Tome Thursday: The Enchanted Bird

 

Hello everyone!

 

And welcome back to the realm of Calatini, where magic is used openly, balls are inspired by Regency, and love flourishes.

 

Isn't that a poetic kind of introduction?

 

But as I stated last week, I'm going to be making my way through the books written by Katherine Dotterer as I'm enjoying the world-building she's investing into.

 

Some of the characters could potentially sometimes use a bit of additional work, but that aside, it's actually an enjoyable investment.

 

As always, a huge thanks to BookSirens for allowing me to grab these ARCs to begin with, as I'm reasonably sure there would have been no other option for me to find this particular series otherwise. I didn't even know I was looking before the site sent me an email with one of the books in there for a suggestion!

 

So without further ado, let's slip into our best attire and shake off the dancing cobwebs.

 

The Enchanted Bird is here.

 

You'll find links to previous related works at the bottom of this page, as per usual.

 

Now as you know, this is the OFFICIAL beginning of the series, but there's a prequel in existence which I reviewed last week - The Spellbinding Courtship - and I do suggest you read these books in order since I don't believe you'll understand all the actions and know all the names being dropped otherwise.

 

The Enchanted Bird takes place roughly a year after the prequel when Wren - a social recluse, although she's a very wealthy heiress in her own right, being the only child her parents had - hears an unsettling rumour that Hawke, her best friend in the whole wide world, is going to be matched this season.

 

Apparently, his mom's had enough of his womanizing and she wants him settled down giving her grandbabies.

 

Or, something along those lines. LOL.

 

Wren hurries over to warn Hawke about this, and he reassures her nobody can force him to marry if he doesn't want to - particularly not his mother.

 

Now why does Wren worry so much, you ask? Well, because she's been in love with Hawke since forever, that's why, but she's sure he doesn't feel the same way about her at all, and she'll eventually lose him to his wife - so how will she get something more out of this friendship before it happens?

 

She goes and purchases a strong glamour spell, attends a masquerade ball hosted by the King, and seduces Hawk into bed, spending a magical night with him.

 

Then she disappears, but doesn't destroy the charm (set in the form of a bird, of course), like the witch told her to do, because one, this would reveal she was Rowan (the mysterious woman Hawke slept with), and two, she forgets the bird at Hawke's place.

 

You can imagine what happens next: Hawke is determined to find Rowan, convinced if he can just spend more time with her they might fall in love and marry, so he enlists Wren to help her find him. Despite not wanting to, she goes along with it, trying to stall the process as best as she can, and you can IMAGINE the hilarity of all this ... as well as the sadness, because Wren wasn't brave enough to admit her feelings to begin with, and Hawke can't see what's right underneath his nose.

 

This search lasts through the entirety of the book, also including horrible exhaustion for Wren and piercing, painful headaches for Hawke, all as a result of the spell still being active, which Hawke learns when he FINALLY unearths the witch who created it.

 

She also tells him he kinda sorta needs to destroy the charm, because eventually it WILL destroy Rowan, when it draws more than she can handle (naturally the spell was going to be tethered so that Wren was the one to fuel it, magic has to have a source somewhere, how did someone as smart as Wren not figure this out?!).

 

You can imagine his predicament, with the bird being the only link he has to Rowan, but since not even the King's witch could do anything with it, the original spell caster is his only option.

 

And in any event, he wants to try and see if this is an obsession he should shed, or just something to continue, regardless, which is how the bird ends in the fire, and takes the glamour with it, letting him realize just WHO he'd been chasing all along.

 

Considering the fact that he's also spent tons of time with Wren while working on a theatrical play for the orphanage she frequents, and a play Hawke's mother asks her to put together for the celebration of Aragon and Selena's pregnancy announcement (in which Hawke's family members take up center stage playing the roles she writes), one would think his blindness might have been lifted sooner.

 

BUT all's well that ends well, kinda sorta.

 

See, that one night together they had? The glamour spell nullified their contraceptive spells, and Wren is pregnant with Hawke's child, which, SCANDALLL.

 

Of course that's all moot point since Hawke and Wren inform their mothers they will, in fact, marry - binding their souls together, natch - and that THEY will be organizing everything, not their parents. Because if they let the parents do it, it'll turn into one huge pain in the bottom, and they don't want to wait either.

 

So with that said, two babies on the way, and the infamous Kit (who used to be married to Hawke's cousin until the man's unfortunate passing) now firmly dismissed since Hawke is only marrying one woman, the book comes to a close, but promises to continue the mystic with it's successor, The Nightmara Affair, focusing on the King and another maiden dressing herself up for his masquerade.

 

But that's for next time!

 

This time, I have to admit I'm slightly disappointed in the execution, mostly because I thoroughly enjoyed Selena and Aragon (for the most part) in the prequel.

The world is still amazing and I love the way magic is incorporated - and I WILL be reading forward, absolutely. I'm invested in this family as well as the king, their cousin, so I want to know what's going on with the other side characters and such.

I just couldn't get on board with Hawke and Wren.

Mostly Wren, however, because she seemed to be so negative and so run-Hawke-into-the-ground all the time. I don't understand why, because it's not like she's a stranger to the world they live in, she would have anticipated and known that once he hit a certain age (or they did really) as the son of a duke he was going to be attending events and whatnot, and not just spending time with her and whatever she had chosen. In fact, her situation was very much more bizarre because even if she were her family's heiress, that legacy should have been passed down to someone, no? So her parents just letting her do her own thing didn't ring as true to this pseudo-Regency inspired world, in a way.

 

That she kept on practically sniffing and sneering over the fact Hawke was attending court events was just ... I don't know, unkind is one word to use I suppose.

And honestly, she just didn't strike me as a strong enough heroine because she believed everybody around her everything they said, which literally started the entire problem for her - because she was, for some reason, hurt that Hawke supposedly kissed someone else before kissing her, at fifteen.

Her head was by far too much in the clouds to make her believable, so instead she unfortunately turned out slightly childish and immature, and I'm not really sure what Hawke saw in her to be honest.

I gave it three stars because I enjoy everything else surrounding these two, but they as the center stage couple just didn't do it for me, unfortunately.

 

xx

*image not mine

 

The Spellbinding Courtship