Book Review: The Raven Scholar by Antonia Hodgson
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The Raven Scholar by Antonia Hodgson
Published: April 15, 2025
Series: Eternal Path Trilogy #1
Genres: Adult // Fantasy
Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️.25
Spice Rating: 🌶️🌶️ (Behind Closed Doors)
Quick Thoughts: There's no question The Raven Scholar has a really interesting premise that blends a murder mystery and trials for a new emperor with epic fantasy, but suffers from trying to do too much. At times the pacing is very slow and bogged down by the world building and the characters are flat. However, if you typically like whodunits and want a setting with lots of history and lore, this might be worth picking up!
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Violence/Murder
Death
Torture
Gore
Suicide (minor)
Vomit (minor)
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Deadly competition
Murder mystery
Political factions
Court/Political Intrigue
Second Chance Romance (very, very minor)
Multiple POVs (Third Person)
What is The Raven Scholar about?
The Raven Scholar is a masterfully woven tale of imperial intrigue from an electrifying new voice in epic fantasy.
Let us fly now to the empire of Orrun, where after twenty-four years of peace, the reign of Bersun the Brusque has come to an end. In the dizzying heat of midsummer, seven exceptional warriors, thinkers, strategists compete to replace him.
When one of them is murdered, it falls to Neema Kraa, the emperor’s brilliant, idiosyncratic High Scholar, to find the killer and fight for the throne. Neema believes she is alone. But we are here to help; all she has to do is let us in.
If she succeeds, we will win an empire. If she fails, death awaits her. But we won’t let that happen.
We are the Raven, and we are magnificent.
The Raven Scholar Review
Mysteries and thrillers used to be my genres of choice before I discovered fantasy, so I was excited to read The Raven Scholar. There's no question this book has a really interesting premise that blends a murder mystery and trials for a new emperor with epic fantasy.
It's ambitious storytelling and I can see why so many people love this book, but unfortunately, I think it suffers from trying to do too much.
World Building & Pacing
This book is packed with an impressive amount of backstories, complex politics and history, and lore. Snippets of worldbuilding were delivered to us as the plot progressed. On one hand, the book avoided the dreaded info-dumping but instead it bogged down pacing and messed with the flow of the story. Frankly, I think the constant alternating between current events and their corresponding explanations or backstories made this book far longer than it needed to be.
Characters
Now, most of the time you can make up for a meandering plot with strong characters. But this is another area where the book tries to do too much and doesn’t fully deliver. We had a large, diverse cast of side characters but most felt underdeveloped.
Even Neema, who has the most fleshed out character, has an arc that falls flat. She has a lot of autism-coded traits like struggling in social situations, compulsively correcting facts, and feeling ostracized by her peers. The author emphasized Neema being disliked so much that I figured it’d be an instrumental part of her character arc or the plot. Instead, the book just stops mentioning it somewhere in the middle of the story. There’s no clear resolution or character growth, and her inner dialogue doesn’t evolve or mature. This left me wondering why the author emphasized her isolation and mistreatment so heavily early on only to drop those threads entirely. Too often, I see neurodivergent-coded (or otherwise marginalized) characters mistreated without narrative purpose, and unfortunately, I believe that’s the case with Neema. As an AuDHD woman myself, I was really hoping for a character arc that did her more justice.
So, should you read The Raven Scholar?
It's pretty clear I'm in the minority with my opinion on The Raven Scholar because I've seen almost nothing but glowing reviews. Though this book had rich and layered world building and surprising twists, its slow pacing and flat characters made this a slog to get through and a whodunit mystery can only hold my interest for so long.
All in all, if you are interested in a book that blends a murder mystery with a beautifully imagined fantasy world, this is worth giving a shot. However, if you want richly developed characters or a fast-moving plot, I'd look elsewhere.
Check out this review on Goodreads or Storygraph.
Happy reading!
Kim
The Raven Scholar FAQs
Some of the answers may be spoilers if you haven’t read it already. Proceed with caution!
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The Raven Scholar is an adult fantasy book.
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While there is romance in The Raven Scholar, it’s a very minor subplot.
Those looking for spice or a real romantic arc will be disappointed as it just occurs and develops in the background.
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The Raven Scholar is a 2 🌶️ or behind closed doors. That means spice occurs but it’s off page and not detailed to the readers.
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Yes, The Raven Scholar is part of The Eternal Path Trilogy.
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As of right now, The Raven Scholar book 2 has not been announced yet.
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Yana’s twin brother Ruko exiles her for the chance to train at the Tiger monastery. She dies in the Dolrun Forest which is the last stop for exile.
(Yes, she’s really dead.)