Review
`Gripping and impossible to put down, this is Twilight for grown ups - a wonderful read!' --Katie Fforde
`Write what you know, debut novelists are told, and Professor Deborah Harkness has accordingly set hers in the world of academia. But its historian heroine, Diana Bishop, also happens to be a witch, albeit a reluctant one, while the love interest, dishy geneticist Matthew Clermont, is a vampire. Supernatural lore forbids their love, lest it threaten the peace between these magical beings and we humans. Toss a long-lost alchemical manuscript into this bubbling cauldron of illicit desire, and you've all the ingredients for an assured saga that blends romance with fantasy. The first in a trilogy, it has had publishers swooning' --Daily Mail - Hot New Novels in 2011
`a notable debut...a romp through magical academia hoping to rival Elizabeth Kostova' --Saturday Guardian
`A Discovery of Witches is a strange and wonderful novel of forbidden love and ancient spells that turns every preconception about magic on its head. Deborah Harkness has written one of the most exciting novels I've read in years, not to mention the best witch/vampire alliance in existence. I fell in love with it from the very first page'
--Danielle Trussoni
`[a]spellbinding saga [...]an unputdownable debut' --Woman & Home
'This might just be a Twilight for the tweedy set' --Entertainment Weekly
`These days there are so many books about women who fall in love with vampires, but few are as interesting as A Discovery of Witches[...]For those looking for something new in the overly crowded vampire/romance category -- those who don't mind longer works -- A Discovery of Witches will be a thrilling and charming addition to your reading list' --New York Journal of Books
`It's refreshing, it's taking Urban Fantasy in a whole new direction, with supernaturals becoming something new as a whole host of characters descends into the reader's imagination. This is going to be a hard to beat debut this year, even though it's only begun'
--Falcata Times
`Write what you know, debut novelists are told, and Professor Deborah Harkness has accordingly set hers in the world of academia. But its historian heroine, Diana Bishop, also happens to be a witch, albeit a reluctant one, while the love interest, dishy geneticist Matthew Clermont, is a vampire. Supernatural lore forbids their love, lest it threaten the peace between these magical beings and we humans. Toss a long-lost alchemical manuscript into this bubbling cauldron of illicit desire, and you've all the ingredients for an assured saga that blends romance with fantasy. The first in a trilogy, it has had publishers swooning' --Daily Mail - Hot New Novels in 2011
`a notable debut...a romp through magical academia hoping to rival Elizabeth Kostova' --Saturday Guardian
`A Discovery of Witches is a strange and wonderful novel of forbidden love and ancient spells that turns every preconception about magic on its head. Deborah Harkness has written one of the most exciting novels I've read in years, not to mention the best witch/vampire alliance in existence. I fell in love with it from the very first page'
--Danielle Trussoni
`[a]spellbinding saga [...]an unputdownable debut' --Woman & Home
'This might just be a Twilight for the tweedy set' --Entertainment Weekly
`These days there are so many books about women who fall in love with vampires, but few are as interesting as A Discovery of Witches[...]For those looking for something new in the overly crowded vampire/romance category -- those who don't mind longer works -- A Discovery of Witches will be a thrilling and charming addition to your reading list' --New York Journal of Books
`It's refreshing, it's taking Urban Fantasy in a whole new direction, with supernaturals becoming something new as a whole host of characters descends into the reader's imagination. This is going to be a hard to beat debut this year, even though it's only begun'
--Falcata Times
Review
'Intelligent and off-the-wall, it will be irresistible to Twilight fans'
(The Sunday Times )'Write what you know, debut novelists are told and Professor Deborah Harkness has accordingly set hers in the world of academia... A bubbling cauldron of illicit desire...all the ingredients for an assured saga that blends romance with fantasy'
(Daily Mail )'An inventive addition to the supernatural craze... Historian Harkness's racy paranormal romance has exciting amounts of spells, kisses and battles, and is recounted with enchanting, page-turning panache'
(Marie Claire )'...notable debut...A romp through magical academia'
(Guardian )Product Description
An epic, richly inventive, historically sweeping, magical romance.
When historian Diana Bishop opens an alchemical manuscript in the Bodleian Library, it's an unwelcome intrusion of magic into her carefully ordered life. Though Diana is a witch of impeccable lineage, the violent death of her parents while she was still a child convinced her that human fear is more potent than any witchcraft. Now Diana has unwittingly exposed herself to a world she's kept at bay for years; one of powerful witches, creative, destructive daemons and long-lived vampires. Sensing the significance of Diana's discovery, the creatures gather in Oxford, among them the enigmatic Matthew Clairmont, a vampire genticist. Diana is inexplicably drawn to Matthew and, in a shadowy world of half-truths and old enmities, ties herself to him without fully understanding the ancient line they are crossing. As they begin to unlock the secrets of the manuscript and their feelings for each other deepen, so the fragile balance of peace unravels...
When historian Diana Bishop opens an alchemical manuscript in the Bodleian Library, it's an unwelcome intrusion of magic into her carefully ordered life. Though Diana is a witch of impeccable lineage, the violent death of her parents while she was still a child convinced her that human fear is more potent than any witchcraft. Now Diana has unwittingly exposed herself to a world she's kept at bay for years; one of powerful witches, creative, destructive daemons and long-lived vampires. Sensing the significance of Diana's discovery, the creatures gather in Oxford, among them the enigmatic Matthew Clairmont, a vampire genticist. Diana is inexplicably drawn to Matthew and, in a shadowy world of half-truths and old enmities, ties herself to him without fully understanding the ancient line they are crossing. As they begin to unlock the secrets of the manuscript and their feelings for each other deepen, so the fragile balance of peace unravels...
About the Author
Deborah Harkness is a professor of history at USC, specialising in science and medicine in early modern Europe. She is the author most recently of THE JEWEL HOUSE (Yale, 2007), based on her ground-breaking work on how science was practiced in Elizabethan London. (And she really did once find a missing manuscript in the Bodleian Library!)
