The Raven Song by Luanne G. Smith

It’s been 3 years and some change since I read the first of this duology ( The Raven Spell ). I remember very little from it, so The Raven Song may as well have been a standalone novel. I honestly found it very middling.

I feel like, although a main character of this book, Edwina wasn’t super present in it. She’s not given any time to properly grieve and any time she’s alone is pretty much skipped over. Her entire story is centered around pining for Ian and being kidnapped for fairy reasons. Even her frustration at Mary is short-lived and then explained away rather randomly in the end, in my opinion. I don’t remember how I felt about Edwina in The Raven Spell but I don’t feel like I know her well enough to have much of an opinion now.

I am definitely well over the “man intimidates and kidnaps women for power” thing. I found Carlin incredibly dull as an antagonist. Even keeping his name a secret felt incredibly contrived. There was just no reason for it.

I’m not sure how I feel about the info-dump ending. Sure, everything was tied up neatly, but that was a lot of information just thrown at us and Edwina, for that matter. I do believe she is very right about the new Prophetess needing things explained sooner than tradition dictates. It’s clear the secrecy around it doesn’t actually keep the secret very well. After all, Carlin managed to hear rumors and he’s not even connected to anything.

So yeah… The Raven Song was entirely middling. Entertaining enough, but with quite flat characters.