A Discovery of Witches: A Book Review

Fair warning: this is going to be a long one.

Written by Deborah Harkness, A Discovery of Witches follows Diana, a decedent of a powerful witch family who refuses to use her powers, and Matthew, a powerful vampire, as Diana finds a manuscript lost for over 100 years and watches her life fall apart from it.

I really enjoyed this book. The pacing was perfect, the writing smooth and exquisite, and the characters had such wonderful depth and just leapt off the pages. Every character felt real and the actions didn’t feel rushed. With that, this book does take place over the course of 40 days (one of the characters mentions that), and it feels like a lot more than 40 days. A lot happens. Kidnapping, stalkers, flying to different countries, so much.

This is a great book if you enjoy a lot of action, because while there were times when not a lot of action was going on but our characters were growing, there was also a lot of action. I will say that, at times, this reminded me of what Twilight should have been. That is, this was a fast romance in which both parties new that and they weren’t trying to push it. Not to mention, the action and descriptions in this had a few similarities with that novel, but they were just done so much better and didn’t feel forced or awkward. They made sense with the characters the author had introduced us to.

There is romance in this novel, and if that is a spoiler for you I don’t know how you didn’t get that from the description. But this romance is sweet and powerful. It changes lives, not just their own, and it is nice to see some restraint in a novel.

And, yes, there is magic in this book. This novel has witches, vampires, and daemons, though honestly it seems like daemons are just really smart humans and I’m not sure how they are really different or if they have any actual powers. This novel also deals with scientific topics, specifically historical and some of the history behind modern science. The fact that this novel is written by a historian will explain all of the references that are made, and why Diana comes off as an actual historian and how it plays into almost everything in this story.

Matthew is a compelling leading man. He has depth, know that he has flaws, and those flaws are very consistent. But, he also has wonderful strong points that don’t change. I really, really wish that we had more chapters from his point of view. He is the kind of man that gives everyone unrealistic expectations for reality.

Diana is a leading lady that I actually like. Everything about her, all of her characteristics, either are from her past or propel the story on. That is something that isn’t always common in modern urban fantasy writing. A lot of times there is an unnecessary level of description/characteristics that are given to characters.

Another thing this novel did was changing point of view. When it was Diana, it was written in first person, when Matthew, it was third. It was subtle enough that it didn’t remove me from the story, but it was a great transition between the two and made them different enough that a different font or chapter title wasn’t necessary.

Who would I recommend this to? If you like adventure, or romance, or magic, or just a really well written story, I highly recommend this novel.

If you are reading this because you want a Romance novel, with a capital R, I would say just to keep walking.

*SPOILERS AND OPINIONS BELOW, YE HAVE BEEN WARNED*

From the first time that I read the description, I had it in my head that Matthew looked like Tom Hiddleston. I’m sorry, and aware that I have a bit of a problem. The reason I bring this up? Yesterday I learned that this has been turned into a TV Series, so of course I’m going to have to watch it and compare. But I am already a little disappointing in who they cast for Matthew.

See, Tom Hiddleson, followed by the man who plays Matthew, Matthew Goode. I can see why they picked him, particularly if you look at his period work, but I just think Hiddleson would have been the better option and fit the mood swings that Matthew is described as having better than Goode.

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There are a few others that just… aren’t what I imagined, but I do think I will try to finish the whole trilogy before trying the TV series.

*I do not own any images.