Deborah Harkness is new to the writing scene, with a break out first book, A Discovery of Witches, released in 2011. It is now the first book in the All Souls Trilogy, as well as an upcoming television series to air in the US in January 2019.

The teaser on the Amazon page is this book is a wonderfully imaginative grown-up fantasy with all the magic of Harry Potter and Twilight.

Let’s see, shall we?

Diana Bishop is a scholar and also a witch. Witchcraft is part of the family legacy.

But, when Diana finds a long-lost and enchanted manuscript, the underworld around her comes to life. She and the vampire geneticist, Matthew Clairmont, must try to make it through these turn of events and survive.

This book does, though, have many redeeming qualities to it. It is chock full of magic. So, if you enjoy a typical Saturday night by settling into the sofa and having people move things with spells and betray people with potions, you’re certainly in for a treat.

Plus, the story packs a lot of suspense within it’s pages. It can often be gripping, maybe even a little gritty at times.

Diana might be a bit of a diva, constantly in need of saving, but that’s the romance genre shining through.

People like that kind of stuff.

This story has a bit of everything, magic, the supernatural, witches, vampires – enough suspense to set a house on fire. It reminds me of a book I wrote a few years ago called OUR DAUGHTER, about a young girl that loses everything and discovers witchcraft can be a weapon against a sinister evil out to steal her body and shipwreck her soul.

The daemon angle in a Discovery of Witches is hard to miss, too. A rather enchanting idea.

But, there are a multitude of characters you have to negotiate through the story, sometimes making it hard to keep track. Lots of politics and interpersonal family dynamics.

I had to laugh out loud when I read a review on Amazon from a reader. They put that there were grammar issues in the book, including, “compound word and/or homophone confusion, mild punctuation or formatting issues.”

This has been a personal issue of mine for some time now. I mean, is this really how people read books? Analyzing the grammar and syntax, counting up the typos and formatting issues like they were grading the author on a curve? Do you have just too much time on your hands?

I’ve read books that were just somehow horribly written (Vampire Academy comes to mind). But, book editing has become an issue since Amazon hijacked the publishing industry years ago. Yet, I can remember reading books as a kid and finding typos and sentences that didn’t seem to work, or that could have been put together better, and that was during the hay-day of giant publishers.

I would just smile and move on. I’m not interested in keeping score.

As a self-published writer, making little money so far from my work, I know how hard it is to edit and re-edit, only to miss something here and there, or to have a perfectly good piece slammed because someone thinks they know how to conjugate a ramastan paranamaran.

Just read the book. If you can’t do that without all the schoolmarm OCD, then I feel sorry for you.

But, hey, that’s just my opinion.

Overall, this book was a fun read, despite some of its failings. The mystery and suspense kept me going, even with the romance seeming to often get in the way.

It was worth the read, but I’m not sure I will continue on to the next book. I guess I’ll just wait and see if I want to continue on with the story, and if all the unanswered questions need to be answered.

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Set in the Alaskan wilderness, a group of strangers find themselves in a life or death situation, in which there may be no escape. They must fight against the natural world around them, as it itself begins to unravel. All the while, they each stand to lose everything if they don’t find a way to work together.

Before this rag-tag group realizes it, they are plunged into a spiraling vortex of death, and must fight with everything they have just to stay alive.

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Have you read Deborah Harkness’ a Discovery of Witches yet? What did you think? Tell me all about it in the comments below.

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