The Raven Scholar by Antonia Hodgson

Jen reviews The Raven Scholar, the first book in Antonia Hodgson‘s Eternal Path trilogy.

From an electrifying new voice in epic fantasy comes The Raven Scholar, a masterfully woven and playfully inventive tale of imperial intrigue, cutthroat competition, and one scholar’s quest to uncover the truth.

Let us fly now to the empire of Orrun, where after twenty-four years of peace, Bersun the Brusque must end his reign. In the dizzying heat of mid-summer, seven contenders compete to replace him. They are exceptional warriors, thinkers, strategists—the best of the best.

Then one of them is murdered.

It falls to Neema Kraa, the emperor’s brilliant, idiosyncratic High Scholar, to find the killer before the trials end. To do so, she must untangle a web of deadly secrets that stretches back generations, all while competing against six warriors with their own dark histories and fierce ambitions. Neema believes she is alone. But we are here to help; all she has to do is let us in.

If she succeeds, she will win the throne. If she fails, death awaits her. But we won’t let that happen.

We are the Raven, and we are magnificent.

“At the top of the rise, far to the east, they saw their ultimate destination: the eighth palace. The imperial palace. The Palace of the Awakening Dragon. A noble edifice of pale gold limestone, capped with sea-green slate, it stood at the island’s highest point, and all things bowed before it. Attached to the northern wing lay the inner sanctum—an octagonal building of dazzling white marble. The throne room lay nestled somewhere within, a jewel curled loosely inside a dragon’s claws.”

Who I Am by Citizen Soldier

Oh my! Now this was just the most unexpectedly amazing story! I’d seen some buzz for The Raven Scholar, so I did expect it to be a solid read, but I really didn’t expect my absolute love for it, or for it to consume my thoughts the way it did!

I won’t be surprised to see The Raven Scholar fall on a lot of those end-of-year top book lists.

I am going to try to stay vague in this review about plot points, etc. because half the fun is the journey. I went into this knowing nothing, and it was just an absolute blast reading it that way, and I hope others will do the same.

The writing is lovely – smart, crisp, tantalizing without being too much. It has a style that breezes you through while still allowing for the world to spring up around you as you turn the pages. I am in love!

The story is brilliantly told. I don’t think I have read a story that took so many unexpected turns with the cast, the plot, the mystery… everything about the way the story developed was just so much fun and surprised me quite often with a lot of the choices along the way.

Of course, there will be similarities in things. I mean, you can’t have tournaments between groups of young adults without automatically thinking of another popular series, and seriously I’ve been reading for way more years than half you all have been alive, so for me there isn’t much new out there at this point anyway, so to be genuinely surprised by something – makes me sit up and take notice.

The characters – and there are a lot of them… after all, it is a tournament where the contenders representing the seven sacred animals (kind of like a zodiac but with real animal spirits…it’s complicated but not, just hard to explain without a paragraph or two) which are gathered to vie for the position of Emperor. I really worried at my ability to keep them all straight but between the spaced-out intros and such different personalities, the ones that needed to be memorable were.

I loved so much of the cast, even the ones that were jerks. I won’t go into details about them all because we’d be here all day if I did.

Neema though, was our main POV and was my favourite. She falls into that likeable loner territory. I found her character very relatable. She is observant, very smart and socially awkward. She is more of a loner because of her social awkwardness rather than because she really wants to be – which I feel is a state that a lot of us find ourselves in. I loved her so much! I also very much adored her raven friend, Sol. They were hilarious together!

There was also an omnipresent POV, which is sparingly used throughout. It’s a cool and different choice. I really enjoyed the sense of style it added to the whole story, and the fact that it wasn’t overused means it worked better for me than I would have generally expected from that kind of a narrative choice.

I know I’ve done nothing but gush about The Raven Scholar but I just don’t have any complaints. The story was over 600 pages and I was in such a jam of emotions the entire time. I was torn throughout the story between wanting to sit and binge it, or wanting to draw it out as long as possible. I honestly wish I could read it for the first time again.

TLDR:

The Raven Scholar is the book you don’t want to miss!