In the sequel to bestselling “A Discovery of Witches” Harkness continues her tale of Diana Bishop and her vampire lover Matthew as the time traveling witch takes them back to Elizabethan England. As a fan of both the time period and playwright Christopher Marlowe I was looking forward to the sequel, but after the first 100 pages my enthusiasm started to wane. The book is slow. There are large chunks of it that seem to drag on and the parts of the book that actually advance the plot are usually rushed through.
There are a lot of interesting points introduced by Harkness in this novel. Diana’s magical abilities start to take a physical form and the newly introduced Goody Alsop makes a fantastic character I wish we’d seen more of during the book. Matthew’s father Philippe is another interesting character I wish had spent longer in the book. A vampire written the way vampires were traditionally meant to be written. He is fierce and unforgiving with strong ties to his traditions and even stronger ties to his family.
These are just two of the excellent characters Diana and Matthew meet as they travel but, unfortunately, all of these book specific characters seem pushed back in importance when it comes to the historical (and not as nearly plot specific) characters Harkness wants us to meet. Harkness is obviously a scholar of history and her knowledge comes through in the text but it does have a tendency to overshadow the points of the story that are important to the story.
Some of the most important points of the story are introduced only briefly with very little explanation with events happening only because they need to happen to advance the plot and the rest of the book is taken over by historical references.
I still enjoyed the book and plan to read the last one in the trilogy when it comes out, but I did think this one was a little on the long side for what actually happens in the story line. There are a lot of new characters introduced and a lot of jumping from past to present. While I think it had the bones to be an excellent novel there was just too much context and not enough plot. This becomes especially true during the jumps from Matthew and Diana in the past to everyone else in the future. There were several of these jumps where I was given information about characters that I had to retrace my steps and re-read sections just to see if I’d missed some major chapter only to realize Harkness had simply skipped ahead and left me to fill in the blanks for myself.
I loved the first book in this series, my only complaint being the handling of the vampire-warmblood relationship stereotype and that’s what will get me to read the third book in the trilogy. The second installment is just overburdened with historical context and, while interesting, keeps the plot from developing and leaves a lot of the important plot points rushed through.