An instant New York Times bestseller!
An Indie Next Top 10 Pick
A Parents’ Choice Silver Honor Winner
“A funny, action-packed, and sweet romance.” —School Library Journal (starred review)
“A phenomenal read.” —RT Book Reviews
A skilled painter must stand up to the ancient power of the faerie courts—even as she falls in love with a faerie prince—in this gorgeous bestseller that’s “an ideal pick for fans of Holly Black, Maggie Stiefvater, and Laini Taylor” (Publishers Weekly, starred review).
Isobel is an artistic prodigy with a dangerous set of clients: the sinister fair folk, immortal creatures who cannot bake bread or put a pen to paper without crumbling to dust. They crave human Craft with a terrible thirst, and Isobel’s paintings are highly prized. But when she receives her first royal patron—Rook, the autumn prince—she makes a terrible mistake. She paints mortal sorrow in his eyes—a weakness that could cost him his life.
Furious, Rook spirits her away to his kingdom to stand trial for her crime. But something is seriously wrong in his world, and they are attacked from every side. With Isobel and Rook depending on each other for survival, their alliance blossoms into trust, then love—and that love violates the fair folks’ ruthless laws. Now both of their lives are forfeit, unless Isobel can use her skill as an artist to fight the fairy courts. Because secretly, her Craft represents a threat the fair folk have never faced in all the millennia of their unchanging lives: for the first time, her portraits have the power to make them feel.
Sadly, An Enchantment of Ravens suffer from ‘over-hyped book’ syndrome. It’s not a bad book, but come on, with that cover, a bookworm’s got expectations.
The frustrating is, this book had the makings of a perfect, perfect story. I was excited at finding out it was a standalone. This meant, to me, that it would have a lot going on. Lots of magic, action, romance all packed into one book without me having to wait for a sequel to find out how it all ends! Yay!
Isobel is a great character, and so is Rook. The world is interesting and the fair folk even more so, what with the fact that Craft -creating things- is something only humans can do, and emotion is weakness.
See? So why, why did it fail?
We had all of these elements, but there was no depth. No depth in the worldbuilding, conflict or characters. They were just there, and things happened to them, and suddenly Isobel had fallen in love with Rook, and viceversa, and I don’t really know what happened there, to be honest. So, there was magic, action and romance, but… in a very superficial way that just didn’t let me get sucked into the story and become invested in these characters’ lives.
WOULD I RECOMMEND IT?
Meh, I wouldn’t say, ‘don’t read it’. But I do recommend going in without out of proportion expectations. It’s a nice book. A step over a ‘meh’ book. I look forward to reading more works of the author and seeing some improvement.
Other book reviews at Reverie Society
Reading updates
-
Started reading
-
4 January, 2018:
Finished reading
-
4 January, 2018:
Reviewed