what made it more receivable was the second-stage development where Izzy holds nothing back when she's brought down to earth, strips herself of what she thought she felt and only cares about her survival once she's forced into a captor/captive situation by her proud prince. She's still incredibly practical, brave and smart for someone who's been lugged away against her will. Her feelings forgotten (even as Rook's clearly emerge), and even her fresh inquiry into her own feelings was refreshing. I was straddling the fence with the romance however, because aside from being too instant, it also wasn't considerably infectious in a way I can say bought me into fold. But the general dynamic between them was interesting, and even surprisingly funny in places. Gentle and odd and imperfect with whimsy. At Rook's expense especially. This first thing I’m compelled to say about Margaret Rogerson is that she could nimbly dip her hand into a sea of lexicon and pluck out a portrait of words with a clean flourish, fit to make me marvel, contemplate and even mull over her fertile and naturally original descriptions. Whether describing a common facial expression, a blend of pigment, effecting an edge where danger sits, utilising the earthen atmosphere to stir up a gentle sense of foreboding, entering a predatory, eldritch swarm of fae who treat life as grand a theatre as human play with secrets and reveals, the awakening of a sleeping ruler, an artist toiling away on canvas, unnerving Fae interest, horrific agelessness or utter significance, lifetimes and lifespans or the pickings of a wild chase surrounded by a wild forest, the author's hold on comparison, likeness and prose fluidly eases as one season might into the next. The soft but effectively crisp writing and the silvery description made me want to sit with and capture each section that's sharpened into focus by words given weight. This story really is a no-frills, straightforward and simple YA adventure, and its simplicity and its monument to change, difference and the worth of human sensation and sentiment reorients its the attraction. I'm partial to the 'travelling companions' scenario because I really love the energy of two people forced together, braving the worst of nature together, getting to know each other through it together, wrestling and working through situations and bonding over their conflict. Together. I hope I've painted a picture of togetherness, but that's what I really love - the budding and building togetherness. This wasn't a precise imitation of that example by any particular means, but the plot is thick with that sort of unexpected movement into the unknown. Rook and Izzy also don't do as much bonding as I was hoping for. There weren't any big surprises, and we can see where the story's heading in a mortal artist facing peril that precedes much wanted changes, for both Fae and human. But that's really all it was. It's a simple story executed with a simple outcome. Not very much happens. I was hoping for more world-building especially - both with human world systems and Fae systems - because there was a lot that still felt untouched story-wise. I was really interested in some of the side characters; Aster, the mischievous twins, Emma and Gadfly especially. I mostly felt intrigued without having the full satisfaction of knowing more about them though. The side characters had a compelling echo, but not able to be anything much more than that echo. Aster's character, for example, came with symbolism for human loss, regret and untouchable emotionality that's lost to Fae longevity, but there was still something flat about the representation. Another story element I really enjoyed was the inclusion and representation of human art and craft. Honestly, it comes with the richness and uniqueness of creativity and the faculty to create; a relish that only humanity can practice. The story takes something as simple and beautiful as having the ability to create and makes it feel like human alchemy. Singular to humanity, which is exactly how I see creativity in real life. Like human magic. Not only does the story take something as simple and sacrosanct as art and shapes it into something that can only be touched, transmogrified and toiled with by living things, it also become a thing shaped into a weapon against immortality and used to shift the scape of an entire race of fae, which we see in the way Izzy uses it to paint humanity into Fae features. So simple but so brilliant nonetheless. And in the final face-off with the Alder King, it even acts as a gift forgotten to glorified immortality. A thing that holds up a mirror to a time too far gone to be remembered, and thus becomes a distant familiarity seen as a danger to demonise. While these deathly Fae creatures hold onto artificial life and don the biggest manufactured imitation of it which is their glamour, man-made things aren't just a weakness, but an undoing to the deathless aberrations that they are. Because it's unnatural for that which is unnaturally unfading to meet with that which is natural creation, even though the Fae oddly enough are creatures of nature and magic. That was some of the philosophy I gathered from the story in any case! Izzy learns some Important lessons though. That as sensible, careful and structured as one wants to be, feelings are something not to be rationalised or scorned from a place of ignorance or pride, even if those feelings belong to a creature so inhuman and other that he may not even be able to understand why he feels the same way. That’s our Rook. It's probably because of the fact that someone as immortal as Rook can feel love. It's also endearingly adorable whenever he apologises for something he either thinks he's done wrong or has no idea what wrong he's caused but knows he needs to. Just adorable. Both humans and Fae are shown to equally have and behold flaws, they're both seen as imperfect. That the fae parade around with compulsive gentility and dressed in finery that belie their callousness and cunning, and humans like Emma who are distantly tormented by their own human failings, and even with Izzy, who might have gentle realisations about herself but was imperfectly human nonetheless. I'd definitely say a solid read is born from An Enchantment of Ravens. Solid, but also an adequately simple fairytale of Fae immortality and human mortality. Where they meet, clash and frustratingly mesh. I didn't have any particular expectations going into the story, but as a sweeping generalisation I have to say that It didn't fully cross the divide and bloat my belly with fantasy romance goodness. With some loose ends, pacing impracticalities and Inconsistencies, it can be quite vague. Since the pressing comparison of immortality and mortality is a constant courtesy, It was strange that neither Rook not Izzy actually touch that particular topic when she's clearly not going to live forever (and has chosen not to). A secret desperation for change turns into a matter of life or death in this story. Some artists begin with the eyes, some artists end with them, but young Izzy unwittingly catastrophises them at great cost and a lot of rage from a Fae prince who gets mortally (or I should say immortally) offended by the slight. And the dangers her human hand has caused. There's a wounded, preening, thin-skinned prince who needs to boast his excellency, a no-nonsense human heroine who's caught in the middle of his humanity crises, unnerving Fae who lean into secrets, reveals and theatrics, an enchanted forest trip and just in case I didn’t already say it, a lot of papery Fae thin skin (I do indeed reference you again Rook). He's a proud appearances prince who just wants to be stroked. And with an inferiority supremacy complex (tis the truth Rook, like you I can't/won't lie). And whose immortal self also acts impossibly younger than seventeen-year-old Izzy (alright you raven bird, that's my last one!). While the story doesn't have its finger on all the finer pulses, the writing does have an artistically crisp pulse. Whether you're affectionately undone by this YA Fantasy Romance or not...you can glean some fun from watching a raven prince unravel (ok, THAT was my last one). But really, maybe he should be grateful that she didn't paint him as one of her French guys… (enters a certain sunset Prince with pretty petals falling from his fingertips who swiftly dethrones and drags me into fae territory as he tells me I must now answer to my crimes. Because that’s his MO). I hope to see you on the other side of the Green Well, where hopefully fae can still read! I gave this book 3 stars - Content Warning: Descriptions of injury. Violence. --------------------------------------- M Y R A T I N G S Y S T E M: ★ - 1 star: I did not like the book ★★ - 2 stars: The book was okay ★★★ - 3 stars: It was a good, solid read ★★★★ - 4 stars: A great book ★★★★★ - 5: A phenomenal read --------------------------------------- EXTRA THOUGHTS: 1) I can see that this has been compared a lot with ACOTAR, but I honestly don't see the similarities besides this being a book of the fae with Fae lore? 2) Just to be clear, ‘Izzy’ isn’t a pet name given to our heroine in this book. Through my note-writing, I took to calling our young girl Izzy :D Bookish Pics of An Enchantment of Ravens! Favourite Quotes! "No," I said, when Rook began struggling. "If you're going to stay, you must be subtle about it." He kicked his legs and nibbled my fingers, trying to free himself so he could transform again. I saw that extreme tactics were necessary. "What a pretty bird you are," I crooned. His struggling slowed, then stilled. I felt him cock his head. "What a lovely bird," I repeated in a syrupy voice. "Yes, you're the loveliest bird." I stroked his back. He made a pleased muttering sound in his breast. Soon his smug silence Indicated that he was quite content to remain as he was, so long as I continued my praise.' "What are you doing?" I asked. "You can't sleep here." "Yes, I can. I must. I can't let any harm befall you, so it's best I stay close." "You could offer to sleep on the floor, like a gentleman." He appeared horrified by the suggestion. "And I'm not certain you're in any state to protect me," I went on, sensing a lost cause. "Just now you were almost assassinated by a teapot." "Isobel." Rook looked at me gravely. "Isobel, listen. The teapot is of no consequence. I can defeat anyone, at any time." "Oh, is that so? That's that's the truth?" "Yes," he replied. I grappled with exasperated fondness. Despite how annoying he was being, I found it shockingly difficult to resist smiling.' 'He came into the room, wrestling with Gadfly's green waistcoat. When he'd gotten it off he cast it aside onto the floor like a piece of rubbish. Then he strode right over and, in one smooth motion, insinuated himself into the bed next to me, facing me, under the covers, with the bold and unselfconscious vanity of a cat sitting down on an open book.' "Isobel," he said. My hand paused. "I am not very good at - declarations," he went on, after a hesitation. And then he hesitated some more, looking down at me, absorbing the sight, and seeming to forget whatever it was he had on his mind. "I know," I assured him fondly. "I seem to remember you insulting my short legs the first time, among other things." He drew up a bit. "In my defense, they are very short, and I cannot tell a lie." "So what you're trying to say is that you love me, short legs and all?" "Yes. And - no. Isobel, I love you wholly. I love you eternally. I love you so dearly it frightens me. I fear I could not live without you. I could see your face every morning upon waking for ten thousand years and still look forward to the next as though it were the first." 'Having witnessed Foxglove's disgust at his earlier display, and having served as an intimate witness to the depths of Rook's shame, I knew that kissing me in front of the entire summer court was one of the most courageous things he'd ever done.' "Are you saying that you have a plan?" I inquired, not feeling very well at all, which explained why I found this rather funny also. "And if so, is it arrogant, I'll advised, and likely to result in both our deaths anyway?" "Yes," he replied, and gave me a quick half smile in between catching his breath. "I'm afraid there isn't time just now for you to come up with a better one. Otherwise, I would wait. "Go on then. I know how much you love showing off." His expression sobered. "Impossibly, it seems I love you quite a bit more," he said .' 'I wished that just once I could tell him I loved him and it wouldn't be a curse upon us both.' 'Now I have to tell you how foolish I am. Before that gray and lifeless time following Rook's departure, I'd always scoffed at stories in which maidens pine for their absent suitors, boys they've hardly known a week and have no business falling for. Didn't they realise their lives were worth more than the dubious affection of one silly young man? That there were things to do in a world that didn't revolve solely around their heartbreak? Then it happens to you, and you understand you aren't any different from those girls after all. Oh, they still seem just as absurd - you've simply joined them, in quite a humbling way. But isn't absurdity part of being human? We aren't ageless creatures who watch centuries pass from afar. Our world are small, our lives are short, and we can only bleed a little before we fall.' 'I expected to be unnerved by his half-baked form, but the longer I watched, the more he struck me as merely strange as opposed to monstrous. At some point my mind had stopped trying to see him as a human and accepted him for what he was. There was something undeniably striking about his leanness and his angular face. His eyes still appeared cruel to me, but also pensive. The thrill I felt whenever he looked me was as captivating as it was dangerous, like having one's gaze met unexpectedly by a lynx or a wolf in the woods at dusk.' 'Because suddenly it was quite clear to me that I was in love with Rook, and it had happened as most quiet, perfect, utterly natural things do: without my even noticing. We had stood together in a glade, and I had trusted him enough to tell him my true name. I turned the strange, marvelous thought around in my head. I loved Rook. I loved him. It was the best thing I had ever felt. And it was the worst thing I had ever done.' “...Would you like to know the greatest secret of fairykind?" When I didn't answer he continued, "We prefer to pretend otherwise, but truly, we have never been the immortal ones. We may live long enough to see the world change, but we're never the ones who changed it. When we finally reach the end , we are unloved and alone, and leave nothing behind, not even our name chiseled on a stone slab. And yet - mortals, through their works, their Craft, are remembered forever." He turned us gracefully through the crowd without missing a step. "Oh, you cannot imagine the power your kind holds over us. How very much we envy you. There is more life in your littlest fingernail than in everyone in my court combined." Was that truly all it was? Was that the reason why fair folk condemned mortal emotion - because those few if them who felt it only served to remind the rest of what they couldn't have? And thus love, the experience they envied most bitterly, became the deadliest offence of all.' "You look like a queen among mortals," she said. "You will be the most beautiful person at the ball." I tried summoning a wan smile again. "The most beautiful human? I can hardly hold a candle to Foxglove." "No. You surpass us all." Beside me she looked colourless and frail. "You are like a living rose among wax flowers. We may last forever, but you bloom brighter and steel sweeter, and draw blood with your thorns." 'I was no longer certain that what I'd felt for Rook back in the parlor truly had been love. It had felt like it at the time. I'd never experienced anything like it before. But I'd hardly known him, even though in my feverish infatuation I'd felt as though we'd been confiding in each other for years. Could you really love someone that way, when all they were to you was a pleasant illusion? If I'd been aware he would kidnap me over a portrait, I dare say I would have changed my mind. And yet-I did feel something for him. What was that something? I picked at my emotions like a snarled knot and came no closer to finding an answer. Was I enamoured with what he represented - that wistful fall wind, and the promise of an end to the eternal summer? Did I only want my life to change, or did I want to change it with him? Frankly, I had no idea how anyone knew if they were in love in the first place. Was there ever a single thread a person could pick out from the knot and say "Yes - I am in love - here's the proof!" or was it always caught up in a wretched tangle of ifs and buts and maybes?' "I was without my glamour this whole time," Rook said behind me. He had a question in his voice. I turned and found him staring at the water, aghast. "Well, yes." I wasn't certain what else to say. "Ever since you were injured by the Barrow Lord. Or no, a little after that-when you slew it and passed out." "You've been looking at me!" "Yes," I said again. Baffled, I went on, "It was hardly avoidable." His expression hardened. "Stop this instant," he said in a cool voice. I stood there a moment longer - out of sheer perplexity, not resistance. But the look he leveled at me was so hair-raising I wasted no time vanishing behind the shrubs.' 'Rook looking down at me, his gaze stripped bare. He really is in love with me, I thought. My heart leapt forward like a startled deer. Seeing a confession of love in his eyes was nothing like hearing it declared aloud. This was a look that would make time stop, if it could. Soft and sharp at once, an aching tenderness edged with sorrow, naked proof of a heart already broken. Here I stood in a dragonfly dress, holding his arm, and he knew our time was almost over.' "Are you in love with me?" I blurted out. A terrible silence followed. Rook didn't turn around. "Please say something." He rounded on me. "Is that so terrible? You say it as though it's the most awful thing you can imagine. It isn't as though I've done it on purpose. Somehow I've even grown fond of your - your irritating questions, and your short legs, and your accidental attempts to kill me." I recoiled. "That's the worst declaration of love I've ever heard!" 'He traced all around the edge of my ear and up toward my forehead. His finger paused near my hairline. Mortified, I realised a blemish had appeared there overnight. "Rook! Don't touch that." "Why not?" he said. He lifted his finger and regarded my forehead. "It wasn't there yesterday." "You aren't supposed to poke people's spots. It's embarrassing. It's - like when I was looking at your wound, I suppose. " "Your face isn't festering. Nor is it hideous." "Thank you. That's nice." He frowned at my amusement. Haughtily, he said, "something about you changes every day. Isobel, you're very beautiful." I harboured no illusions about my appearance. I was neither homely not pretty; I occupied an unremarakable spot in the between. But Took couldn't lie. Despite his obnoxious tone, he really meant it. It wasn't so much of a stretch to imagine that fair folk saw humans differently than we saw one another. A flutter stirred in my belly even as I determined not to make too much of it. He was the vain one, not I. And I needed to keep my head out of the clouds.' "What are you smiling about?"... "I just recalled the spring court holds a ball this time of year. It we haven't missed it, we might be able to attend." "Yes, that seems like the perfect thing to do while fleeing for our lives," I said. "Then we shall go," he concluded, pleased. I snorted, completely unsurprised. "Fair folk are impossible." "That's irregular, coming from a human who can't even eat a raw hare." "Go on," he said when I didn't move, glancing between me and the animal. I shuffled forward and picked it up by the scruff of its neck . It was still warm, and watched me with its shiny black eyes. "Um," I said. "Is there something wrong with it?" His expression became guarded. I was ravenous. I was sore. I was terrified. And yet looking at Rook I imagined a cat proudly bringing its master dead chipmunks, only to watch the two-legged oaf lift these priceless gifts by the tail and fling them unceremoniously into the bushes. Before I knew it I'd dissolved into laughter.' 'The knowledge that he was only telling the bare, unembellished truth made the breath catch in my throat. He was arrogant verging on insufferable, but god - the power he possessed. And here he was, as confused as a child by his own emotions, dragging me to trial over a painting. I couldn't believe that just that morning I thought I'd been in love with him. I shook my head. Incredible. "Ten thousand verging on five years old," I muttered to myself, testing the ground with my shoe.' 'Well. I may be an artistic prodigy, but I've never claimed to be a genius. Only at that moment did it occur to me that Rook's secret sorrow might be secret for a reason. It could be a secret even to him.' 'The wind blew from the forest's direction and for a moment I imagined I caught a whisper of that crisp, wild, wistful smell, Rook's smell, the one that seized my heart and wouldn't let go. I knew what it was. Autumn. All at once my chest swelled with unnameable longing, an ache lodged at the base of my throat like an unvoiced cry. Lives to be lived awaited me out there, far from the safety of my familiar home and confining routine. The whole world waited for me. I felt pierced through with longing. Oh, if only I were the type to scream.' 'His velied expression was something only a master could achieve, and I was determined to do it justice. The technique lay in the shadows of his irises - deep, mysterious, and clouded, like the darkness of a boat cast onto the bottom of a clear lake. Not the thing itself, but the shape of the ghost it left behind.' 'It's difficult to explain what happens when I pick up a charcoal stick or a paintbrush. I can tell you the world changes. I see things one way when I'm not working, and an entirely different way when I am. Faces become not-faces, structures composed of light and shadow, shapes and angles and texture. The deep luminous glow of an iris where the light hits it from the window becomes exquisitely compelling. I hunger for the shadow that falls diagonally across my subject's collar, the fine lighter filaments in his hair ablaze like thread-of-gold. My mind and hand become possessed. I paint not because I Want to, not because I'm good at it, but because it is what I must do, what I live and breathe, what I was made for.' 'His eyebrows shifted minutely, creating a furrow in the middle, and his gaze sharpened to scrutiny. He knew he'd upset me somehow, but in typical fair folk fashion wasn't able to divine why. He was no more about to understand the sorrow of a human's death than a fox might mourn the killing of a mouse.' 'Its fierce unkemptness reminded me of a hawk's or ravens feathers blown the wrong way in a strong wind. And like Gadfly, I could smell him: the spice of crisp dry leaves, of cool nights under a clear moon, a wildness, a longing. My heart hammered from terror of the fairy beast and the equal danger of meeting a fair one alone in a field. Therefore I beg you to excuse my foolishness when I say that suddenly, I wanted that smell more than anything I had ever wanted before. I wanted it with a terrifying thirst. Not him, exactly, but rather whatever great, mysterious change it represented - a promise that somewhere, the world was different.' I love interacting with fellow readers, reviewers, bloggers and writers. Hearing about reader opinion is the fuel to my reader appetite, so get in touch and comment below! SHARE ON FACEBOOK Leave a comment and let's talk about |
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