The Raven Scholar by Antonia Hodgson

On July 27, 2025 By The Unseen LibraryIn Fantasy, Five-Star Books, Murder Mystery2 Comments

Publisher: Hodderscape (Trade Paperback – 29 April 2025)

Series: The Eternal Path – Book One

Length: 646 pages

My Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

Intriguing author Antonia Hodgson presents one of the best fantasy debuts of 2025 with The Raven Scholar, a powerful and complex novel that hooks you early and refuses to let go all the way to its shocking end.

Earlier this year I was lucky enough to receive a copy of The Raven Scholar, a massive fantasy novel with a very interesting plot idea behind it that will set up the new Eternal Path trilogy. I had really enjoyed Hodgson’s debut novel, the historical thriller The Devil in the Marshalsea, many years ago, and I really got caught up in The Raven Scholar’s complex and brilliant story.

In the empire of Orrun, a new emperor is crowned every 24 years, with a replacement chosen from acolytes of the eight animal guardians whose blessings have warded and kept the empire in check for generations. However, the current emperor, Bersun the Brusque, has not had a peaceful reign, marred by an attempted assassination and the subsequent execution of his attacker’s daughter. His replacement offers a chance at a new era for Orrun, but the sins of the past continue to haunt all involved.

As the next Trials to determine the next emperor begin, seven skilled and revered young challengers emerge for the crown, and it falls to Neema Kraa, the emperor’s brilliant, if unsocial, High Scholar to organise much of the proceedings. However, the Trials are thrown into chaos when the Raven contender is brutally murdered, and all the evidence points to Neema as the suspect.

Tasked with proving her innocence, Neema is shocked when emperor Bersun decides to make her the new Raven contender. Suddenly facing six highly skilled rival contenders who have trained their entire lives to compete in the trials, as well as a proxy chosen by the mystical Dragon temple, Neema finds herself fighting for her life in the deadliest contests imaginable. If she succeeds, she could take the throne, but to do so she must first survive a dark conspiracy infecting the palace, one that threatens all Orrun and could lead to a new age of darkness for the empire. Nothing is what it seems, and with the animal guardians returning to the world, chaos is about to engulf the trials, changing its contenders forever.

With an exceptional and powerful story that I could just not put down, The Raven Scholar was a particularly amazing fantasy debut that I absolutely could not stop reading. Clever, twisty, and continuously exciting, Antonia Hodgson really impressed me with The Raven Scholar, and due to how quickly I absorbed its over 600 pages of content, I have no choice but to give it a full five-star rating.

I must admit, going in I didn’t know what to expect from The Raven Scholar, but I ended up being extremely impressed with the elaborate narrative Hodgson pulled together. Set around a wonderfully expansive fantasy story about a tournament of skill and brains, Hodgson had to do a lot in this book, and I feel that she ended up creating something very special and particularly addictive. Starting with an intense introduction that provides some key context for the later events of the story, Hodgson pulls a very interesting move of inflicting a dark fate on the protagonist of this initial part of the book before jumping the plot forward several years and presenting a new main perspective character. The impacts of this introduction are well felt throughout the rest of the book’s plot, and I love the various secrets, hidden hints and impacts these first couple of chapters had.

Hodgson then moves the narrative of The Raven Scholar into the elaborate period of the tournament to determine the new Emperor of Orrun. Primarily shown from the perspective of High Scholar Neema Kraa, an isolated figure who suddenly finds herself in the middle of proceedings when the initial Raven contender for the throne, an old rival of Neema, is murdered, and Neema is considered a potential suspect. Attempting to investigate the crime, Neema finds herself placed as the new Raven contender and must try to survive the intense trials to come. I love a good tournament arc in fiction, and this proved to be an extremely fun one as each of the participants had to complete several different tasks chosen by each of the participating temples, as well as compete in a series of duels between each task. This allows for an interesting combination of physical and mental assignments, which proved to be very compelling, as you tried to see who would take the throne.

While the tournament is the narrative highlight of The Raven Scholar, it is only one part of the story, as Hodgson creates some very interesting additional arcs throughout the plot. Namely, Neema finds herself investigating a dark conspiracy within the palace following the murder of her former contender. The author uses her past crime fiction experience extremely well here, crafting together a very elaborate and intense mystery narrative that the protagonist is constantly dragged into. It doesn’t take too long for her to realise the scope of the conspiracy before her, as well as who the participants in it are, although there are a lot of hidden secrets and motivations that come out as the story continues. I really loved all the impressive twists and turns that resulted in this part of the book, and the massive overarching conspiracy blends extremely well with the tournament part of the story, with the revealed antagonists using elements of it to try and take out the Neema and other problematic contenders. I also really appreciated how so much of the big moments of the plot flowed on from the complex introduction to the story, and Hodgson does an amazing job hiding hints at what is to come throughout the entire book. Everything leads to the big finale of The Raven Scholar, where all the secrets come out and you are left shocked by what occurs. I honestly didn’t see every twist coming, and I loved how Hodgson kept subverting expectations about where the plot would be going. The book ends on a very interesting note, and you will come away very excited to see where the series goes from here, especially as the story can only get more complex and twisted.

The Raven Scholar was a really well written novel, and I must highlight how well Hodgson combined her elaborate fantasy world and it’s defining tournament, with complex characters and excellent intrigue and mystery. The range of elements in this novel is very impressive, and I liked how well Hodgson brought them together, allowing for quite a well-layered book. The author’s ability to insert an array of subtle hints and important details throughout the book was also amazing, with a variety of seemingly inconsequential statements, conversations or observations coming back into play at later parts of the story. Some of these were particularly clever and I really appreciated seeing all these cool elements coming into play as the story continued. This powerful narrative is further enhanced by the author’s intricate fantasy universe, which makes good use of its zodiac inspired system of animal guardians to create a very compelling tournament background. The scenes throughout the tournament are a true highlight and I loved the intense action and the high stakes that accompanied them. Throw in the machinations of several of the animal guardians, as well as the complex past of some of the characters, and there is so much to absorb and appreciate about this elaborate book.

I also really enjoyed the impressive cast of The Raven Scholar, whose unique stories added some excellent additional detail to the plot. The main protagonist, Neema Kraa, was a great central figure in the book, especially with her complex past, poor social status, and the fact that her current advancement came as a result of her worst actions. Neema spends much of The Raven Scholar trying to redeem her past mistakes, and her eventual placement in the tournament allows her the chance to prove herself. You really get invested in Neema’s struggles as the book continues, and I liked how she kept evolving to meet the challenges before her, becoming a major contestant to the throne. The rest of the contenders are all interesting in their own way, and I appreciated the compelling storylines and history that the author built around them. This includes the Fox contender, Cain, whose complicated romantic past with Neema becomes one of the more interesting recurring plotlines in the book, while his bold nature and inappropriate sense of humour made him a firm favourite of the reader. I personally enjoyed how Neema twisted his past a little as the plot continued, ensuring that his arc went in some surprising and dark directions, and you really feel drawn to him, especially when he annoys all the other more serious figures in the book.

Other key characters include the Tiger contender, Ruko Valit, who was a dark figure in the plot, especially as he deals with the treachery that led him to become a favourite in the tournament. A determined and arrogant figure, Hodgson works a great potential redemption arc around Ruko, while also cleverly hinting at the destructive role he will have in the future. Ruko’s sister Yana was a key early figure in the novel, and while you don’t get the chance to know her too well, the consequences of the actions taken around her haunt many of the characters to come. The rest of the cast are also cool, although I will limit myself by highlighting a really sinister hidden antagonist, as well as certain animal guardians who visit the realm and interfere with some of the contenders in dramatic manners. I personally felt the various aspects of the Raven for example were fun, not only with how part of them influences Neema, but with the narrator role the main body takes on for part of the book, which includes footnotes. All these figures, as well as the many other compelling figures featured within the plot, help to make The Raven Scholar something very special, and I look forward to seeing how many of the fantastic character arcs Hodgson started here, continue in the future.

Overall, I found The Raven Scholar to be an extremely cool and outstanding book, especially as author Antonia Hodgson weaved together a particularly intricate and captivating narrative. Loaded with intriguing details, clever twists, amazing characters, and so much excitement, I quickly fell in love with The Raven Scholar, and I could not stop reading it, powering through hundreds of pages at a time. I honestly cannot recommend this book enough, and I enjoyed The Raven Scholar so much that I had to include it on my recent list of top books from the first half of 2025. I cannot wait to see how Hodgson continues this series going forward, but I am already certain it is going to be something really awesome and very memorable.

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The Girl in Question by Tess Sharpe

On June 2, 2024 By The Unseen LibraryIn Five-Star Books, Thriller, Young Adult6 Comments

Publisher: Hodder Children’s Books (Trade Paperback – 9 April 2024)

Series: The Girls I’ve Been – Book Two

Length: 442 pages

My Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

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In the mood for a clever, emotionally charged young adult thriller with some real heart behind it? Look no further than one of the best books of 2024 so far, The Girl in Question by Tess Sharpe.

Back in early 2021 I had the very great pleasure of reading an outstanding young adult thriller that had caught my eye thanks to its intriguing narrative and the promise it was being turned into a Netflix series. That book was The Girls I’ve Been by Tess Sharpe, which proved to be an extremely impressive read I had a wonderful time getting through. The Girls I’ve Been followed Nora O’Malley, a young teenager with a dark past as a con artist, who had managed to escape her abusive mother and gangster stepfather and find happiness with her older sister in a small town. Caught up in a bank robbery, Nora was forced to bring back her old tricks to save her friends, only for her actions to reveal her location to those hunting her. The Girls I’ve Been was such a great read, and I had such an amazing time getting through it. As such, I was very excited when I heard that Sharpe was releasing a sequel this year with The Girl in Question, one of my most anticipated books of 2024, which continued the story from the first novel in a big way.

Former con artist Nora O’Malley is enjoying life while she can. Having recently finished high school, Nora is excited for the careers and futures that her girlfriend Iris and her best friend Wes are planning for. However, Nora knows that her own future is bleak and unlikely to be long. Her secret past has been exposed, and with her murderous stepfather Raymond now free from prison, it’s only a matter of time before he comes to kill her.

Determined not to live in despair while waiting to die, Nora agrees to accompany Iris and Wes on a summer hiking trip. The long trek through the woods is everything Nora could want to relax, even with Wes’s new girlfriend, Amanda, tagging along, and she is able to put the thoughts of imminent death out of her head. That is, until Amanda is taken hostage in the night and their camp comes under attack from Raymond’s vengeful goons.

Split up in the woods without backup, help or leverage, Nora, Iris and Wes’s chances seem dire. But these are no ordinary teenagers. All three have gone through hell in their lives and none are willing to give up on each other. Working together to fight back, the three friends seek to survive together. However, there are unknown players in the woods, and Nora will need to use all her skills at manipulation to keep herself and her friends alive. But nothing is as it seems, and deep secrets amongst the trio could break them apart well before they are hunted down.

The Girl in Question was another excellent young adult thriller from Tess Sharpe that expertly built on the story from the first book, while taking the characters in some interesting directions. Sharp, clever, and highly intense, The Girl in Question is guaranteed to keep you on your toes as you get drawn into the action.

Sharpe comes up with a great story for The Girl in Question, taking the protagonists through hell and back as they attempt to survive the dangerous forces coming for them. Set a couple of years after the events of The Girls I’ve Been, The Girl in Question starts with an intriguing prelude that hints at events to come, before diving into the main story, with Nora and her friends planning a trip into the forest. Sharpe does a good job of exploring the aftermath of the first book, the strong relationships between the main characters, and the general apprehension felt by the protagonist about her potential upcoming doom. There are also several hints that the protagonists know far more than they should, and they have secrets they are keeping from everyone. Soon the characters find themselves stuck in the woods, which quickly results in chaos as the bad guys find them and prepare to kill them.

This first third of the plot is really intriguing and fun, but the action really kicks in for the last two thirds of the book. Sharpe does a great job of utilising the dark situation the protagonists are stuck in, and I loved the feeling of isolation and desperation that they feel. There is also a good use of flashbacks throughout this early part of the book to explore more of Nora’s past with the antagonist, especially as it introduces a couple of the goons running around the woods. All three of the main protagonists react in some great ways, and I loved seeing them take charge and fight back, while also dealing with their own personal issues. This works until around halfway through, whereupon Sharpe reveals a pretty massive twist that changes the entire direction of the story and makes you realise nothing was what you thought. There is a great extended flashback that sets up some very interesting character development, before the action returns to present and results in some intriguing interactions. Sharpe throws in some great moments and reveals leading towards the conclusion, and I for one was very hooked as the elaborate and thrilling story continued. The final confrontation was everything you would hope it to be as Sharpe ensures that everyone gets what they deserve, one way or another. Throw in a few fun and often dark final twists and turns, including some well-deserved revenge, and this proves to be quite a fantastic read that I really could not get enough of.

Unlike a lot of other sequels that I read, I felt that The Girl in Question didn’t massively work as a standalone novel; people really need to check out the previous novel first. While Sharpe does do a decent recap of The Girls I’ve Been for new readers, so many story elements from the first book are referenced in the sequel that you’d be much better off getting through that previous novel in advance. However, no matter what, you are in for a treat with The Girl in Question, as Sharpe produces a powerful thriller that expertly utilises all the best elements from the first book. The great changes in perspective, especially between the two main characters, the short, sharp, action-packed chapters, as well as the excellent flashbacks and fun little lists thrown in between chapters work together well to tell a great story. You really get a great sense of the action, and the slow build towards the various twists works well, especially with the occasional hint of what is to come. I loved how Sharpe maintained a very quick story pace, and there is honestly not a quiet moment where something thrilling or emotionally charged is taking place.

Like the previous novel in the series, The Girl in Question proves to be an excellent piece of young adult fiction that will appeal to a wide teenage audience and beyond. While most of the story focus is on the characters or the over-the-top crime thriller elements, Sharpe does take the time to discuss issues relevant to teenagers, like the uncertainty of the future, complicated friendships, and abusive parents, the latter of which is a recurring theme amongst the main characters. I really appreciated how Sharpe doesn’t talk down to her teenage audience when it comes to these elements, or the dark crime fiction inclusions, and these readers will no doubt love this gritty novel and its fantastic story.

At its heart, The Girl in Question is driven by its compelling central cast, as Sharpe continues to explore the lives of three damaged teenagers as they attempt to overcome their respective pasts, and the dark threats of the future coming for them. As with the first book, a large amount of the character focus revolves around protagonist Nora O’Malley, the daughter of a notorious con artist who was used as a tool in her mother’s ploys before breaking free in dramatic fashion. Ever since the events of the last book, Nora has been living in fear as her location has been leaked and her vengeful stepfather is likely coming for her. This ensures a healthy dose of fatalism in Nora, and she is forced to choose between her instinct to run and her current connections and relationships. Nora proves to be a real firecracker of a protagonist, and I like how dark she can get as she tries to protect those closest to her. Determined, manipulative and deadly, Nora walks a thin line between the criminal she was raised to be and the caring person her friends turned her into and must come to terms with what her natural inclination to deceive costs those around her. I really enjoyed following Nora as a central protagonist and Sharpe takes her storyline in some interesting directions.

In addition to Nora, the other two main characters are Nora’s girlfriend Iris, and their best friend Wes. Both these characters have grown a lot closer to Nora since the last book, as the trauma of their pasts and the bank robbery they find themselves stuck in have ensured they have become a tight unit. Of the two, Iris gets most of the focus, and she ends up narrating nearly half the book. Iris is an interesting counterpoint to Nora, especially as she is a little more innocent and unused to the dangers of Nora’s life and worries about being helpless. Despite that, she proves to be quite formidable as the book progresses, and indeed she might be the most dangerous member of the group. Wes, on the other hand, is a solid and compelling addition to the group, serving as the man of action who is desperately trying to keep his friends safe from the dangers around him. While he is not focused on as heavily as Nora and Iris, Wes is a major figure, and it was interesting to see how his friendship with the two girls has changed him, as well the trauma surrounding him from his abusive father. The bond between these three characters is a major part of The Girl in Question’s strength, and it was great to see them work together as the novel progressed. This bond is tested in places, especially as they are forced to lie to each other, but this was an overall nice character dynamic that produced an epic read. Other characters of note include Wes’s girlfriend, Amanda, whose own secrets plays in an interesting role in the plot, one very good dog, an ambitious FBI agent who takes a stroll in the woods for her own ends, and a bevy of great antagonists, including the big-bad Raymond. These characters all add so much to the book, and I loved the powerful story arcs around them all.

Tess Sharpe has produced another outstanding young adult thriller with The Girl in Question. Perfectly following on from the previous novel, The Girl in Question was a powerful, clever and compelling read that had me hooked the entire way through. This was such an amazing book and I look forward to seeing what unique and powerful young adult adventures Sharpe comes up with in the future.

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