Recommended Read: A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness

 

 

October is Paranormal Romance Month

At least around here.  This month I’m going to be recommending some of my favorite paranormal romance novels (or series, as the case may be).

The first book is A Discovery of Witches, Book 1 in the All Souls Trilogy.

Here’s the official blurb.

Deep in the stacks of Oxford’s Bodleian Library, young scholar Diana Bishop unwittingly calls up a bewitched alchemical manuscript in the course of her research. Descended from an old and distinguished line of witches, Diana wants nothing to do with sorcery; so after a furtive glance and a few notes, she banishes the book to the stacks. But her discovery sets a fantastical underworld stirring, and a horde of daemons, witches, and vampires soon descends upon the library. Diana has stumbled upon a coveted treasure lost for centuries-and she is the only creature who can break its spell.

Debut novelist Deborah Harkness has crafted a mesmerizing and addictive read, equal parts history and magic, romance and suspense. Diana is a bold heroine who meets her equal in vampire geneticist Matthew Clairmont, and gradually warms up to him as their alliance deepens into an intimacy that violates age-old taboos. This smart, sophisticated story harks back to the novels of Anne Rice, but it is as contemporary and sensual as the Twilight series-with an extra serving of historical realism.

Favorite Things

I know there’s been a surge in vamp lit since Twilight came out (not that Anne Rice wasn’t doing her thing long before that), but I’ve sort of missed most of that.  I don’t know, but falling in love with an undead blood sucker doesn’t really appeal to me, personally.

I am a fan of things that take those tropes and mythologies and turn them on their ear, so to speak.  The world that Harkness creates is populated by humans, but also witches, vampires, and a particularly talented and eccentric group called daemons.  Daemons are not demons, but are wildly talented (and often unstable) individuals descended from humans.  Her vampires do consume blood, but not exclusively human blood, and they can still eat some foods and like to drink wine.  She does keep a certain amount of the vampire mythos, but also has her vampire characters get miffed and offended when people assume all the stories are true.

The witches are not wildly divergent from most other books where witches are heros rather than exclusively villains.  There’s spellcraft and herb lore.  The main character is a powerful witch who denies her ability and refuses to use it.

I can’t talk about all the things that I like without giving too much away.  Suffice to say, the whole trilogy is enjoyable and definitely worth reading.  It’s a fascinating blend of history, science, and the supernatural.  Once you read the first one, you have to read the rest of the trilogy – Shadow of Night and The Book of Life.

Have you read these books?  Did you like them?

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