Review of A Discovery of Witches (All-Souls Trilogy book one) by Deborah Harkness

KMT. Yes this book had me hissing in annoyance and swearing because I could not like the characters. This 581-page romance-fantasy-magic novel must be enchanted because no matter how annoyed I got with slow pace, and the chemistry- less instant love between the main characters, Diana (witch) and Matthew (an 1000 plus year old vampire) I kept on reading.

The main character, witch who denies her magical heritage, Diana Bishop is a science and she  calls up a bewitched alchemist manuscript in the course of her research.  This book is something that all the magical and fantastic creatures of the novel, witches, daemons and vampires, want to have, it should contain the story of their origin or something to that effect. 

The unfolding of the the story is painstakingly slow and as such it reminded too much of Twilight and Outlander (both book series I detest). Deborah Harkness is a good writer, the tale is descriptive and the lineage and history of Diana Bishop’s witch family was great but far too often the narrative is bogged down by long history lessons from the vampires’ many many years and experiences. These were boring and I am a student of history but in the novel it just was too much.  I wish the book was shorter, say around 380 pages, so that the story could get going quicker. And another matter that bothered me was the romance or lack of romance in this predestined affair. And this is odd and I am yet to wrap my head around it, I am still on the fence about reading the other books in the trilogy. 

In my 2016 reading challenge, this is book 24 of 60.