Becky Bookworm Book Review: A Discovery Of Witches by Deborah Harkness

A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


This book is a beautiful amalgamtaion of aspects of magic and shades of mystery. And all involving an often overlooked character in the world paranormal/supernatural that are not wolf like or drink blood, but have powers of their own and certainly do not fly brooms or have black cats. Yes, I'm talking about witches and how they are still around, powers, potions and spells and all, living amongst us mere humans just like the vampires and werewolves of Stephenie Meyers. Except this is definitely an adult novel, altough some older teenagers may also enjoy it simply for the deep love story involved. Yes there is that too, as some may almost expect nowadays when an author involves the paranormal creatures in our modern day world. But yet again Deborah Harkness deviates from the norm even in that respect by not just having a human fall in love with a vampire, but a witch which brings its own unique problems than a mere human, PLUS and it is a mighty big plus, they don't fall in love like troubled teenagers but over a book. But this is no ordinary a book, it is a book which rumours to contain the history, origins and future of the three races in this novel, Witches/Vampires and Daemons (imagine them as creative but mad geniuses like Mozart) and although no one race can say who created and more importantly who lost it many centuries ago, but when the key character Diana, mistakenly comes across it in the Bodlean Library in Oxford, England (brilliant new setting for this paranormal world) she suddenly gains the attention of all three races, in a manner that isn't all together entirely friendly. The key thing about Diana is, not only is she a witch with famous heritage (being from the family of some famous american witch trials) but she is a reluctant witch, she's trying her hardest to live a normal human life without magic involved in any way. Apart from the one moment she simply magics a book off a very high shelf and is caught by a mysterious and charming vampire. And a whole seat-gripping saga of suspicion, betrayal, seduction, romance, friendship, secrets, lies, danger and a covenant breaking love begins from that moment on....
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