A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness

Wow. I was expecting another supernatural story; a predictableplot after how many I have read. This novel surprised me! And that is sayingsomething.
In this novel there are witches, vampires and daemons – theperfect combination for any supernatural lover. The main character, DianaBishop, is a witch but tries to ignore her magic and be as human as possible. Idid ask myself, if there was a possibility of having magic who wouldn’t use it?Trust me; she has a good reason not to… Until she meets a vampire calledMatthew Clairmont. Heis perfect, if not slightly annoying in his superiority.
The best part of this novel is the maturity. It isn’t someteenage fantasy romance of falling in love with a vampire, but a story of howlove can conquer all in a semi-realistic (besides all the supernatural stuff) world.This is definitely to attract the adult readers who like this topic, yet at17-years-old I enjoyed it as well. You will love the heroines and be happy forthem, but this isn’t a novel where you will go crazy in love with Matthew.
I couldn’t put this down! What captured me was the detail. Iam rubbish at history and science, yet after reading this I wanted to read allabout Darwin’s Species of Origin and start studying alchemy. I also wanted tovisit Oxford and go to France. If you have the money and time to do all ofthis, then it could be an expensive book!
The emotions created were so strong, I felt like putting onthe witchwater with Diana at some points. I felt like I could connect to her,because I know that I would have her reaction to some of the situations. Thisconnection to the main character and the fact that it was a topic I love –romance, the supernatural and all that geeky stuff – made the book reallyenjoyable for me. I honestly couldn’t close the book! My eyes stayed glued tothe pages way beyond when they should have been in another dream world.
Although I couldn’t put it down, the book is very long andit took me a while to read. When I thought it would come to some conclusion,there was a lot left yet to read. This is refreshing after modern books wherethe stories are quite straightforward (although still exciting!). This book isnot possible to read in one go, even if you constantly read for most of theday, and I did try! Due to this length, I did get a bit impatient at one point,feeling like it was dragging on. It was still a good read during that impatientmoment, but I just wanted to flick forward a couple of pages.
Deborah made the background story run so deep through thenovel, and a mystery was built in correlation to the romance and Diana findingout about her powers. Part of this mystery was uncovered in the book, buttowards the end the author built up preparations for the sequel. Afterfinishing on a cliff-hanger, it’s sad that we will have to wait until July forthe second part, because I feel that all the details and pieces from this novelis going to be important in the second.
Overall, this is a brilliant read if you like the topic.Definitely give this book a try. If you hate waiting for the sequel to a book,you might want to save the read until closer to the second release date.