I'm delighted to introduce you to the immensely talented Margaret Rogerson. I fell in love with Margaret's writing with her first book An Enchantment of Ravens. Her books are must reads for me and I highly recommend them. Let's get to know her better through the Books That Made Her.
THE BOOKS THAT MADE ME . . .
Love reading
The Enchanted Forest Chronicles by Patricia C. Wrede! I remember carrying those books everywhere as a kid, re-reading them over and over. My favorite was the first in the series, Dealing with Dragons, about a girl named Cimorene who doesn’t want to marry a prince, and instead decides to run away to get herself kidnapped by a dragon.
Excited to read right now
I’m in the middle of Once Upon a Broken Heart by Stephanie Garber, and it’s reminding me that reading can be pure fun. Often for authors, reading can turn into work—whether it’s research reading or racing to finish a book with a blurb deadline. But Stephanie’s writing is so fun, magical, and transportive that it’s helping me remember why I love to read.
Want to write
I have to go with Beauty, a Beauty and the Beast retelling by Robin McKinley. I read it on a snow day in high school, and to get it, I had to go to the library (this was in the time before ebooks were widely available). I still remember being the only car on the road, sliding through red lights as a policeman watched me in resignation from a parking lot. Miraculously, the library was still open. I ended up devouring Beauty in a single afternoon and to this day remember finishing it and thinking that I wanted to be an author—not just that, I wanted to write books that made other people feel the way I felt reading Beauty.
Stay up all night
The Murderbot Diaries by Martha Wells! This is a series of novellas (and one full length novel) narrated by Murderbot, a security robot that hacked its governor module to gain free will, and technically has the capacity to become a mass murderer but mostly just wants to be left alone to watch TV shows. These books are hilarious, heartfelt, fast-paced, and have genuinely moving things to say about personhood. I tore through them with utter disregard for food and sleep.
Laugh out loud
Hands down, Howl’s Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones—my favorite book by one of my favorite authors. I re-read it often and the dynamic between Sophie and Wizard Howl never fails to send me into hysterics. For a more recent pick, Little Thieves by Margaret Owen is brilliantly written and so funny.
Cry
The most recent book that made me cry was Beasts of Prey by Ayana Gray—it actually made me cry on a plane ride to New York City! It’s a wonderful read with gorgeous worldbuilding and magic, and two main characters that, needless to say, I became deeply invested in.
About Margaret Rogerson
Margaret Rogerson is the New York Times and internationally bestselling author of Sorcery of Thorns and An Enchantment of Ravens. Her newest book, Vespertine, released October 2021 from Simon & Schuster. When not reading or writing, she enjoys watching more documentaries than is socially acceptable (according to some) and creeping through the woods in search of toads and mushrooms. She lives near Cincinnati, Ohio with her one-eyed cat Commodore. Her books have been translated into over a dozen languages.
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