A Discovery of Witches

A Novel

By: Deborah Harkness

Narrated by: Jennifer Ikeda

Length: 23 hrs and 59 mins

Publisher's summary

Book one of the New York Times best-selling All Souls Series—"a wonderfully imaginative grown-up fantasy with all the magic of Harry Potter and Twilight” (People).

Now “[a] hot show that’s like Twilight meets Outlander” (Thrillist) airing on AMC and BBC America, as well as streaming on Sundance Now and Shudder.

Deborah Harkness’s sparkling debut, A Discovery of Witches, has brought her into the spotlight and galvanized fans around the world. In this tale of passion and obsession, Diana Bishop, a young scholar and a descendant of witches, discovers a long-lost and enchanted alchemical manuscript, Ashmole 782, deep in Oxford's Bodleian Library. Its reappearance summons a fantastical underworld, which she navigates with her leading man, vampire geneticist Matthew Clairmont.

Harkness has created a universe to rival those of Anne Rice, Diana Gabaldon, and Elizabeth Kostova, and she adds a scholar's depth to this riveting tale of magic and suspense. The story continues in book two, Shadow of Night, book three, The Book of Life, and the fourth in the series, Time’s Convert.

©2011 Deborah Harkness (P)2011 Penguin Audio

Critic reviews

“A wonderfully imaginative grown-up fantasy with all the magic of Harry Potter or Twilight.... An irresistible tale of wizardry, science and forbidden love.” (People)   

“Romantic, erudite, and suspenseful.... Harkness attends to every scholarly and emotional detail with whimsy, sensuality, and humor.” (O, The Oprah Magazine) 

“A thoroughly grown-up novel packed with gorgeous historical detail and a gutsy, brainy heroine to match.... Harkness writes with thrilling gusto about the magical world.” (Entertainment Weekly) 

A feast for the mind and imagination

I briefly saw the recommendation for "A Discovery of Witches" and decided it was worth the one credit it cost. Little did I imagine what treasure was in store for me. Most books I read or listen to are just a good story, something that briefly occupies your mind and time in a pleasurable way. Rarely are there books that sweep you up in the arc of the story and puts the characters in your heart and mind in such a way that when you can tear yourself away from the story you find yourself thinking about the characters while you cook dinner or go about your daily life. This is that kind of book. I am thankful to Ms. Harkness for imagining such a wonderful richly written story. It's a grown-up book. If you are looking for gratuitous sex it's not there. It reminds of the way they used to make movies where you used your imagination to fill in the blanks instead of having it spelled out in front of you with graphic detail. Most books I read I can compare to junk food, a small bite of pleasure and then gone. This wondrous book is like a 10 course meal spread in front of you. I only wish it had not ended. I hate it that I cannot find any information as to when the next in the planned trilogy will be out. But I will be waiting......it's worth it. Thank you again Ms. Harkness
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Not for me

Let me preface my review by saying that you should take my review with a grain of salt. This book came highly recommended to me and seems to be pretty well liked overall. Currently, on goodreads, there are over 318,000 ratings and the book has a 4 star average.

A Discovery of Witches is book one of the All Souls Trilogy. This is the first book that I have tried from this author. I'm not sure if I would try another.

I love fantasy, witches, vamps, demons, all that. I thought A Discovery of Witches would be right up my alley and had been really excited to read it for a while. Unfortunately, I found it to be boring and it just droned on. I couldn't connect with the main character at all and had no interest in her or what she was saying because it was just monotonous. As I mentioned a moment ago, there are witches and vampires and demons and up to the point where I stopped reading, there wasn't any air of excitement at all. The main character is a scholar who spends every day, all day, in the Oxford library researching old books and manuscripts and talks about it ad nauseam. She is also a witch but refuses to acknowledge her powers and makes an effort to do everything the long and tedious way to prove that she doesn't need magic to succeed. Except for when she does use magic and rationalizes it away. When she isn't in the library she is running or rowing a boat. Couple all of that with some flowery prose and that was the beginning of the book in a nutshell. The audiobook is 24 hours long. I only made it 2.5 hours so maybe it gets better...I mean it has to, right? I just couldn't take anymore to find out for myself.

The narration was fine. I didn't have any problems with it. It seemed pretty monotone but honestly, I think that was just how the book was, not anything the narrator did.

Started out intriguing, devolved into Twilight 2.0

Initially, I was delighted with this book: the studious, ambitious, highly intelligent and independent heroine appealed to me, as did the world of libraries, academia and research. Books, tea, wine and academic pursuits are my jam, and I really enjoyed Diana. Initially, that is.

As the plot progresses and the inevitable romance commences, Diana could increasingly be replaced by a sack of potatoes without the narrative suffering, she becomes that insignificant. Suddenly, she lacks drive, intelligence and initiative, becomes a woman-child that has to be lead everywhere by hand, has to have her own biology, powers and, well, everything explained to her by her romantic interest and everyone else - and just like Bella Swan, she has to be carried everywhere.

And then there's the romance, which kicks up without explanation and much reason. I'm bored and faintly disgusted by the Pater Familiaris hero archetype that Matthew exemplifies: he makes Diana's decisions for her, keeps things from her "for her own good", categorically and repeatedly postpones discussing important things with her, manages her, manhandles her around, growls and snaps and drags and "bundles" her everywhere, acts possessive, territorial and jealous, and he's supposed to be sexy and interesting and manly, instead of a giant bag of NOPE?! No, just no. Matthew outright states he's "been managing [Diana] for weeks", and neither Diana or the author seem to think this is anything but Just Wonderful. (Then again, at this juncture it's debatable Diana, the independent, intelligent academic with a professor's mental capabilities, can think at all without someone else feeding her every thought and idea; see: sack of potatoes.) The Instant Kudzu Romance Plot goes beyond the ridiculous on the WTF-meter when Matthew declares the two of them married because Diana kissed him in the presence of his mother -- and this marriage is apparently instant and binding, with no input from Diana herself. Subsequently Diana declares herself mother to Matthew's children - you know, creatures that are hundreds of years older than her - and proceeds to become instantly caring and adoring towards them. No one raises so much as an eyebrow at this Speedball Stepford manoeuvre: it's all business as usual and completely reasonable by everyone's lights.

There were parts of this novel I genuinely did enjoy: the worldbuilding is interesting, the alchemy and history woven into the plot were fascinating, and the "creatures" and their particulars and dynamics as imagined by Harkness were refreshingly different from the conventions of the genre. I found the scholarly bits and Diana's existence as a serious academic much more interesting and convincing than, well, the rest of the book, and I was disappointed that her intelligence was set firmly in the realm of "tell", not "show".

As for the audiobook, I enjoyed Jennifer Ikeda as the narrator, and found her voice very pleasant to listen to. However, Ikeda's pronunciation of anything but American English was quite lacking, and while I somewhat understand that a small, "exotic" language such as Finnish might be too tall an order, I have trouble believing they couldn't find any source of Scottish English or even a convincing French-accented English for her to listen to as a reference. I cringed every time Ikeda had to deviate from American English, and I wish whoever produced and directed her narration would have given her the tools to help her perform better.

I liked it a lot

I was surprised to read the variety of reviews, from praise to condemnation. I recommend this audiobook without hesitation, both the book and the narration. I believe you have to start from the perspective of the genre you are reading - it is, after all, make believe. There are no such thing as vampires and witches ( well, not real witches). So..the author has the task of making you willingly suspend belief, and at the same time care about the characters. Harkness accomplishes both, and more. The book is best described as " Twilight for Adults", and thinking adults at that.

I look forward to Book # 2

I really wanted to like it...

But I just couldn't. The writer is technically very good, she can definitely put a sentence together properly. Unfortunately, her attention to detail, something that delighted me at first, quickly became wearying. If a character looks at a book, you'll know what kind of binding it has and the color of the cover. If someone looks at their watch, you'll get a sentence or two describing what kind it is. I like details here and there; they can make a setting and characters more real, more solid, but this book is drowning in details. Any action scenes are slowed by tangential descriptions, and everything is over-analyzed and explained to death.

The dialogue is also stilted, which works for the uptight main character, but not for all of them. It's a very dry read, and there's no humor to be found anywhere. It's just not for me.

Can't Please Everyone...

If you decide what you read and/or listen to according to the reviews found on this web site then you will be cheating yourself. As you can tell from the reviews of this novel they run the gamut. I've never read a book that was "perfect"... even the ones that get across the board 5-star reviews aren't perfect. This is my advise... those of you who are hyper critical about narrators take the time to listen to the audio sample of the story offered for every selection on the site, the selection is usually fairly long and should give you amble time to judge the quality of the narration. It should also give you taste of the story. I liked this book and I thought it was a new twist on the vampire story... lots of new material... lots of interesting visualization and I thought the narrator was very good. I know these things are expensive and if you get one that disappoints you then that's wasted money in your mind, but consider that the taste for a story is as varied as our opinions of everything else in life... my father said, "opinions are like .... everyone has one and no one is interested in yours except you!"

A Wasted Day

I agree with some of the earlier reviews:
Twilight for adults. Sappy. Romantic fiction.
But what teed me off is that this is 24 hours of set up for a series.
Asa King and Rice fan I was disappointed. As a Christie fan I was livid.
In all that time the mystery doesn't get solved. Poirot we need you.
I resented being sucked into a series without warning.
Series are great as long as each book will stand on its own. This one does not.

A most terrific & non-typical treatment of Witches

What did you love best about A Discovery of Witches?

I thought the cautiously developed relationship and then to true love was handled extremely well and very realistic for a fantasy novel. Very tough to deal with archetypes that have been done to death and done to silliness like the Twilight series exemplifies. THIS work is just the first chapter in a Triology. Leaves anyone wanting more and explains why it's been doing so well on the top selling books lists in over two dozen languages,

Who was your favorite character and why?

Actually I like our heroines dead mother and father best because it is they that are truly at the heart of what we have only begun to glimpse.

What does Jennifer Ikeda bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?

She does a very excellent job of reading, but also bringing life and characters to all the characters she has to read for. It's never confusing which character is talking even when many are in the same scene.

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

It's far too long for such a thing, but I have gotten through this book and the second in a few long road trips and enjoyed the company. Can't wait for the release of the final chapter to this trilogy and hope Hollywood takes notice and chooses to make this with the same quality they are handling Game of Thrones with. Anything less, would be a waste of such excellent writing.

Any additional comments?

I think the books do speak for themselves whether in audio form as I have them, or in the written form.

Should Have Trusted My Own Judgment

This book is a Romance.
Do you hear me saying this book is a Romance?
Don't buy if you are not looking for a book that is all Romance.

I would have preferred a narrator who had a more mature voice. If the majority of the characters had been 20-somethings or younger, than this narrator would have been fine. Her voice and intonations are too juvenile for the majority of characters who are late 30s or older.

Despite comparisons in reviews, this story line doesn't rival the Outlander series.

This is a romance!

This book felt like a failed attempt at creating a grown-up Twilight. Whether you like them or not, the similarities between S.M.'s books and this one are obvious. In addition, I didn't realize this was a romance when I bought the book- IT IS! The romance takes up at least 3/4 of the book and moves at a confusing, awkward pace. I only kept listening to it so that I could write a review based on the entire book- otherwise I would have stopped listening around 2/3 of the way through.

On the bright side- the narrator does a fantastic job. The stars are for her.