Shadow of Night by Deborah Harkness

Shadow of Night by Deborah Harkness
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Time taken to read - in and out over 8 days

Pages - 584

Publisher -

Source - Bought

Blurb from Goodreads

Picking up from A Discovery of Witches’ cliffhanger ending, Shadow of Night takes Diana and Matthew on a trip through time to Elizabethan London, where they are plunged into a world of spies, magic, and a coterie of Matthew’s old friends, the School of Night. As the search for Ashmole 782 deepens and Diana seeks out a witch to tutor her in magic, the net of Matthew’s past tightens around them, and they embark on a very different—and vastly more dangerous—journey.


My Review

This is book two in the book series "A Discovery of Witches" - I often read books out of sequence or as standalones but I would advise reading book one. This picks up where book one left off, it was a long gap between reading that and this one. Diana and Matthew have fled to the past to try and find the Ashmole 782 which may help solve all their problems. You know, he is a vamp, she is a witch, the two aren't allowed to "fraternise" and these two have fallen in love and causing all manners of threats and death to be brought upon them. Convinced the Ashmole 782 will end all their and their species issues and may finally bring peace.

I would say the majority of the book is set back in the past, we do have wee tiny trips back to the present but to be honest not a whole lot happens in those chapters it is all the stuff set in the past. Jumping from the danger of present day and going back in time to when witches are being hunted, burnt, persecuted, Diana has trouble in abundance. Whilst Diana navigates the very different life and times of the time period they are also trying to find someone who can help Diana with her magic or lack of it. She is experiencing little flutters and sparks but is it just the magic of travelling back in time or could it be her powers are finally starting to come to the fort?

The book looks at the difficulties of their relationship, the fact they haven't consummated, how their relationship is, the dangers just being together has brought and even how dangerous it is being themselves where they have landed.

Meeting Mathews family and friends brings its own trials and tribulations, the time period, the literal witch hunts, love, loss, betrayal, magic - it is a mixed bag, 3.5/5. I did like it and enjoyed seeing more of their story, I also have book three to read but I did find it a wee bit slow in places.

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A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness

A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Time taken to read - in and out over 1 week

Pages - 579

Publisher - Viking Penguin

Source - Bought

Blurb from Goodreads

A richly inventive novel about a centuries-old vampire, a spellbound witch, and the mysterious manuscript that draws them together.

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.


My Review

I can't believe this is a debut, it is packed with so much and reads like someone who has been writing a long long time. Diana is a witch but has always repressed that side, she comes from a very powerful family but after her parents were murdered when she was a child she has ignored her magic. Now a scholar (with tenure no less) in Oxford, when she pulls up an old manuscript that everyone has been waiting for, witches, daemons and vampires she unwittingly turns her whole life upside down. What starts as a search for her work leads her into an unlikely set of relationships, love, danger and a find that could change the history for all creatures.

Who doesn't love a vampire book, a witch book and some flashes of daemons. Creatures that aren't meant to mingle, stay out of the interest of humans, ignored magic, family secrets and a house that has family ghost that are temperamental and all manners of magic.

There are sciencey bits where one of the vampires looks at genetics/dna. Witches, vampires and daemons at odds with each other and others learning to be friendly. A witch who denied her powers now having to work at undoing years of denial/repression but also another hill to climb to engage with her own power. Folk turning on their own kind for daring to "mix" with others out with their own species. It has so much going on and I thought it was grand, I have books two and three on the tbrm, hopefully not be too long until I get to them, 4/5 for me this time.

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