‘The Raven Scholar’ will be your new fantasy addiction

“Life is a puzzle with no answer; a game with no rules; a maze with no exit, except death. And still we stumble on through the dark, creating form where there is none, seeing patterns that are not there.” — “The Raven Scholar,” Antonia Hodgson

Don’t be intimidated by this 600 page epic fantasy by Antonia Hodgson, there are well-written, complex characters, world-building, deadly trials and murder mystery waiting for you. Listed as a best book of the year for 2025 by NPR, Elle and Publishers Weekly, “The Raven Scholar” lives up to the hype. I was entirely engrossed from the prologue alone, which started the story off with a bang.

We’re dropped into a world where allies seem hard to come by, magic is elitist and you never know what’s real and what’s fake. The empire of Orrun is separated into eight different factions, all based on magical ability and symbolized by a different animal (i.e. Ravens, Fox, Monkey, etc.). Every 24 years there are seven chosen representatives from each house that must compete in a series of deadly trials to determine who is strongest to take over as Emperor of Orrun.

After one of the competitors is murdered, we follow Neema Kraa, The High Scholar of the Ravens. She is tasked with finding the killer (even though she is murder suspect No. 1) and has to formally take the spot of the missing competitor. Unprepared, without allies and a murder suspect, Neema has to navigate not only these intense rigorous challenges, but clear her name.

“The Raven Scholar” left me hanging onto every word, page and chapter. I felt utterly at the mercy of Hodgson about what was going to happen next. Not only did the story feel deadly, but it felt like at any moment everything would fall apart. Hodgson builds up the tension and mystery so well you can’t see the twists and turns coming. “The Raven Scholar” proves that high-stakes political intrigue and complex world-building can read like a fast-paced action-packed novel.

I would highly recommend “The Raven Scholar” to anyone who loved the perilousness of “The Hunger Games” but wanted the high-fantasy storytelling of “Mistborn” by Brandon Sanderson. Trust me when I say, this will be your new fantasy addiction. Now we (not so) patiently wait for Hodgson to release the second in “The Eternal Path Trilogy.”

Christina Rael is a bookseller at Books on the Bosque, located at 6261 Riverside Plaza Lane, Suite A-2, or at booksonthebosque.com.