Shadow of Night: A Novel [Hardcover]

I am more than slightly disappointed with this book. I loved the first book so much, one of my favourite books, of all time, but this one seemed to be rushed and should have spent more time on the editor's desk. I would have preferred to wait six more months for a better book. There were many unnecessary characters in this book that had nothing to do with the plot. I can see a really good second book here, hiding among all the useless story lines, but it needed so much more work and editing. I enjoyed learning about the authors views of England in the 1500's, but I found some conclusions arrogant and the books ending - with Shakespeare - give me a break!

The actual story line - Ashmole 782 and Diana's witch training seemed to be almost a secondary plot in this book. Mathew, who I fell in love with in the first book, seemed selfish and basically horrible in this book. I know we were warned his character would change, but this wasn't an overall change, he flipped back and fourth so many times, I feel whiplash coming on. As for Diana... seriously? Can she really be that stupid? She's a historian, it's hard to believe that a highly educated, intelligent woman could make the stupid decisions she made. In the first book she did stupid things, but not knowingly, so it was believable. In this book her stupidity is unbelievable, because she knowingly makes these decisions. The authors treatment of a central character being killed off is appalling and unforgivable. I feel we're owed a short story addition to this book with some explanations, before the third book comes out.

To the author and publisher: please, please, please take your time with the third book and end this trilogy with the same excellence it started with.

If you're thinking of buying this book, it's worth the read if you've read the first one and want to know what happens to the characters, but buy a format you can skip forward in and save yourself the time of all the useless sub-plots. Consider the Audio Book, as Jennifer Ikeda is an excellent reader and does a tremendous job on this book. A few times, she didn't switch voices soon enough and needs to learn how to say the word winding (wahyn-ding), but she truly does an amazing job with all the voices she creates.

Compared to her first novel, Discovery of Witches; I found this book. Dry boring. I skimmed a lot of it to get the idea and trust me, it didn't take much to get it. The anticipation I felt when I was waiting for it to be released was crushed when I read it. Very disappointed. It started to get my attention near the end of the book and ended on the same note as the first. Debating on if I should continue on to read the third when it is released.

When I read Discovery of Witches I was thrilled. With all of the witch, vampire, werewolf hype out there I wasn't expecting much...well it was excellent. Smart, funny, just great. Then the sequel and I was hopeful...well I think it was even better than the first. Strong characters, excellent plot and I'm drooling for number 3. Harkness is a fantastic writer and I look forward to reading other things that she comes up with....BRAVO!