A Discovery of Witches

By. Deborah Harkness

P. 592

Format: Paper/Audio

Rating: ***

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I have heard a lot about A Discovery of Witches over the years, to the point where I kept putting off reading it. It seemed intimidating, an epic historic fantasy that looks at the paranormal aspects of society. Imagine my surprise when I finally pick up the book and discover that at its core A Discovery of Witches is a paranormal romance.

The book starts out great. Diana Bishop is a PhD studying alchemy. She spends her days studying old manuscripts in libraries and denying her magic, because she is a witch. Except she ends up calling an ancient manuscript from the tomb of the library and now the entire underworld is out to use her. 

Up until this point I absolutely adored the book. The writing is excellent. The plot is engaging. I was hooked on the familiar, yet not too familiar, aspects of the paranormal.

Then Diana starts to fall for an old, very old, vampire named Matthew Clairmont. Diana looses her strong independent women vibes and gets in a toxic relationship with Matthew. Except it is not described as toxic in the book. No, it is destined and preordained. Diana has some problems with Matthew controlling her life completely, but what are you going to do? After all he is set in his ways.

I nearly put the book down, but my Insta friends told me that it got better. It did. The relationship lost the main focus and we moved back onto the plot. Matthew calmed down some, but the relationship was never called out for being toxic. If anything there was just more toxic characters brought it so that Matthew didn’t look quite as bad.

I plan on reading the second book, but I admit that I am concerned.