An Interview with DEBORAH HARKNESS

Deborah Harkness’s A Discovery of Witches and it’s sequel, Shadow of Night, seem to have taken readers by storm (the former debuted on the New York Times Bestseller list at #2). The series features a mysterious, magical text, vampires and witches. It actually sounds pretty intriguing, and I should really get around to reading it at some point. (Emma already reviewed the first novel for CR, in February 2011.)

In celebration of the paperback release for the second novel (of three, in the All Souls trilogy), Harkness’s US publisher organised a Q&A. Below are some of her answers.

NB: I have tweaked the wording of the questions, but none of the author’s answers were changed, altered or truncated.

“A Discovery of Witches” by Deborah Harkness (Headline)

Reviewed by Emma Newrick

An Academic, a Book, and Daemons, Witches and Vampires…

When historian Diana Bishop opens an alchemical manuscript in the Bodleian Library, it's an unwelcome intrusion of magic into her carefully ordered life. Though Diana is a witch of impeccable lineage, the violent death of her parents while she was still a child convinced her that human fear is more potent than any witchcraft.

Now Diana has unwittingly exposed herself to a world she's kept at bay for years; one of powerful witches, creative, destructive daemons and long-lived vampires. Sensing the significance of Diana's discovery, the creatures gather in Oxford, among them the enigmatic Matthew Clairmont, a vampire genticist. Diana is inexplicably drawn to Matthew and, in a shadowy world of half-truths and old enmities, ties herself to him without fully understanding the ancient line they are crossing. As they begin to unlock the secrets of the manuscript and their feelings for each other deepen, so the fragile balance of peace unravels...

This book has received lots of hype, which usually either makes me desperate to read something, or very determined not to. Thanks to Twilight and the other zillion books that have featured fanged heroes, I was rather tired of supernatural romance, but this one did intrigue me...