Date: July 5, 2025
Author: Deborah Harkness
Title: A Discovery Of Witches
Google confirmed this truth found on page 11, ‘Artists had once mixed crushed stone and gems into their paints to produce such powerful colors.’
This book came highly recommended by my local librarian so I gave it a whirl.
Imagine, Bridget Bishop, the very same as from the Salem Massachusetts witch trials, had a last of kin. This last of kin was in fact a very powerful witch in denial. She wanted nothing to do with magic but seemed unable to avoid it. So what happens is she meets a hunky vampire whilst trying to understand why every daemon, (mix of a god and human) vampire, and witch is flocking to Oxford in search of an old, old book the last of kin had discovered in the Oxford library archives. It is believed amongst these creatures (I’m not sure how politically correct this term is, but it is the term Mz. Harkness used repeatedly) that this magical book holds all the answers to their life’s mysteries. If only they can get their hands on it.
I’m not exactly sure why they didn’t just request the material themselves as the last of kin returned it after she was done with it, yet nobody seems to be able to figure out this easy solution.
In the meantime, it seems that the hunky vampire has taken quite a shine to Mz. Bishop, the last of kin. This is starting to seem more like the 2005 novel series of Twilight but in this story the Bella character is not human, she’s a witch.
I tried returning it only to hear surprise from my librarian. She explained that this is kind of like a game of time traveling hide and seek with the hunky vampire and keeping away from another witch, or were they hunting the other witch down? As you may expect I had to give this one last go so brought it home and got back to it.
However, it continued to progress very slowly. By page 250 the most exciting thing to have happened was a horse ride with the witches’ eyes closed. I figured if the hook still hadn’t been set by this point, then it would remain forever elusive.