When historian Diana Bishop opens a bewitched alchemical manuscript in Oxford’s Bodleian Library it represents an unwelcome intrusion of magic into her carefully ordinary life. Though descended from a long line of witches, she is determined to remain untouched by her family’s legacy. She banishes the manuscript to the stacks, but Diana finds it impossible to hold the world of magic at bay any longer.
For witches are not the only otherworldly creatures living alongside humans. There are also creative, destructive daemons and long-lived vampires who become interested in the witch’s discovery. They believe that the manuscript contains important clues about the past and the future, and want to know how Diana Bishop has been able to get her hands on the elusive volume.
Chief among the creatures who gather around Diana is vampire Matthew Clairmont, a geneticist with a passion for Darwin. Together, Diana and Matthew embark on a journey to understand the manuscript’s secrets. But the relationship that develops between the ages-old vampire and the spellbound witch threatens to unravel the fragile peace that has long existed between creatures and humans—and will certainly transform Diana’s world as well. From the Deborah Harkness website.
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Series: Number one in the All Souls Trilogy
Cover: Appropriate, suits the setting, classy. 1 of 4 different versions.
Genre: Paranormal Romance, Urban Fantasy
Pages/Words: 759/224,449
POV: Alternating person views between the main character and the love interest. Though it only switched from the first person (main character) to the third person (love interest) once so I found it rather unnecessary.
Setting: Present Day Oxford
Language: Little if any at all
Sexual Content Rating: G
Publisher: Penguin Books (February 2011)
My thoughts: I couldn't finish this one, though I did try. However, since I didn't want to suffer through another book solely because I was being stubborn, I finally stopped at page 144. In the words of Mark Twain,'It is chloroform in print'.
The story is very slow and incredibly detailed; there's practically no progress at all. The best way to describe it is by liking it to a person who has nothing interesting to write about and so they fill their diary by describing every tedious and mundane thing that happens to them. It results in a heap of everyday tasks that no one cares about. What makes it worse is that it feels as though you are experiencing it all in real time.
The characters themselves aren't much better as they too are very boring, even though the main character happens to be a witch and the love interest a vampire. In fact, they were so normal and boring that I couldn't understand why anyone would want to write about them, let alone read about them. Also there were a lot of inconsistencies and contradictions in the main character that didn't sit well with me.
Truthfully, I don't see much appeal in this one.
Cover Image from Google Books
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