Next up was a reread of A Discovery of Witches. This would mark the fifth time I’ve read the book, but as my Facebook group is talking about the second book – The Shadow of Night next week, I felt I had to read this one again.
While not a traditional romance, there is both a male hero and a female heroine. Matthew Claremont, a man with many names, is the hero, but also a vampire. However, if you are thinking this is Twilight revisited, think again. Matthew is over 1500 years old (not the just barely over 100 that Edward is). The amount of history that Matthew has seen is simply mind blowing for our heroine.
Diana Bishop is the last of the Bishop witches. Yes, she’s descended from Bridget Bishop, the first woman executed for being a witch in Salem, Massachusetts. But Diana spurns her magic and focuses instead on understanding history. Not just any history either, you see, Diana studies the history of alchemy. It is that study that leads her to the Bodleian Library in Oxford, UK.
Brief Summary (while trying not to give everything away)
In A Discovery of Witches, we learn that Diana eschews her magical heritage and focuses on living a normal life. But that is put to the test when she requests an alchemical text at the Bodleian Library. After all, nobody has seen that text for hundreds of years. Yet it appears for Diana. Soon the library is crawling with creatures- daemons, vampires and witches. All of them want the book.
What results are twists and turns as Diana learns about herself, her magic and Matthew. The book travels from Oxford to France to New York.
Recommendation?
Okay, so in case you missed it before, this was my FIFTH time reading it. I think it’s pretty safe to say it’s a favorite of mine. I love how Deborah Harkness weaves the history in (can I just say I would love to be in her history classes as she’s a history professor?). The cast of characters are just incredible and make this a truly fun book to read, even if it takes longer to read than most books for me.
Jennifer Pitney is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com.
And in case you hadn’t figured it out, my plan for 2021 is to write a blog post for each book I read. Last year, I read 150 books. We’ll see how I do this year.
Want to see all the books I read this year? Check out my kit here!
Want to see more books? Head here…