Tuesday, April 19, 2011

A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness

Once I really got going, I could not put this book down. It's got a great, brisk pace and each event acts like dominoes in a line - impact, after impact, after impact. Nothing is without consequence, and each action causes the next (expected or unexpected) reaction.

History scholar Diana Bishop has denied her family's witchcraft legacy since her parents were brutally murdered when she was seven. She's spent her life and career making sure that magic plays no part - she wants to know that she truly earned everything she achieved.

But things have started to get weird, and lots of non-human creatures have taken an interest in Diana. And it all seems to come back to one particular manuscript she checked out of the Oxford library.

The best I can say is this: take the best of the old Ann Rice vampire books, combined with the not-terrible parts of Stephenie Meyer's Twilight books, with the intrigue of Dan Brown's books. Have I got you curious yet?

I picked up this book at 8:30 pm and put it down when I finished the last page at 4:30 am. My arms ached from holding the 600 page novel, but I just couldn't seem to quit. I think the last book I did that with was "The DaVinci Code."

Just my luck: this is book one in an anticipated "All Souls" trilogy!

1 comment:

Chelley said...

Wow, you read fast! :) That's almost 1.25 pages per minute.