The All Souls Trilogy:
Discovery of Witches; Shadow of Night; Book of Life
By Deborah Harkness
Review by Gemma E McLaughlin
Regular readers will remember I was over the moon recently at Discovering Witches, an enchanting mix of historic fact and supernatural fiction. Given the popularity of the big budget recent TV serialisation of the first book, I decided to jump into the sequels in the All Souls trilogy and what a treat I found.
Staying in the world we were introduced to in book one, Harkness delves more deeply into a journey from modern day Oxford and the Bodleian library (how much do I want to lose myself in that library?) to different eras by means of time travel.
In the first book we met Diana, a modern day historian who is also a witch, and Matthew, a vampire who is around 1800 years old. Their relationship deepens in the second instalment, which sees our happy but troubled couple travel back in time to the Elizabethan era.
Witchcraft can come in handy when researching history. And so it is that Diana and Malcolm meet various significant figures of the time, including Walter Raleigh (after all what author takes the trouble to weave time travel into a plot to have their main characters hang with a bunch of nobodies?).
The second book in the trilogy soon has me as spellbound as the first, not least by the two very different perspectives of the main couple. Matthew relishes the prospect of meeting up with old friends he first meet at an earlier stage of his very long life. Diana takes more time to adjust to an era where assertive women, with the obvious exception of Queen Elizabeth herself, are not exactly welcomed with open arms.
Diana's mission to learn more about a witch from the past becomes further complicated when she's accused of witchcraft herself and makes some astonishing discoveries about Matthew.
All this excitement serves to obscure the fact that the main element of the trilogy is the love affair between the two main characters.
And the second book ends by suggesting that affair is set to become even more tumultuous with the revelation that Diana is pregnant.
The third and final part of the trilogy sees more obstacles placed in the road to happiness for the couple.
It has attracted some harsh fan criticism from some who find the increasing number of characters bewildering and the various plot holes baffling.
For me, however, The book is every bit as enchanting as its predecessors.
And who could argue that Diana’s way with a spell is inspiring witches everywhere.
It would certainly be churlish after waiting so long for a strong female time traveller to turn up on TV to complain when two turn up at once.
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