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Conspiracy of Raven by J.C. McKenzie Series: Crawford Investigations #1
on October 21, 2019
Genres: Paranormal Romance, Urban Fantasy
Pages: 399
Format: eBook
Source: Bought
Purchase Links: Amazon
Goodreads
Raven Crawford knows better than to venture into the seductive world of the dark fae or agree to any of their salacious promises. She plans to pay off her debts so she can get on with her life and stay far away from the denizens of the Underworld.
Unfortunately, her numbskull twin steals from the most tempting and lethal fae of them all. Now, Raven must help the Lord of Shadows get back what her idiot brother stole. Her only weapons? Just a little ingenuity and a whole lot of snark. It’s suicide for sure, but she’ll do anything to protect her twin.
Reading order:
Every installment in the Crawford Investigations Series can be read as a standalone. However, if you wish to read the books chronologically, you can read in the series order provided in the titles or you can follow this recommended reading order:Conspiracy of Ravens (Raven #1, Crawford Investigations #1)
Nevermore (Raven #2, Crawford Investigations #2)
Queen of Corvids (Raven #3, Crawford Investigations #3)
From the Shadows (Juni #1, Crawford Investigations #5) - short story
Into the Fire (Juni #2, Crawford Investigations #6) - short story
Dark Legacy (Raven #4, Crawford Investigations #7)Extra Credit:
These books are companion stories. Their timelines run alongside other books in the series. They are not necessary to read, but provide additional information about additional charactersThe Call of Corvids (Bear #1, Crawford Investigations #4) - short story companion to Conspiracy of Ravens
Embrace the Flame (Juni #3, Crawford Investigations #8) - short story companion to Dark Legacy
Conspiracy of Ravens is book one in the Raven Crawford series by J.C. McKenzie.
First let me mention the cover. It is something to admire and it sucked me in. Next let me say I feel conflicted on this one. I wanted to like this novel, but it didn’t hit the mark.
Raven and her twin brother grew up in a family of fox shifters. The family has helped hide their true nature, but things are about to change.
I liked the ideas in play, but the execution was a let down. The first half was slow and didn’t move the plot along. The second have was a bit better giving us information on Bear (twin brother) and what he stole. There is a romance, but its muddled up with Raven’s thought process which is all over the place. It was like she couldn’t keep her thoughts together and the first 40% off the book was her fantasizing/dreaming about Cole, the Dark Fae Lord’s body. It was too distracting and took away from the story.
As for Raven you can feel the author wanted to make her cool, but the implementation was lacking. As for her twin bother, Bear, he’s a selfish prick. I don’t understand how she can have such loyalty to him when he is bad to her and the family.
Some other things that bothered me where the consistency issues, the author didn’t fact-check, and raven practiced self-hatred.
Conspiracy of Raven was not the book for me. If the blurb intrigues you, I urge you to give it a shot. Just because it did not work for me does not mean it won’t for you.
Rated: 2 Stars
Was this review helpful? If so, please consider liking it on Goodreads (Angela)!
It had a good concept, but wasn’t excited well. I really wanted to like this one. I had read a good review on it, but it just didn’t work for me.
Too bad it didn’t live up to the promise of the cover and blurb for you. Not sure I want to try with her thinking bouncing around like that.