Tuesday, September 25, 2012

A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness

A Discovery of Witches (All Souls Trilogy, #1) 
Genre(s): Fantasy

When Diana Bishop accidentally calls (and then returns) a bewitched book up from the library archives, she doesn't realize that she's stirred up a hornet's nest.  Witches, vampires and demons all want this book and will do anything to get it.  Vampire Matthew Clairmont is one such entity, but when he meets Diana, neither of them are prepared for attraction they both feel.  Matthew quickly realizes that Diana is not safe from the other creatures, so he whisks her off to France to keep her safe, and they end up falling in love instead.  Diana will have to learn witchcraft so she can defend herself and also try and solve the mystery of why everyone wants the book.

I'm going to start off by saying I liked the book. When I first started the book, when Diana first sees vampire Matthew in the library, I was so excited. It just had the feel of a book I was going to absolutely love. They just have such chemistry and they are both strong characters that I just knew the book was going to be great. Then the middle happened.

At the beginning of the book, you have a strong, independent, smart, 35 year old woman. She's sure of herself and stands up for herself...and then she meets Matthew. Diana starts off holding her own, but then quickly turns into the damsel in distress who falls apart at the drop of a hat. Matthew started off ok and then quickly dissolved into the stereotype: gorgeous, ridiculously rich, and over protective. After Twilight, 50 Shades of Gray and Overseas, I am quite over this type of "hero". Luckily, in the end, Diana started to remember herself and grew into her own, and Matthew respected it and started treating her as an equal (go figure). Unfortunately, it took wading through the middle to get there.

Now that I'm done griping, I'm going to repeat: I did like this book. I just think it was about 200 pages too long. I've heard book 2 is better, so I look forward to reading it.


Rating: 3.5 stars

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