It has been much too long since I last wrote a post, and that has more to do with trying to settle into a schedule than with a lack of subject matter.
But to get me back in the groove of blogging, I give you Deborah Harkness’s “All Souls” trilogy, books one and two. I haven’t quite gotten to three yet.
I started A Discovery of Witches because my mom recommended it to me multiple times — she kept forgetting she had already done so. On top of that, though, when I went to see about checking it out from the library, it was checked out. And checked out. And checked out. Waiting list-type checked out. There must be something about this book, right? I finally managed to get my hands on an audio copy and so checked it out on the spot for my frequent five-hour drives down to Utah and back (wedding planning).
After I started listening to it, I started to cringe a little inside. I mean, the plot revolves around a woman who falls in love with a beautiful vampire. Cliché 1 (Thank you, Twilight). Cliché 2: The woman is a witch who stubbornly doesn’t want to use her magic (that’s in almost everything, it seems). Cliché 3: The woman has two aunts who are her only family, who are also witches (Sabrina the Teenage Witch, anyone?).
But then you start breaking away from the stereotypes. The witch, Diana, is a science historian descended from the infamous Bishop and Proctor lines—think Salem Witch Trials. Witches are an exclusive bunch, but so are vampires and demons, the other type of creature roaming around, and none of the groups mix. It's literally against the law. Diana’s aunts are lesbians and partners (only one is her biological aunt). And Harkness likes to talk about smells a lot.
Most books don’t do that, especially the scents thing.
I won’t say I was in love with the first one, but the fact that I moved on and listened to the second instead of meandering elsewhere should tell you something: THE DANG STORY WASN’T FINISHED YET.
Most of the time, a first book in a trilogy or series is meant to stand alone. Things come to a conclusion that is satisfying for the reader—just in case the publishing company decides against publishing the follow-ups. Most trilogies have a standalone first book that introduces a conflict and settles it. The second book looks back at the first to create a new and bigger conflict, then the conflict is settled in the third. So it is really two main story arcs. Example: Star Wars IV ends with the destruction of the Death Star. Star Wars V ends with Han Solo frozen and the Dark Side undefeated. Stars Wars VI finishes it all off.
But Harkness didn’t do that. Her main story arcs are the romance between Diana and the vampire Matthew and the quest to find a manuscript. Neither arc finishes in the first or even gets a hint at being finished, and it felt so incomplete that I had to move onto the next one for the sake of closure. The reason I haven’t read the third, though, is I stopped driving so much and I got my closure by the end of the second book. Also, the romance started being graphic about bedroom things and I just didn’t feel like listening to more of that. I mean, give the characters some privacy already. I tried teasingly confronting my mom about recommending that sort of book to me, but she says she doesn’t remember that happening.
Ending the first without true closure was a bit of a gamble on Harkness’s account, but it worked out so well for her in the end.
If you are in the mood for a modern-day fantasy romance novel, consider this book. Harkness is a history professor at USC and knows the box she is working inside, even though she did jump on the Twilight bandwagon, which drops her down a notch in my book (sorry, just being honest).
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