Book Review: The Raven Song

Title: Raven Song
Author: Luanne G. Smith
Genre: Fantasy, Magic, Mystery, Paranormal, Romance

What It’s About: Edwina Blackwood ponders the marble found in her sister’s coffin, and wonders who her admire could be when another woman comes by with a delivery of roses. Edwina offers her a tip, which the woman does not take considering that Edwina is in mourning. She believes Ian has sent her the roses, and they must have been expensive–a good part of his monthly salary–but when he comes to see her in the shop not long after, he tells her that he did not buy her the roses. Then, they find a card with a rhyme written on it from her secret admirer, and the roses turn black before they light up on fire–spell fire to be exact. Edwina barely has time to grab her grimoire, her shawl and a few pieces of jewelry before being forced to run out of her shop because the spell fire had begun engulfing it.

Ian has them continuously moving, though Edwina laments the loss of precious items left behind by her mother and her sister in the ensuing fire which they do not stay to watch. They walk around London, and stop in one part trying to figure out who Edwina’s Secret Admirer might be, when a man too finely dressed brushes up upon Ian and steals the train tickets that Henry Elvanfoot has purchased for them both with the hope that Ian might help convince Edwina. The two try to track down the thief, but lose him before the two of them decide to head over to the Witches’ Safehouse, where they had just been a couple of weeks prior. The witch who runs the warehouse lets them into the warehouse, tells them that Edwina’s father had purchased safe passage for two–the sisters–and it just about expires in a week. Edwina and Ian find relief in the sanctuary, and talk about the whole situation, when the witch comes back and realizes that the smoke from Ian’s pipe is revealing Edwina’s footsteps. The two of them have no choice but to take the safe passage, through and underground Witch train below the safehouse that takes them to the north–to the town where Ian was raised, and where Elvanfoot has offered refuge. Hob joins them for the ride after finding them on the train platform in London, and they continue to puzzle over the secret admirer before essentially drifting off.

When they awake, they have arrived at location, and Ian puts Edwina in a cab that takes her straight to Elvanfoot’s home, while he goes revisiting the city–someone has called for him, and he doesn’t know why as his memories are still in the marble created by Mary that he has been carrying around. Eventually, he encounters Finlay, a member of the fair folk, who lives on this side of the divide. Finlay takes him to his own home and has Ian write down the report on Edwina and Mary, as he says that the Prophetess had foreseen Ian meeting them. He also tells Ian that someone has been coming through the portals used by fair folk every time they visit from their realm, but they don’t know which one of the portals is being used and by whom, so he wants Ian to investigate. That is what Ian spends his time doing while he’s back in the town–the cottage where his parents live has been in his family for several generations, being so close to the portal by the grace of the Queen of the Fair Folk, and his family continues to serve and revere them in order to keep that relationship. This is when he finds out from his parents that someone bought the Old Man’s house across a way, and that some of the carrots that his mother keeps in the garden had turned to black–he tries to appease her by saying it must be a hex placed by their neighbor. Once he leaves the house with Hob in tow to see Edwina, Hob tells him that it’s not the case, but does not elaborate any further.

In the meantime, Edwina arrives at Elvanfoot’s home, where he gives her something to drink that would expel the magic that she ingested that would have caused for her feet to be tracked. This drink is violent enough to keep Edwina up with stomach issues for the whole night, but after she has cooled down enough she goes to see Evanfoot to give him a piece of her mind. He tells her that there are enchantments all around his house to keep things and protect her so that she should be relatively safe. While they are talking over breakfast, he asks her about her transitions, and she gets the urge to shed her humanly form and fly. So she transforms into her raven and flies around, eyeing Ms. Fletcher cleaning out a part of the house, and Yates, Elvanfoot’s butter, on a different floor. During her flight, she sees some shadow show up behind Yates and the shadow kills him–she knows this with certainty–but it unsettles her so much that she comes back down to the breakfast table and continues to ponder to the point that she has to go to her room. There, she looks over the grimoire and tries to figure out what her sister meant with the symbols that she had written in her grimoire. There was only one other time that she had written in Edwina’s grimoire and it was when Mary had figured out how she converts these memories into marbles from the people that pass away–at the time Mary had spoken about transmutations, which wasn’t a subject Edwina was interested in. After a while, Edwina chooses to go into the library and tries to research the symbols in the books there. Though she does get some information on some of the symbols, it’s not sufficient for her to make any sense of Mary’s scribbling or the hidden meaning of Mary’s writing.

At that point, Yates finds her and takes her to see Elvanfoot in a different part of his home. This area looks to be an experimental lab, and Edwina comes across what appears to be a robotized rat, which Elvanfoot explains was created for the purpose of going out across his grounds and finding where there is a weakness or disappearance of the wards around his house, at which point the rat starts wailing until Elvanfoot comes to fix the matter. He then points her towards the microscope and has her look over the different inks used–the one that he uses and the one that her secret admirer used–which shows that he is trying to appear like he has magical power but may actually not have any at all. They continue discussing that possibility when Ian walks into the house after checking all of the other portals–he had checked one in the water just before coming over to Elvanfoot’s house and it didn’t appear disturbed though he did see a shadow that seemed unnatural. Elvanfoot also tells them that they have been invited to a very well known and important Midsummer ball, which they should attend.

In the meantime, a man tells a woman to shut up in her cellar, and is entirely focused on the fact that he soon will become a full witch. He calls on Maligar, a demon, and tells him the tidings, to which Maligar replies that the witch is already in the north. At first the man is in disbelief until Maligar confirms that there are underground witch trains, and then the man decides that maybe it’s better this way. With Maligar’s convincing, he decides to go to the Lady’s ball as well since he has been invited, as Maligar has on a good account that the two will be going. So he comes up with a plan on getting the witch alone so that he can finish his ritual, which involves this ring with two ruby stones that he hopes the witch will put on, and that will fuse with her skin.

Edwina and Ian take a walk together, and Ian asks her for help with the investigation, which she agrees with. They walk over to the same entryway, but she sees nothing, though she tells him about her vision and comments on how she feels like her magic is being called to. Ian then takes her for a walk across town to show her the city–from the vantage point, she can clearly see 7 hills, which were the 7 original fairy mounds, and the city was built between them. Ian points out where he grew up with his parents, and that’s when Edwina realizes he had walked quite a distance to Elvanfoot’s house. Ian offers her to come with him to a place not too far away where he can show her some things, and as they begin to walk down the steep stairs–which Edwina remarks do not scare her because of her shapeshifting ability into a raven–she gets the feeling of wanting to shift. As soon as they’re out of sight of people, Edwina shifts into a raven, and flies over the town, finding a shadow moving between certain areas of the walk down. Thinking that it’s the shadow Ian described, she follows it, pretending to be a raven, but the shadow speaks to her. So she transforms in front of it, and the shadow–which turns out to be a person with slicked back hair–tells her that she shouldn’t be wasting her power on a beautiful day, as she should be saving it for the Telling. He disappears in a puff of smoke just before Ian catches up with Edwina.

Ian is furious that Edwina had flown ahead and spoken to someone with no regard, and he vents his feelings to Hob, when the package arrives with the clothing from Edwina saying that it has to be kept in good shape and should be returned in two days. Ian reluctantly puts it on and goes to meet with Finlay, who gets distressed when he hears of the events that transpired. Clearly, Finlay was not the person Edwina was talking to, though Ian could have sworn that it was him as it looked exactly like him. Finlay gets mad when Ian does not deny that the person had gotten away from them, and then takes Ian to a part of the town and shows him a hidden street–one that has been empty for quite a while. Apparently, witches had lived there but then were wiped out by a disease, and instead of anything being done to clean up and make the part of the city useable again, it was sealed and hidden. Finlay then calls Ian a traitor, knocks him out and leaves him there, disappearing from the location. Ian comes to, but cannot find a way out until he comes across a goblin with a red hat wants to kill him. This goblin tells him the story–he had gone to a witch for some drinks, but found himself in this side of the town, where people were dying and no one had come to help them out. Ian offers to give up his memories in the marble and a droplet of blood, and take the goblin to the new bar with better brew if the goblin lets him live and shows him a way out of this side of the town. Ian makes his way to the estate for the Midsummer’s ball with Hob’s assistance as Hob dries his clothing up for him.

In the meantime, Mrs. Fletcher, the housekeeper, helps Edwina get dressed into an outfit for the ball. It’s hard because Edwina is still in mourning so wearing colorful dresses would be inappropriate, but the dress that Mrs. Fletcher found is a bit outdated and doesn’t fit Edwina. Mrs. Fletcher coughs a couple of times and Edwina offers to help her with the cough by brewing some tea for her, even after she sees a few droplets of blood on Mrs. Fletcher’s napkin. Mrs. Fletcher waves her away and goes upstairs to find a dress for Edwina. She returns with a differently styled dress that was once worn by Elvanfoot’s wife, the Lady of the Woods–a member of the fair folk–and puts it on Edwina. The dress fits her perfectly and feels very good, though it needs a few changes to it, so Mrs. Fletcher goes away with it to fix it up. In the meantime, there’s a ring at the doorbell that no one seems to pick up on, so Edwina opens the door only to find a letter addressed to her in the same green ink–it’s heavier though. When she opens it up, she finds that it holds a message from her stalker telling her to meet him in the garden at midnight, and also the ring with two rubies–one that she had found as a child and Mary had created two red rubies for it, before giving it to their mother, who cherished it. As part of the letter, it confirms that their mother is alive, but might not be for much longer. Edwina puts the ring on her finger.

Edwina leaves the house with Elvanfoot who tells her that Ian is probably on a case even though Hob could not find him, but not to fret as he will show up. The two of them together take the carriage to the ball, and as they pass through the gates, they are given masks. Edwina’s mask gives her raven wings which freaks her out momentarily as she thinks that she had transformed, but Elvanfoot tells her that it’s an enchanted mask, one that’s individually created by the hostess and that it means nothing. He introduces her to the hostess, who takes them around on a tour of the gardens.

Meanwhile, the man had gotten a stone from Maligar to eat before his arrival at the party, which he does before getting out of his carriage at the ball. This stone will give him the aura required to appear as a legitimate witch–every single witchborn has an aura around their neck that singles them out as a witch from mortals. He wanders around the ballroom, where he runs into someone else who recognizes him as Carlin. He also sees Edwina in her raven wings speaking to the hostess, and then singing at the hostess’ request across the stage. He edges his way towards Elvanfoot in the crowd, because he doesn’t like that he has such a close eye on Edwina the whole time.

There comes a point when everyone goes out to the garden for midnight to greet the fair folk. Ian arrives just before it and while he can see Edwina, he takes his eyes off of her for a moment to look for Elvanfoot as he cannot find him, when he sees this man with an odd aura sneaking about. His investigative instincts flare, and he follows the man around the garden where he sees him enter an area where Edwina is standing around waiting. His instincts tell him that she’s in danger but before he can do anything else, there’s a crack of static and it all goes black.

In the hedges, Edwina talks to Carlin who tells her that he’s been waiting to meet with her. She’s only interested in learning what is going on with her mother and whether he will let her go, but Carlin doesn’t talk about it, beyond telling her that her mother won’t survive for long if Edwina doesn’t go along with him. He walks the two of them towards the edge of a circle where the fair folk had rituals, where they continue to talk. At some point Edwina feels threatened by him and wants to get away, so she changes into a raven but finds out that she actually cannot get away–her mother’s ring was enchanted to turn into a chain that holds onto her, and which is utilized by Carlin to reel her back in. He takes her under his arm, and heads home with her, where he dumps her in a cage, tells her to be quiet and goes around to get changed. Edwina hears that there’s another voice–her mom calling out to let her out. Carlin comes back and tells the other woman to shut up, before he begins to call forth Maligar. He has to call him three times before Maligar makes an appearance, and asks with help to make the ritual happens so that he could become a witch. Maligar instead knocks him out, and opens up the floorboard so that Edwina can hear her mom’s pleas for help more clearly.

During that time, Ian wakes up and comes face to face with Finlay who accuses him to be a traitor. This is clarified when the hostess of the estate and the Lady of the Wood arrive, who in turn tell them that they saw Edwina with a different man. Ian asks about Elvanfoot, and the alarmed hostess has the house searched to see what happened to him. In the meantime, Ian and Finlay begin working together–asking some fairies, druids and nymphs if they saw the man with a raven, ultimately arriving at Carlin’s place. Finlay and Ian see Maligar enter the house, and Finlay blanches. He tells Ian that it’s not good news, before telling Ian to stay put and that he will go get help before disappearing to do that. Ian cannot help himself and goes in to try to shut it down, but instead gets frozen up the same way as Carlin, helpless to watch as Maligar makes off with Edwina in raven form. When Carlin wakes up he calls to Ian, but Ian cannot help him at all because she’s still frozen. Instead, the woman comes out of the cell that she’d been imprisoned in and knocks him over with a pan. Ian gets movement in his limbs and recognizes her as Leonora Blackwood as she and Edwina look eerily similar and he heard Edwina call her “mother.”

Maligar makes his way to the pond stone between the house where Carlin was (the Old Man’s house) and the Cameron’s house. Edwina stays in raven form because she doesn’t want to be hurt by him–every time she did something, Maligar would hit her with a blast of ice that hurt and bruised her–but when he explains that they go through the portal between these stones, Edwina knows that she needs to get out. Maligar asks the spider to step aside, it does it for Maligar willingly–this explains how he has been able to get in and out without the portals seemingly being disturbed. Before he goes through, Edwina starts squawking and flying away to try to get away from him, and Hob shows up to fight Maligar, resulting in him losing consciousness. The Camerons come out and fight Maligar, freeing Edwina, who returns to her human body. At that point, a whole entourage shows up–Ian, Leonora, Queen Annag of the fair folk, the Lady of the Wood, and Elvanfoot, as well as many more fair folks.

The queen takes care of Maligar, and gives him over to the Unseelie court that shows up when she’s asking him for answers–courtesy of Elvanfoot’s truth serum–and he reveals his whole plan. The Unseelie queen takes Maligar as well as Carlin with her through the portal and the whole Fair Folk court open up their banquet right then and there, where the Queen reveals that she had been seeing the Old Man who lived in the home purchased by Carlin, and how one day her prophetess had come to her and told her that she needs to prepare to have a new prophetess. At the time the queen had been returning home from visiting the man, when she saw Leonora and her husband having sex in the field, so she gave her own magic to them so that their child be born to be the next prophetess. At the time, they couldn’t have known that there would be twins, which split up the two parts of the prophetesses powers–one in Mary and the other in Edwina.

Mrs. Fletcher turns from a bunny that had been hopping on the tables, to herself, revealing that she has been the prophetess Gavina about whom the Fairy Folk Queen had been speaking. And they reveal that when Mary died, she became something else–she had written the symbols for such in the grimoire, because in the end she realized that between her and Edwina, she was the only one who would be able to make the transformation. She had found out about this whole situation from Maligar, and chose to die so that she could become that something else, while Edwina became the prophetess. They watch as a beetle-looking person comes up when Carlin gets coughed back up by the Unseelie court through the portals and she converts the last memories of Carlin’s life into the marbles that Edwina knows so well, before taking the body and disappearing with it.

The procession starts to make its way back to the house where the midsummer ball was held for the Telling. Edwina has to make a decision on whether she will become the Prophetess for the Queen of the Fair Folk, and Ian asks if she will have to leave this realm. The queen reveals that she will have to leave the realm for a time to learn her powers, but that she would come back to the mortal realm because this is where the Queen really needs her, as evidenced by Gavina’s life amongst the Elvanfoot household. Along the way, Gavina tells Edwina to say yes when the gentleman asks, and rides off while Edwina and Ian chat and share a moment.

My Thoughts: I really enjoyed this continuation of the story from The Raven Spell story that I read earlier. I loved that we see a good ending for Edwina and she gets to reconnect with her mother, with whom she seems to have a stronger emotional connection. I do wish we could find out more about the father and why he disappeared, what happened to him in the years that he was gone because from this story it seems that he had recently visited the Carlin home. At some point in the dialogue between Maligar, Edwina and Leonora, he admits that the husband is three feet down somewhere around the house. I also think that the solution to Mary’s untimely death was good but not really necessary–I didn’t really feel like Mary was providing any value in the first book, and I didn’t like her as a character. If anything, I feel like her powers should have transferred over to Edwina, the same way that her third eye/ premonition vision happened to become stronger after Mary’s death.

Overall, a good continuation to the story. I wonder if there’s going to be a third book or if this will be a duology since there has been no news on this front from the author. There does seem to be a good ton of world and story building that can happen from this series–Edwina’s life in the Fair Folk’s world, her reconciliation with Ian, and her happily ever after, maybe even helping with his magical investigations.