A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness
A world of witches, Daemons and Vampires. A manuscript which holds the secrets of their past and the key to their future. Diana and Matthew - the forbidden love at the heart of it. When historian Diana Bishop opens an alchemical manuscript of the Bodleian library at oxford university, it a unwelcome intrusion of magic into her carefully ordered life. Though Diana is a witch of impeccable lineage, the violent death of her parents while she was still a child convinced her that human fears are more potent than any witchcraft. Now Diana has unwittingly exposed herself to a world she's kept at bay for years; one of the powerful witches, the creative, destructive daemons and long lived vampires. Sensing the significance of Diana's discovery, the creatures gather in oxford, among them the enigmatic Matthew Clairmont, a vampire geneticist. Diana is inexplicably drawn to him and in a shadow world of half truths and old enmities, ties herself to him without fully understanding the ancient line they are crossing. As they begin to unlock the secrets of the manuscript and their feelings for each other deepen, so the fragile balance of peace unravels...
My favourite character was Diana Bishop because she is a witch and an historian. She is such a great character because she's an adult who knows her place in the world and wants to get away from that and change her world so that she can lead a normal human life instead of live in the constant danger of her supernatural life.
The characters felt very real when I was reading the book and I enjoyed finding out how the characters developed and become stronger as a result of the events in the book. The supernatural beings grew into their parts and they really became an excellent part of the book. They seemed like such an extraordinary group of people and it was really interesting to find out their back stories and why they were what they were like.
The story kept me guessing the whole way through, there were twists and turns and I never saw them coming, the story wasn't predictable apart from Diana's and Matthews relationship but the story line was very unpredictable.
The story was gripping and kept me turning the pages, I always wanted to find out what happens next however I was very disappointed with the the sequel because it was very boring and not as fast paced as A Discovery of Witches.
I think that A Discovery of Witches is a great book to show the fear that supernatural beings have of the human world because they always had to hide and there is even an ancient rule that the supernatural beings could not get to close to each other in case of attracting human attention. Which is why Diana's and Matthews relationship proves to be more than dangerous. This book is always from the supernatural beings view of other supernatural being or of humans, it's very interesting to see how they feel about humans rather than the usual a human falling in love with a supernatural being and trying to learn to accept every aspect of their lives that is so different from ours. It has helped me to gain a further understanding of the way that witches are accepted in today's society because in this book they are seen as myth only to the humans and to the daemons and vampires they are seen as very powerful and influential creatures who deserve respect. Diana Bishops character is very interesting because since the death of her parents when she was young, she has wanted to live a normal human life and get as far away from magic as possible, this is obviously because she blames the power of magic and the attention it attracts on the death of her parents. This is a different outlook of magic from other books I have read and it has helped my investigation because it has shown me that magic can cause psychological damage within the witch herself, which would cause her to want to live a 'normal' human life, and actually leads to the witch being intolerant and disregarding of witchcraft in society because she knows better than anyone else what it can do and how it can destroy a persons life.
I give A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkeness a 4.7/5.
Here is a link to buy A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness on www.amazon.co.uk:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_i_0_16?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=discovery+of+witches&sprefix=discovery+of+wit%2Caps%2C127&rh=i%3Aaps%2Ck%3Adiscovery+of+witches
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