I love everything Cat Winters writes and I have read lots about Poe so I was so excited about this book. I was not disappointed. Devoured it in just a few hours.

DNF - 50%

I'm sorry. I tried. I really tried. I love Winters' writing but I just cannot care about this. I guess I just don't find the life of Edgar Allan Poe anywhere near as interesting as I thought I would.

I recieved this eArc from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

Cat Winters definitely did her research in order to create this historical fiction work of a young Edgar Allan Poe. In the afterword, she lists a bibliography that helped her as well as a list of places she visited, such as the Poe Museum in Richmond.

All Poe fans know of the sweet Lenore, who is brought up a few times by the poet in different works. The most famous Lenore is the deceased wife in "The Raven." This book takes a bit of a turn as to who Lenore actually is.

In this world, a muse is not merely a figment of inspiration, but a creature who springs to life from the artist. Muses ache to obtain their final form--usually some sort of bird--when the artist decides to dedicate their life to their art. As historians know, Poe had a bit of a difficult time accepting his art. He was born from professional actors, both of whom died before he was three years old. John and Frances Allan raised him as a foster child.

Lenore comes to life in the midst of one of Poe's flourishings before he travels to the university. Poe is frightened by her and begs her to leave as John Allan would never allow him to attend college if he continued on with these artsy shenanigans. The book follows Poe's adventures of his first (and only) year at the University of Virginia where his relationship with his foster father and his art wanes.

Winters does a great job of capturing the essence of Poe's works; she not only quotes the poet's earlier works, but she adds a Poe-esque vibe to the exposition.

If you're a fan of macabe and magical realism and, of course, Poe, this is a book for you.

I have a morbid fascination with the macabre, so of course I've always enjoyed Edgar Allan Poe's writing. You can tell that Cat Winters does too, and you can also tell that she did a ton of research for this novel. I did learn quite a bit about teenage Poe, and I was surprised to learn that he wasn't exactly the emo boy I had always pictured in my mind; he was fairly normal and made friends easily, but he also had an unfortunate lot in life that led to a fascination with morbid things. And he also maybe had a...dark muse?

This fantastical part of the book was the part I was less enthused about. I don't hate the concept of turning muses into real-life beings, but the execution of it in the story confused me. The muses seemed to have rules to their existence but didn't seem to follow them. And Lenore's personality was never quite consistent - it could be because she was "mad" - but still, I could never get a good read on her.

Poe himself though - I enjoyed his chapters and think Winters did a nice job capturing the voice of a boy who desperately wants to fit in, yet also desperately wants to pursue his artistic dreams. I loved reading his earlier poems and thought how she connected the dots to his real life was quite clever. Poor Eddy's life really was a series of unfortunate events, some due to his own devices and some due to outside forces, but it makes for a fascinating biography all the same. One I'm sure I'll keep coming back to forevermore.

<i>Thanks to NetGalley for providing an ARC in exchange for an honest review.</i>

I was so wrapped up in this book, I couldn’t put it down. I’m a big fan of Edgar Allan Poe and when I saw this book on Netgalley, I knew I needed to read it. It did not disappoint. Cat Winters did thorough research and it shows. The Raven’s Tale is a fictional story based on Poe’s actual life. His work is incorporated throughout the novel, and the authors note in the back is packed with even more information. The story is beautifully written, and I think Poe himself would be proud of this novel.

I really loved the concept of Muses the author created. A world where muses are physical being, brought out of your consciousness, and they literally feed off of your creativity. If I had a muse that needed me to be creative in order for it to survive as a living, breathing thing, I’d never stop creating. It’s such an interesting concept.

I’ll definitely be picking this book up for my shelf when it comes out in April. If you’re a fan of the Edgar Allan Poe, or the Macabre in general, you’ll love The Raven’s Tale!

I really wanted to like this book. It sounded like it could be incredible. And I really tried to like it. But no. I just did not think it was good.
The premise was great--A teenaged Edgar Poe unintentionally conjuring up his Muse, Lenore, in the flesh, and then becoming the author and poet we know him as today. And while that does happen in this book, it is just not well-executed. It is very apparent that the author has done extensive research and worked hard to make her story grounded in historical facts. But in the end I felt like the events of Edgar's teenage years were not delved into deeply enough. The reader is told things instead of being shown things. Edgar comes across as a pouty, melodramatic, spoiled, whiner instead of a tortured, dark, creative yet macabre, genius.
The elements of magic in the story were also a bit confusing to me. Creative people have tangible muses that they can speak and interact with, but everyone seems scared of them, if not downright condemning. It didn't make any sense and was not well-explained.
I wish I could have liked this book. It is obvious the author tried very hard. But it just fell very flat for me.

The Ravens Tale. Edgar. Poe. Firstly, I must admit I became borderline obssessed with Edgar upon the release of Altered Carbon - where the Artificial Interface Hotel models itself after him! So, when I saw the magnificence that is Edgar Allan Poe was being further immortalised into a book, I was intrigued to say the least.

Cat Winters did not dissapoint. Weaving a rich tale of intriuge, and wonder, Edgar is encapsulate as a boy of sensitivity and struggles. Drawing on all-too realistic aspects and creating an deliberate atmospheric portrayal of such a polarising entity.

Winters, without a doubt, has invested time and effort into reasearch for this. Allowing the construction of a literary masterpiece, swithcing between the views of Edgar, and his muse. In this intance, we're allows to see the true nature of the plot-line, and the twists it encapsulates, while portraying the utter high's and lows of the novel.

It had moments of dullness, which were uncharactertisc and unexpected, however upon finishing the novel you're presented with a poem, crafted by winters in the style fo Edgar.

I end here, spoiler-less, and high-hopes for more form Cat Winters.

An inspiring, atmospheric book that captures the spirit of Poe's poetry. Writing about real, historical people is never easy, but it works here in a powerful, poignant way.

I was incredibly intrigued by the premise of this book. I’d read some of Edgar Allen Poe’s work in school so I was excited going into this.

It must have been difficult to develop a character that already exists in history. Obviously, he isn’t around for us to know what his personality is like, what he likes and dislikes etc. We can only go with what we can presume from his work. Also, even though no one alive will have known him at the time. I feel like people will already have pictures in their heads of how they perceive him to be, and then when they read a book based on him, it can run the risk of the character not feeling real. So I applaud the author for taking on task.

This book had an interesting concept with muses being a real person. I thought this was fascinating because it really is like they are an inspirational, creative guide who acts in your best interest but is also rather out of control.

The writing was so beautifully orchestrated and it had this magical feeling of sucking you right into the heart of the story.

Overall, I really enjoyed this book and I'm interested to see what the author writes next!

What a lovely tale...



Once upon a dark December, in a year we
must
remember,
Morbid mounds of ash and ember told a
gruesome tale of gore--





Wow, I think Cat Winters did a great job on this book!

I was reading through her author's notes, etc and she was telling how she went about finding out as much history as she could before writing this book. I think she made a remarkable book on fiction and fact to create a young Poe.

I loved reading about Lenore! The book is written in two POV's; Edgar and Lenore. I must say it's bloody brilliant. I loved the creepiness to the book and the way the author incorporated a muse for different people. It was so freaking gothic and awesome and like I said a bit creepy. If you accept what you have created then the creepiness goes away and you find that you have a friend for life.

That's all I'm going to say before I sit right here and type a spoiler before the book is even out yet. This is February and this fine book will be out in April; I'm putting it on my birthday book buying list for myself.

*Thank you to Netgalley and the Publisher for a complimentary copy of this book for review.*

Happy Reading!

Mel ♥

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2704377352?book_show_action=false&from_review_page=1


I received an ARC of The Raven's Tale.

I was first intrigued by the cover of the book. The girl with raven feathers drew me in and made a muse for Edgar Allen Poe.

I thought the book really created a great take on Poe's teenage years and showed how he might have struggled as a young adult. Reading Poe's work throughout the book really was enchanting to me as I haven't read much of Poe's work other than The Raven. This encouraged me to read more of his work and look more into his history. This book really has captured who Poe was and gives all of us a much needed look into the artist.

It's interesting to think of everyone having a muse and if you lose it, you lose a part of yourself as an artist. I think this could be taken in that we need to live for what we love or we will be lost.

The Raven’s Tale by Cat Winters is set to be released on April 16th, 2019. I was blessed with getting an ARC to review, and I could not finish my current read fast enough. I wanted to get into this book.

First off, before we get into the details of this story can we take a moment to appreciate this gorgeous cover art by Shane Rebenschied. This, like 98% of all the books I read, was what convinced me to read the blurb for this book. The moment I heard the word Poe I was in. I am an unashamed Poe fan. Really, I am a Poe history fan. He has some great works. Masque of Red Death will forever by my favorite short story of all time.

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The Raven’s Tale by Cat Winters is a new E. A. Poe retelling. (Someone out there please point me in the direction of or write a retelling of Virginia Poe’s life.) However, rather than following a brooding writer in the trials of his adult life, Winters chose to take us on a tour of Poe’s teen years, and they were just as angsty as the adult Poe was brooding.

I have to comment about how in the first chapter a bishop is talking about the pursuit of art and how it leads to promiscuous debauchery in people. I thought that was funny. I had to have an inner talk with myself as a writer at that moment, but it was hilarious. Then chapter one ended with Poe thinking of all the words he could find that rhyme with “gore” and it was so in the character of Edgar Allan Poe that I smiled.

Getting into the story, this book opens with seventeen year old Poe sitting in church musing on his existence and how others see him as, “that poor orphaned boy.” The real sense of Poe’s childhood is captured in the way he calls Mrs. Allan Ma or how he talks about his adopted father’s hate towards him. The interactions between him and Pa invoke the sense of dislike the real characters of history had for one another. My favorite quote about this relationship: “Mr. John Allan, my Scot-blooded bastard of a foster father.” People who are Poe fans and are familiar with his life will be able to relate.

This story is told in first-person POV, and Winters was wise to choose this because it allows her to write young Poe in a way that really personifies the brooding, outcast romantic that Edgar was in his time. Also, rather than being a talked about influence upon his creativity, Edgar’s muse is given a real form. As in, she is a real character in the story. She is a haunting ghost that hungers for Edgar’s words. She thrives on them. The only dilemma is young Eddy is wondering if writing is really a thing he should pursue, or if he is going to put it aside forever. Then….well, things get very odd very fast.

So, this muse is begging for a name and Edgar gives in and dubs it (get ready for this): Lenore. The moment she has a name the ghostly muse becomes a real being. In fact, she goes walking the streets of Richmond. At first, I was okay with that. Then it got…weirder.

People respond and think, “Who drug that thing here?” As Edgar goes after it, hiding the evidence that it is his muse on the loose, he runs into his sister and they start talking about how muses sometimes get loose and they talk as if this is normal. As if muses coming to life and wandering the streets is a totally acceptable practice in this world. The book was going well until this point and I am had to sit and debate if I wanted to keep going. Did I want to suspend my belief in order to make it to the end of this book?

After I decided that this wasn’t that bad, that I could keep going on with this story, it got weirder. Poe and his sister chase the muse to a graveyard. Poe cannot bear to enter because inside is the grave of his first love, crush, how do you explain it? The author is throwing in a lot of Poe facts and tid-bits with this story which is something that you would expect in a book like this, but when stood next to the fantastical elements she is trying to invoke with a muse that comes to life and terrorizes a town, it all seems far fetched and too heavily pushed upon a reader.

Then… I had to stop for a moment and breath. Mr. Allan appears in the graveyard and starts talking to the muse like he knows her. Apparently, he had a muse too that jumped to life one day. In order to become a successful business man he pushed the muse woman into the fire. Now he thinks Poe’s muse is his own and the muse just goes along with it! She begs for poetry because that is what she feeds on and then in the end says, “Invite me to dinner at your house so that I can dine with you and know you are a changed man.” That is the short version. It was weirder than that in the actual book.

At this point, I am just turning pages for no other reason than to see what is going to happen. How much cliche can be thrown into each chapter? It is like Winters took a handful of Poe facts, a handful of smart ass comedy from Scary Movie scripts, and a touch of horror and threw them in a bowl to see what happened.

Aside from the many odd occurrences that made me repeatedly want to put this book down, the one thing that Winters did in this story was make Poe human. At least, he was human in the moments where the story was worth reading. Often, he is remembered as that guy with the weird mustache or the brooding author that found only sorrow in his lifetime. Winters focused on the many other aspects of Poe that we don’t hear about often such as his education and the normal things that happened in his life that made him a normal person in his time.

In the end, I give this book a 2 star review on Goodreads. It ended up on my “Not Worth a Second Read” shelf which is good considering it almost made it to the trenches of the DNF shelf. It was good, but I don’t ever see myself really reading it a second time around. Actually, this is one of those stories that I feel would be an awesome 2 or 3 part Netflix original movie. In fact, the way this story was written made me think it could have more done for it if it were a movie as opposed to a book.

I found this book to be intriguing and whimsical. A true gothic work of art. Cat Winter's take on muses was refreshing and I loved the back and forth between Edgar and Lenore.

This was an intriguing and beautifully written story about the young Edgar Allan Poe and his ghostly muse Lenore who tries to inspire and encourage him to write his poetry even though it is against the wishes of his strict foster father. Edgar and Lenore were amazing characters, I loved the development of the bond between them and some of their scenes together were heart breaking especially in the final chapters.

The writing is lush and lyrical and very addictive and I raced through this anxiously to find out what happened in the end. I will definitely read more books by Cat Winters in the future and I also want to read more about Edgar Allan Poe and his early life. This is a beautiful and unusual book which I would highly recommend.

First off, I cannot get over how intriguing the concept of the muses appearing both in personified form, but also their whole history in general is. There were so many fascinating elements to The Raven's Tale such as the prejudice the characters have against the theater and the horror/mystery genre as a whole. The Raven's Tale is a story about Poe struggling to come to terms with the gothic elements in his work, but also of him struggling to come to terms with who he is. Throughout the book there are all these characters who expect him to be other than he is. And he has to continuously struggle with their expectations, and who he wants to be.
Writing & Poe Himself

If you are an Edgar Allen Poe lover, I think this book is absolutely worth your time because Winters has done research into Poe and his earlier work. Additionally, there are all these delightful Easter Eggs of references to his poems and phrases from his work. This entire book has that sort of gothic quality, to be sure, but when it is scattered with ideas and phrases from Poe himself, it takes on a richer quality.

The story is unique and the character building was intriguing as were the relationships between characters. It just wasn't the book for me.

I love Cat Winters. I love Edgar Allen Poe. And this strange and lovely little book was still quite enjoyable with beautiful writing and real history entwined. Lenore is a deliciously chilling apparition, but I came to adore the allegorical nature of her role both in the novel and in the larger world of publishing.

Edgar, Edgar, Edgar—what a magnificent writer he was. So when I heard there was going to be this book on a young Edgar Allan Poe, I was so incredibly interested! Lenore, Lenore, Lenore! I want to read about you anywhere forevermore!

Let me tell you something, my dear friends, I loved Edgar and his struggles and his sensitivities in this book. This boy definitely needed a muse to help him escape his terrible adopted father and all the things that occurred because of him! And Lenore? She was such a lovely and horrific creature who was the perfect muse to draw out the tales that one day become famous.

Now, what I wanted and what I thought this book was going to be about DID NOT HAPPEN! I repeat: DID NOT HAPPEN! I wanted a romance between Edgar and his muse that was so dark and twisted that it would haunt me for days with its beauty, sadness, and passion. I wanted that and needed that ... still do! However, this strange and lovely little book was still quite enjoyable with beautiful writing and real history entwined!

Summary

This book tells the story of a teenage Edgar Allen Poe and how his love for poetry manifests into something much more than just words on a page. We find our dear Edgar as an adopted child, living in a town where having a muse is not only frowned upon, but reviled in a religious city. Edgar struggles because of his gift and soon realizes that his muse is much more than just a wishful thought; she's real. Told in three distinct parts, Edgar has to choose between following his passion and giving up on something that he's only ever wanted forever.

Likes

I really enjoy historical fiction and interpretations of real-life events in fiction. I think it's cool to see a different take on something that really happened or filling in the blanks where there's nothing elaborated on already. This book perfectly fits that bill. I never knew that I actually wanted to know what Poe could have been like as a teenager. I have to admit that I'm not a big poetry fan and only know of "The Raven": so I don't have much background on Poe as a person already. I know the story of the girl he eventually married but that's about all. I thought this take was interesting and I liked learning more about the author's interpretation of his life. The most interesting part, though, was in fact the muse and how she came to be. This in itself was unique and I enjoyed how Lenore was personified and how she became much more than just a muse. I also enjoyed the snippets of poetry thrown into the narrative and how the development of this poetry fed the rest of the entire story. I found myself liking Poe as a main character and the fact that he did have flaws and wasn't this perfect human worked well for making the story feel real and genuine.

Dislikes

Having said everything above, I wasn't absolutely in love with this book. I thought that the subject matter was intriguing as it has never been done before with Poe--to my knowledge. I felt like it was a little dry in parts and the first half of the book is really what drew me in and kept me reading. I liked learning about how muses developed, how taboo they were, and how protective Poe was of Lenore. Which brings me to something that confused me a little: he states he loves Lenore, but I didn't get the vibe he was in love with her. I appreciated his protective nature and how he stood up to his adoptive dad when discussing his muse. I wanted to know more about Lenore! I loved the dual POV in this story and think that it really worked to its advantage.

Recommendation

I would recommend this book to fans of historical fantasy and alternate history, as well as anyone who wants to know a little more about the mysterious poet that was Poe.

Thanks to NetGalley and ABRAMS, I received a an ARC to read and review.

I was so excited, and felt the need to start right away because Cat Winters is one of my favorite authors. Her ability to spin the supernatural into reality is incredible. While I want to read more of her books about the Spanish Flu, I was excited that this was about Poe. Poe, my favorite from childhood. I visited his home in Philly so many times, I work across the street from Grip, the raven that inspired him.

This book though was not for me. Winters took such a careful approach to crafting a world where Poe could be in with his odd muse. One that somebody would not expect Poe to be in, and she did a great job of bringing life to a young version of him. While I loved his conflict, there was something that did not quite connect for me in the overall narrative. I felt as if it dragged on in a lot of places, in ways that I'm not quite able to explain. I never felt truly immersed in this 19th C world. Either way, I'm glad I read it and look forward to more by Cat Winters.

Her unusual connections to history are always a fantastic way to engage a broad audience and bring them to another time or place to start a growing interest in a particular subject.