A Discovery of Witches

Where to begin? Firstly, I'll disclose that I nearly left this book to languish in the depths of my TBR. When it first came out, I was charmed by the idea of an adult fiction book that housed witches, vampires and demons within its pages. As my TBR grew though, and the trilogy came to an end, I felt less and less inclined to pick this up right away. Then, during summer break, my cousin read this. I always pay special attention to the books she likes, as we have extremely similar tastes, and she adored A Discovery of Witches. So, back to the top of my reading list it went and, as soon as I had an available credit on Audible, I snatched it up. I'm so very glad that I did!

Deborah Harkness has captured my imagination. I fell into a world where paranormal creatures exist in plain sight, and yet manage to fly under the radar. Her characters quickly stole my heart, and I honestly couldn't have been more pleased with what a cultured bunch they were. My mind whirled as I was spirited from Oxford, to France, and back again. I was giddy at the prospect of real magic being done, and nervous over what Diana's background would bring. In short, this book made me feel. I love being wrapped in the lives of the characters I'm following, and that's exactly what happened here.

My only gripe, and it's one that I'm sure will be resolved in the next installment of this trilogy, is that there were a lot of very dense portions of this book. In order to build her world of cultured creatures, Harkness included a lot of explanations of alchemy, DNA, and many more heavy topics. While this didn't completely take me out of the story, it did make things drag on a bit in between the portions where new information about Diana and Matthew was brought to light. I'm well aware that this was a necessary addition. Knowing the history behind the very complicated circumstances surrounding Diana's life was invaluable. I just wish I was able to actually absorb more of it.

To touch on the audio book version of this, please know that I highly recommend it! Jennifer Ikeda does an excellent job of bringing each character to life, and her accents blew me away. By the time I reached the ending, I couldn't have pictured these characters any other way. This will definitely be a series that I finish solely in audio book format. I'm thrilled about that!

So, to sum up this rather rambling review, I was pleasantly surprised at how much I enjoyed this first book in the All Souls Trilogy! I'll be pushing the next two of these to the top of my reading list, and I'm excited to see where Deborah Harkness takes me next.