An Enchantment of Ravens by Margaret Rogerson

DNF @ 42%

Can I just say that I love how the blonde heroine's arm markings look just like Feyre's arm markings on the cover of ACoTaR? Y'all know I have no lost love for Sarah J. Maas, but in this case, SJM is by far the better writer-- at least stuff happens in her book. The hero and heroine of this book spend ages in a wood, and let me tell you, if I wanted to spend hours in a wood with monsters, I'd dig out one of my old JRPG games and do some grinding.

It's a shame because the book has a good premise. Whimsy is a mortal village set on the edges of the summerlands where all mortals aspire to do "Crafts" (e.g. cooking, painting, baking) for the faeries to buy. It's created a weird economy where no one can afford the cost of the luxuries except the fae, who are unable to do any of them. Our heroine, Isobel, is a self-proclaimed prodigy painter and an expert on all things fae (except when she isn't), and one day she is offered the chance to do the autumn prince's portrait.

Unfortunately for her, Miss Fae Expert painted a flaw in the painting, giving Prince Rook a look of sorrow that becomes an unpardonable show of weakness when he stupidly unveils the painting in front of his court without looking at it first. To punish her, he drags her to the autumn court to meet out justice, but that doesn't happen within the first 42% which is all wandering around in the woods, with sprinkles of instalove here and there, to remind you that this tepid story is, in fact, a romance.

Maybe this book gets better but I've got so many books that I just don't bother finishing if a book doesn't grab me. The pacing and inconsistency in this book is just so off the wall that I can't even give it the "benefit of the doubt" two star rating that I sometimes give to books that I don't finish but think that I might have felt were okay if I was able to finish them.

1 out of 5 stars