STAFF REVIEW: A Discovery of Witches

Valerie's review of A Discovery of Witches, by Deborah Harkness:

Discovering a magical manuscript in Oxford's library, scholar Diana Bishop, a descendant of witches who has rejected her heritage, inadvertently unleashes a fantastical underworld of daemons, witches, and vampires whose activities center on an enchanted treasure. But it doesn’t stop there, unfortunately. She also attracts the interest of a devastatingly handsome (aren’t they all?) fifteen hundred year old vampire. The romance, which dominates the center of the almost 600 page book, is trite, the characters are caricatures, the prose banal – however, it improves with additional characters, scenes and unresolved plotlines. The first volume of a proposed three book series, entitled “All Souls Trilogy,” I find myself a little impatient for the next installment to arrive.