I find the perception of this book's prose in this space to be really interesting. There is a fair blend of people who adore Ross's writing style and love it here just as much, and there is another group that cannot connect to her prose and find it in need of some polish (myself included). I haven't found anyone discussing this subject on here, but I do want to discuss where and how that dissonance has formed and also about the effectiveness of writing in general. Also I will be using passages from the entirety of the novel, but will solely be discussing them on a prose level. No spoilers!

On Descriptions, and Felt

The verb, to feel is incredibly useful in the hands of a writer, both used to describe emotion and sensation. It is also subject to overuse, and at times can become the buffer between the reader and the description a writer originally intended. Take this passage, for instance:

Slowly, he rose from the bed. His body felt weak and the world spun for a moment; he waited until his eyes had focused before he walked barefoot into the kitchen. Chapter 19

Now, the second line of this passage is obviously supposed to put us in this character's mind as he experiences a bit of vertigo. There's just one issue: we already know he feels weak within the first four words of this sentence. Either we do not care to elaborate and leave it at "his body felt weak", or we linger on this weakness more and keep "the world spun for a moment". To both show and tell is to waste your word count. But felt in all its many forms can be quite invisible to readers. After all, this is just one sentence in a nearly 500 page novel. There are many who are just here to read, and do not want to take more time in their busy days to determine whether a single sentence is effective or not.

Third Person Limited & Trusting the Reader

I have spent what is perhaps too much time thinking about how Ross uses the third person in this novel. Mainly because some of these sentences annoy me immensely. Let's just jump into it, here's an example of what I'm talking about:

Jack's hand was seeking the latch in the darkness when he heard the panel pop open...Jack stiffened; he could smell the fragrance of lavender and honey on her skin, and he glanced beyond her, to where a copper tub sat in the corner of the room. Chapter 26

The difficult thing about third person limited with the use of multiple perspectives, such as this novel, is consistently needing to clarify which of the characters we're following. Considering Ross often switches mid-chapter, sometimes to a character within the previous scene, it becomes even more necessary to consistently reiterate whose head we're in. As you can tell, we're following Jack, we're aware of this by being able to know what he's hearing. So, when just 2 sentences later we're being told explicitly what he smells as well, it feels more than a little redundant. It's very easy to write off as something that merely slipped by during editing, but this happens repeatedly throughout the entire novel and it is my biggest gripe with Ross's writing by far. I wanted to make sure I wasn't talking out of my ass and make an unjust assumption, so I decided to skim through some of Ross's work prior to this novel, and as far as I'm aware this is her first time writing third person limited with multiple perspectives, without chapters being sectioned off by character. So I've marked this down as her being unable to trust the reader to follow whose perspective we are in without a clear label. It makes more sense when you consider this was intended to be published as a YA fantasy, but even then I'd argue this is just as excessive for that demographic as well. You might be wondering why this is my biggest gripe. Sure, it's redundant, but it's not really doing any harm. So I'm gonna show you want this sentence could've been like if we were not constantly centering descriptions around whose perspective we're in.

Jack stiffened; the fragrance of lavender and honey clung to her skin, and beyond her, a copper tub sat in the corner of the room.

Look at how much shorter this sentence is! Not only that, our level of immersion is heightened because we are not being needlessly reminded that we're following Jack at this point in the novel. I genuinely believe this book could be at least 80 pages shorter if changes like this were implemented throughout its length.

In Conclusion

While I do not enjoy this novel's prose and could probably find other elements about it to critique (passive voice is far too prevalent, imo), Ross clearly has potential and has seemingly also worked to become a stronger writer over time; I have no interest in reading more of her work, but skimming through some of her newer titles has led me to believe she has made marked improvements as her career has flourished. If none of this bothered you while reading, if you're reading A River Enchanted now and you are still unbothered by what I've been discussing above, don't worry about it! I'm not an authority on writing (no one is) and you are allowed to like and enjoy what you do. I'm happy so long as you're reading!

Huge thank you to anyone who reads this, GOD did this get long 💀