#auntemma

[lectophile]

Words of Wisdom: An Enchantment of Ravens

I paint not because I want to, not because I’m good at it, but because it is what I must do, what I live and breathe, what I was made for.

I felt him observing me and didn’t care, lost in the fever of my Craft.

I couldn’t fall into the trap of sympathizing with him.

I knew that part of him existed, but I didn’t want to see it. And that sentiment was more dangerous than all the enchantments he could offer me combined.

It was simple, really. He didn’t want me to forget him once he’d gone.

This must be what the awakening of spring was like, I thought. I was alive in a way I never had been before, in a world that no longer felt stale but instead crackled with breathless promise.

To meet someone, to forge a connection, all in the span of one golden afternoon—only to find out that for her, each passing minute was a year. Each second, an hour. She would be dead before the sun rose the next day.

Walking along a blade’s edge was only fun until the blade stopped being a metaphor.

Laws didn’t exist without reason—or precedent.

When the world failed me, I could always lose myself in my work. I withdrew into this sanctuary, where all my other concerns faded beside the demanding compulsion of my Craft.

Not the thing itself, but the shape of the ghost it left behind.

I forgot who I was, sept up in this force that seemed to surge through me from both within and without.

Neither of us could afford to tempt fate.

Just like that, he was gone forever.

Then it happens to you, and you understand you aren’t any different from those girls after all. Oh, they still seem just as absurd—you’ve simply joined them, in quite a humbling way. But isn’t absurdity part of being human?

Our worlds are small, our lives are short, and we can only bleed a little before we fall.

My heart soared and plummeted by turns Kline a bird buffeted by a storm.

Seeing a confession of love in his eyes was nothing like hearing it declared aloud. This was a look that would make time stop, if it could.

If I lived a thousand times, not once would I destroy my own life and another’s for love.

According to my head, I’d done the right thing. But my heart yawned dark and hollow with the emptiness his averted gaze left behind. I wondered if my head and heart would ever reconcile, or whether I’d just cursed myself to relive this moment for the rest of my years, half assured I’d made the only choice available to me, half always whispering if only, the whole of me filled with bitter regret.

I do so enjoy being perverse. In fact I rather think it is my true nature.

The ability to feel is a strength, not a weakness.

But that was the problem with the old me, I was coming to realize. She’d accepted that behaving correctly meant not being happy, because that was the way the world worked. She hadn’t asked enough—of live, or of herself.

You would claw your neighbor’s eyes out for a mouthful of dust, Yet dust is all around you. The whole world I shade of dust, and always returns to it. There is nothing else.

I love you eternally. I love you so dearly it frightens me. I fear I could not live without you. I could see your face every morning upon waking for ten thousand years and still look forward to the next as though it were the first.

Ah, but you were not a pawn. All along, you have been the queen.

I love you more than the stars in the sky.

And we wouldn’t live happily ever after, because I don’t believe in such nonsense, but we both had a long, bold adventure ahead of us, and a great deal to look forward to at last.

[laseanshelton]

Tonight! On my Aunt Emma’s Bday and the full day of me hitting 1 million hearts on #periscope I’m hosting a gratitude based Live Stream teaching you about the POWER of #socialmediamarketing & how #socialmedia can make or break your business! It’s time to #brandyourbrand #bossbabe #livestreaming #special #perigirls #excited #auntemma #laseanshelton #mzoptimizm #coupleschat if you love what you hear, inbox me TODAY! Trainthetrainerdr@gmail.com https://www.instagram.com/p/B2Kb_wdFTxr/?igshid=9as4sk83liz0

[track7media]

Brunch time at @auntemmaspancakes... #auntemmas #auntemmaspancakes #brunch #lunch #breakfast #pancakes #sign #wait #nationalcity #california #socal #south #family #empty #emmas #nikon #nikonphotography #random #streetphotography #indoor#indoors #restaurant #lowlight #nikond750 #niftyfifty (at Aunt Emma's Pancake's)

[bohogirldesigns]

1992, our trip to D.C., then on to Wildwood, NJ where childhood summers were spent with family. #bellalunafarm #greatmemories #family #grandma #auntemma #mylittles #whentheywerelittles (at Bella Luna Farm & Boho Girl Designs)

[killerkwinn94]

This is my first year as an Aunt to two wonderful boys. I am so lucky to be blessed to be a part of this wonderful family ❤❤ #CannClan #AuntieEmma #AuntieEm #AuntEmma #birthday #family #nephews (at Beamsville Ont)

[jacquelineisfromtexas]

I'm gonna miss this when she goes home. #auntemma

[coloreme12]

Me favorite auntie in the whole wide world😘❤️😍💜 #AuntEmma #MyOldLady

[lectophile]

Isobel (An Enchantment of Ravens): A Series.

All in all, it was a disarming quality for a creature who could murder me without rescheduling tea.

Outwardly, my face ached with the polite smile I’d maintained for the past two and a half hours.

Besides, what on earth would I do with men’s hearts? I couldn’t make an omelette out of them.

Supposing he had to touch me, I rather wished he’d helped me up instead.

I’ve never seen a kiss on the hand last so long, sir.

Therefore I beg you excuse my foolishness when I say that suddenly, I wanted that smell more than anything I had ever wanted before.

Yes, dead humans do tend to be messy.

They looked like a pair of cupids who had decided they liked shooting people with real arrows better. They were horrible. I loved them so much.

Yes, there he was, standing mere inches from a moldy onion skin I hadn’t swept up that morning.

I stopped too and waited for him to finish with a tight smile on my face, which was really more of a means of keeping myself from screaming in exasperation.

Perhaps all those lonely years of keeping a polite smile frozen on my face had driven me a bit off-balance, and the madness just didn’t kick in until I’d had a taste of something new.

Didn’t they realize their lives were worth more than the dubious affection of one silly young man? That there were things to do in a world that didn’t resolve solely around their heartbreak?

He was arrogant, self-centered, and obtuse—unworthy of me in every way.

By the end of the exercise, I only felt more miserable.

Rarely did she confess without torture.

Oh, if only I were the type to scream.

I may be an artistic prodigy, but I’ve never claimed to be a genius.

Annoyingly, he didn’t register the sarcasm.

He was arrogant verging on insufferable, but god—the power he possessed.

Feeling like an ill-behaved forest goblin hunkered down in the nude with my wet hair plastered to my shoulders and chest, I waddled over to a new spot and peeked through at a better angle.

I stood and skulked over to a stump, conscious that lately I was doing an awful lot of sneaking about in the forest nude.

Stop being melodramatic! I am not going to kill you in parlor!

[lectophile]

An Enchantment of Ravens: ****/5

Margaret Rogerson’s An Enchantment of Ravens has been one of the many Young Adult Fantasy books that Tik Tok—or rather, BookTok—is raving about. My favorite genre is fantasy, and I had been in somewhat of a drought for new books—even though I have over forty unread books in my bookshelf and over two hundred on my T.B.R.—and was so happy to find a couple of praised stand-alones, as I had serious series fatigue. Upon looking into getting the book, I realized that I had never really read fantasy standalones, and this novel has definitely opened me up into a fantastic new world of books that do not end in cliff-hangers, but rather are nicely wrapped up like a gift with a pretty bow on top.

I started reading An Enchantment of Ravens without a single clue as to what it was about and what kind of world it would be in. I was happily surprised that it was quite different from Sarah J. Maas’s seemingly established Fae world that I feel a lot of authors now work within. The book is humor-ridden. There is absolutely no way you will not laugh while reading—either from the dialogue or from Isobel’s internal thoughts as the book is written in her first-person. There is also a lot of introspection, which allows for a better understanding of Isobel and who she is. As a standalone, we don’t really grow with Isobel throughout the book as we would with perhaps Aelin from Sarah J. Maas’s Throne of Glass series—but there is so much humanity in this book that you can’t help but put yourself in Isobel’s shoes and think about what you would do. There is new love, first-time love that reminds us of our first flirtations with the idea of falling head-over-heels with someone, the way it makes you want to forget every single principle and value you hold dearly to your heart—and therefore have to fight your heart with your brain to remind yourself about what remains important to you. The book is wonderful in that sense as well, because our female protagonist doesn’t cast aside her love for her family, her passions, or future for a Fairy prince. Instead, she battles with herself about the two-sides of her heart, the one that aches for her family and for her art, and the one that yearns to find a way to be with a guy she can’t be with without threatening everything else she holds dear. We explore a world and follow a solid plot within three-hundred pages—which is a seemingly impossible feat in itself. I do have some reservations about how some things occurred, and so that is why I have not given this five stars. However, I think it’s a wonderful read and therefore I do not want to soil my praise with small criticisms that I feel might dampen the book for those who haven’t read it.

[jacquelineisfromtexas]

Out to lunch with my favorite oldie. #auntemma

[coloreme12]

Recap from my Aunt Emma's Birthday Celebration.!! #Keisha #AuntiePat #AuntEmma #Asia #Dee #UncleMarshall #FamilyFirst