A Discovery of Witches [audio]
I really haven’t seen the point to the super-natural beings fiction. But I read a brief summary about A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness in a library catalog and thought I would try it. I found it in audiobook form. Diana Bishop is a history professor at Oxford, specializing in Alchemy. She is able to call a long-lost manuscript from the closed stacks of the Boodlian library and briefly break the protective spell. She comes from a long line of strong witches, but rarely uses magic herself. After seeing the manuscript, she notices an increase in the witches, vampires and demons around her. One vampire, Matthew Clermont, appoints himself bodyguard. Of course they fall in love, which is forbidden. She discovers why she has used her magic so little, since her parents died when she was 7 and perhaps why she was able to view that protected manuscript that so many other creatures want. When I started listening to disc 20, I was pretty sure that there was not going to be enough time to finish the story. I am sure this is a first in a series. I did like it, the scene with Juliette in the field felt a little manipulative and too much, but that could be listening rather than reading.