Book Review :: An Enchantment of Ravens

I gave this book 5 stars. 

I LOVED this book. It is a short, atmospheric and lightly spooky read filled with the best elements of moody folklore and fairytale. The author uses masterful imagery, setting personification and poetic diction to weave a vivid and enthralling tale of adventure, fantasy and romance.

The author personifies the forest heavily; the trees and even the very shadows they create seem to have a will that is human in drive and determination to live and fight back. It is as though the writer has taken the very essence of an Autumn October, turned it to ink and then wrote from that ink every word on the pages of her book. Every chilled wind, stray vibrant leaf and special seasonal treat come together to create the perfect setting for this short tale of ancient prices and shadowy lore. It is one broody but sweet adventure that sets to work all of your senses for a holistic reading experience.

Her diction is poetic, it makes you feel like you've been swept up in a ball room dance that is this story of two lovers, forbidden to love by the laws of nature and creation themselves.

Margaret Rogerson's use of imagery is bold, colourful and sensory in all respects. Her use of folklore is both enchanting and brooding. This novel makes you want to sip it slow and savour its season while being uniquely aware of the beauty of volatility found in the living and in the dying and the changing.

The character of Rook is cocky and princely but naive and proud and the mix somehow results in humerus folly and witty charm. Rooks powers and the waning of them we are privy to as our characters journey continues, also show us the impracticality of a desire for immortality. It becomes a metaphor for how such a desire, if achieved is inherently unnatural, warring with the concept of time, goodness and longevity.

Isobel's distaste for the notion of immortality is made continuously tangible with her approach to food in the fae courts as though to reinforce that it is slotted once unto man to die, everything else seems to result in a lengthy state of rot and the remnants and remembrance of living instead.

Isobel is a driven artist with a vivid view of the world. All the world's pigments come across as tainted in a heavy, weighty saturation she manages to emotionally express on paper, both its beauty and it's horrid gloom. This turns out to be both part of her mastery of skill and the thread of her undoing.

Honesty, adventure and trust are what hasten their romance. While it remains ever easy to go the route of 'fae prince and human girl in need fall in love' the author dares her characters to question timeliness, choice and validity of what they feel, bringing an interesting modern realness to the story.

All in all it is a fantastic, one sitting read with a beautiful cover that gets you swept up in elemental courts both in your imagination and with the accompaniment of all of your senses.  There are themes of savoured seasons, the fantastical elemental, longing, love and more. One of those books that is in and of it self an experience all yours to savour like a hot beverage on a chilled evening, on an empty bench at a park, during the golden hours.

One of the quotes I loved:

"You are like a living rose among wax flowers, we maybe last forever but you bloom brighter and smell sweeter and draw blood with thorns" ~ Margaret Rogerson: An Enchantment of Ravens

And isn't that the beauty of a temporary life itself?

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