CBR18Bingo: Craft, because one character learns how to do witchcraft.
A Discovery of Witches is about Diana Bishop, a historian who stumbles upon a powerful ancient manuscript. Because Diana is also a witch, she recognizes the manuscript’s magical qualities, and returns it, trying to keep magic out of her academic work as much as possible. But it turns out this manuscript has been lost for 250 years, and the fact that she was able to find and open it is enough to draw the attention of all of the witches, vampires, and daemons in the area. She meets Matthew Clairmont, a 1500 year-old vampire geneticist who has an interest in the manuscript, and an even greater interest in Diana herself. Vampires and witches are forbidden to fall in love, but a forbidden romance ensues.
I liked a lot of things about this book. I liked the academia setting and the moody atmosphere. Deborah Harkness is an actual historian, and I really liked the way her historical knowledge came through in details about the settings and characters. The romance was very swoony. I loved Diana’s aunts Sarah and Emily, lesbian witches who live a semi-sentient magical house (basically Casita from Encanto).
I also had a lot of problems with this book. For one thing, Matthew. Look, he is dreamy. He is handsome, extremely well-educated, and he even does yoga! We love a well-rounded vampire! He is also controlling, secretive, and violent. He withholds important information from Diana and physically intimidates her into doing what he wants. Red flags all around. There were also some aspects of the world-building that were confusing to me. Why is Matthew and Diana’s chaste-ish courtship a violation of the laws about creatures mixing, but Matthew’s close friendships with daemons and his weekly mixed-creature yoga classes are fine? Do daemons actually have any powers beyond being creative and mentally ill? I also felt like the pacing was really uneven and dragged at times, and I had a hard time keeping track of the antagonists’ motivations. I didn’t hate this book, but I don’t think I will be reading the rest of the series.
