In her fiction aspect, Deborah Harkness dazzles readers of the most youthful fantastic. But this author knows how to inject her stories with a greater historical residue between the legendary and the mythical. So that her stories are not just labeled precisely as a naive literature.
We can find influences, in its most fantastic aspect, of that Stephenie Meyer that stunned youth from half the world. However, his characters are more interesting in their evolution between this and other planes in search of great enigmas. The historical context and a greater fantastic takeoff, touching on the esoteric, even from the uchronic, end up giving his work a greater touch of structural sophistication.
They are still light plots that devour from the action and the relationship of their characters, yes. But delving into Harkness's most famous saga "The Discovery of the Witches" involves a fully convincing coming and going in time, with that strange and disconcerting aroma that relativizes time and seems to weave everything with the silver thread of destinies...
Top 3 Recommended Deborah Harkness Novels
The son of time (The discovery of witches 4)
It had to take, a new incursion into vampirism that shows us the most sinister immortality of those who sold their souls for a drink of blood...
On the battlefield of the American Revolution, Matthew of Clermont meets young surgeon Marcus MacNeil. This is a time of change and political turmoil in which it seems that the world is one step away from a better future. And when Matthew offers him the chance to be immortal and free from the restrictions of his environment, Marcus jumps at the chance to become a vampire without hesitation. But Matthew is doing much more than saving his life. He is offering you the chance to beat time.
Centuries later, in present-day London, Marcus falls in love with Phoebe Taylor, a young Sotheby's employee. And when she too decides to follow her heart and become a vampire, the pair discover that the challenges awaiting humans who desire this transformation are no less formidable in the modern world than they were in the XNUMXth century. The shadows Marcus thought he had escaped so long ago may come back to haunt them...forever. Because eternity is the most extraordinary gift, but also the most difficult, that one can receive.
The book of life
Going in reverse order in this "Discovery of Witches" series we make little progress towards a third part. A novel to devour all those who already know about the life and work of Diana Bishop.
After traveling through time with The Shadow of the Night, historian and witch Diana Bishop and geneticist Matthew Clairmont return to the present to face new problems and old enemies. But the real threat to her future is yet to come, and when she does, the search for Ashmole 782 and its missing pages takes on even more urgency. In ancient homes and university laboratories, harnessing ancient knowledge and modern science, from the rolling hills of the French countryside to the palaces of Venice, the pair will finally unravel what witches discovered centuries ago.
What was the secret locked away in the mysterious Ashmole 782 and then tirelessly pursued by daimones, vampires and warlocks? How can the witch Diana and the vampire Matthew live their love and fulfill their mission under the weight of all the differences that separate them?
The discovery of witches
A brilliant start to an already mythical series that takes us into a narrative universe about to explode. With the usual prolegomena of any work that needs to prepare us for a great trip, we enjoy everything that awaits us without a moment of rest.
In the heart of Oxford's Bodleian Library, passionate historian Diana Bishop stumbles upon the manuscript identified as Ashmole 782 in the midst of her research.
Descended from an ancient line of witches, Diana senses that the manuscript is somehow related to magic, but wants nothing to do with witchcraft. And after taking some notes on the curious drawings of hers, she returns it without wasting any more time to the shelves. What Diana does not know is that it is an alchemical manuscript that has been lost for centuries and whose discovery has unleashed hordes of daimones, vampires and witches from the Library's reading rooms.
One of those creatures is Matthew Clairmont, an enigmatic geneticist, lover of good wine and ancient vampire, whose alliance with Diana will become progressively more intimate and little by little a relationship will emerge between them that will shake the taboos established for a long time in a world secret and enchanted.
Darwin's theory of evolution didn't cover all things on Earth, but Deborah Harkness has in this exciting and witty novel. From Oxford to New York, and from here to France, magic, alchemy and science reveal their true links in the definitive book on witchcraft and its powers.
