A Discovery Of Witches [Hardcover]

First things first -- if you're looking for a teenage vampire romance, or a re-hash of Harry Potter, this is not the book for you.

A Discovery of Witches is a fresh, intelligent, rich, and detailed re-imagining of our mundane world to include four kinds of people: humans and the so-called "creatures" known as vampires, witches and daemons, where interrelations between the "creature" species is forbidden by an ancient Covenant. But the Covenant's balance of power is only as strong as the creatures' commitment to maintaining that balance. And that balance is threatened by the raw power contained within a reluctant witch, those who desire to possess her power for their own gain, and the love of an ancient vampire.

The tale has the intellectual, detective aspects reminiscent of the DaVinci Code. It has the political and strategic aspects of a complex chess game, with creatures poised on the brink of war placing their pieces in complex plans and strategems. And it tells the story of a deep, forbidden love between an ancient vampire and a witch of great power, a love that is tested by those who would stop at nothing to preserve the ancient Covenant and possess the witch's power.

The book has the feeling of a classic epic: rich in depth, complexity and detail, all of which are interwoven into a larger tapestry which we can only see a small piece of in this novel (the story just begs for another two books in the series).

And all throughout, the author asks the question, "Is what we see in this world all there really is?" I was swept away by the author's imaginative answer. And as soon as I finished the book, I wanted to start reading it all over again.

If I could, I'd give A Discovery of Witches 6 stars. It is an engaging, intelligent and satisfying read, far above the pulp fiction being churned out in the genre today. I eagerly and impatiently await the next chapter.

While reading through A Discovery of Witches, I confess, I couldn't help but compare it to Twilight. That being said, most of those comparisons consisted of, "This is what Twilight should have been." They share some of the same elements, chiefly a romance involving a powerful male vampire, but where Twilight stays firmly entrenched in the land of teenyboppers, this romance is of a more mature variety. If mature intelligent adults want to fantasize about a vampire romance that's not caught up in being dark, edgy, or 'big-city' modern, this is the way to go about it!

Unlike the bulk of urban fantasy, the characters here are not hip, on the edge of fashion, incredibly popular, or filled with woes about their latest crush or how their job isn't fun. They're professionals, mostly researchers, and they come across as people who have made peace with themselves. Even the main character, Diana, who in many ways has not actually made peace with herself and her magical heritage, still understands who she is, is comfortable with herself as a person, and is refreshingly more focused on research papers than parties, scholarship more than socializing. She's the kind of character I look at and say to myself, "I want to be just like her," and I can relate to her because she isn't what so many urban fantasy heroines are. She isn't young, pretty, and modern. She's dedicated, fairly quiet, and interested in academia.

The research that the author put into this novel shows. Harkness has definitely done her homework when it comes to alchemy, genetics, location, culture, history, and, unsurprisingly, wine. While occasionally imparting all this information borders on breaking the "show, don't tell" rule of writing, honestly, I can't imagine another way that it could have all been presented in a way that makes sense both to the reader and in the way that the characters are explaining. Harkness evidently spent a good amount of time asking all the right questions (for example, if vampires have extra chromosomes, just how do they get them when they came from human stock?) and finding good answers to them that make sense. I learned a good deal while reading this, and moreover, I also experienced that mental shift that comes with asking your own questions and trying to figure out the answers about things you may never have considered before.

Harkness weaves a wonderful mystery, dropping hints in all the right places and tying things together very smoothly. She can make things sexy without being graphic, and make academia sound far more exciting than it probably has any rights to be. (At least for those who aren't total bibliophiles, that is!) Her style is wonderful, flowing nicely along and carrying the reader across time and pages to a place where they won't want to leave. This is one author well worth keeping an eye on, and I'm very excited for the next book of the series. This comes highly recommended; do not miss your chance to read this one!

I took this off my local library shelf due to the very pretty cover and was pleasantly surprised by the story. It is very well written and researched, and I wasn't surprised to read in the author's bio that she is a history professor. In fact, in addition to introducing us to a world of vampires, witches and daemons, she also gives up a peak into the world of academia (perhaps an even stranger and more unique place). The strengths of this story are in the rich detail, the interesting historical references and the original world building. One of the weaknesses was a one dimensional main character- I began to find her annoying and really wished she would just "get over it" by the middle of the book. There was also an awkward switching between the first-person narrative of the protagonist to the third-person narrative of the vampire. Finally, the book seemed to meander along with a few mildly exciting events punctuating a pretty drawn out story. There really didn't seem to be a climax, and the last few chapters seemed to lead up to nothing. Despite this, I am looking forward to the next book and will certainly get on the hold list at the library (though I'm not excited enough to buy it in hardcover).