Centuries ago, an empress put a series of laws in place to ensure that humanity would never see the devastation of war ever again. One of those rules is that an emperor or empress can only rule for 24 years. Another is that there will be a competition to choose a new ruler because the throne cannot be inherited. From the first pages of Antonia Hodgson’s electrifying new novel, The Raven Scholar, however, we can see that logic and order can’t create a perfect society. Fallible, vengeful, greedy humans can always manage to find ways to hold onto power and use it for their own ends.
After a long introduction to the orderly yet violent world of The Raven Scholar, the narrative settles on Neema Kraa. Neema has striven to rise among the Ravens, an order dedicated to learning, law, history, and language, her entire life. The only reason she was able to become the Emperor’s High Scholar was because she was willing to use her perfect calligraphy to create a notorious order of exile for the daughter of a traitor. Eight years on, Neema has lived a lonely life, shunned by people who can never let her forget her commoner origins. Now that the Emperor is set to retire, Neema just has to get through the weeklong competition to select a new ruler before she can leave the stifling capital and its intolerable snobs.
Unfortunately, things go wrong almost from the start. The Raven competitor for the throne is murdered the first night of the competition and Neema is not only ordered to find out who did it but also to take the dead woman’s place in the competition. There’s no chance that Neema will win against some of the empire’s strongest warriors and barely a chance of solving the mystery. Complicating things even more is a spirit that has chosen Neema for yet one more mission: to prevent the strongest candidate from winning the throne because he might cause the gods to return and end the world. It’s a lot of pressure.
The Raven Scholar had me hooked from the first pages even though it features two tropes that ordinarily turn me off. I find a lot of big-stakes competitions–like the one featured in The Hunger Games–to be unrealistic. Why would a society actually do that? The competition in this book made sense to me. It felt like something a reasonable society would do, especially one as apparently dedicated to upholding tradition as this one. I also struggle with societies that divide people based on attributes (looking at you Harry Potter and Divergent) but, in this society, people choose which life path is most appealing rather than get sorted. There is also room for people who choose not to affiliate. I really loved the world-building in The Raven Scholar.
The other thing that had me hooked on The Raven Scholar was the increasing complexity of the plot. I love a layered story and this book is a veritable onion. Every time Neema and her few allies think they know what’s going on, some new piece of information flips everything on its head. While I struggle with competition tropes, I adore stories about characters who unintentionally misunderstand prophecies as they try to avert them. This is an old trope but I can’t get enough of stories about characters who think they know what’s going on only to get smacked upside the head because they charged ahead without asking important questions.
I desperately wanted to dive into the next book in the series but, sadly, I have to wait until the sequel is published. Because I read an advanced reader copy, I have to wait even longer than everyone else to find out what happens next to Neema, her lover Cain, and Sol the Solitary Raven. Damnit.
I received a free copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley, for review consideration.