From the Bookshelf of Undead & UnRead Book Club - Frisco Public Library…

A Discovery of Witches (All Souls, #1)

Deborah Harkness

Start date: October 9, 2013

Finish date: November 12, 2013

Discussion: 2013 Meetings

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2013 Meetings

A Discovery of Witches
By Jim · 27 posts · 23 views

last updated Nov 19, 2013 06:56PM

Warm Bodies
By Amy · 15 posts · 14 views

last updated Oct 16, 2013 01:04PM

What Members Thought

Apr 05, 2018 Amanda Kratz rated it it was ok

I was so completely bored reading this. This was advertised as a cool vampire & witches story with a bit of Da Vinci code mixed in and what I got was... well boring.

Plot: Diana Bishop is a witch (who in chapter 2) discovers an alchemical book in the library which has magic coming from it. Wanting to avoid anything related to being a witch she returns it to the library. (Where it becomes lost again and refuses to be check out - hey it is a magic book). Then a bunch of interesting creatures; vampi I was so completely bored reading this. This was advertised as a cool vampire & witches story with a bit of Da Vinci code mixed in and what I got was... well boring.

Plot: Diana Bishop is a witch (who in chapter 2) discovers an alchemical book in the library which has magic coming from it. Wanting to avoid anything related to being a witch she returns it to the library. (Where it becomes lost again and refuses to be check out - hey it is a magic book). Then a bunch of interesting creatures; vampires, daemons, and other witches show up who want the book and have been searching for it for 100s of years. She meets Matthew Clairmont a 1500 year old vampire and they have a long romance and then kind of try to get away and escape from everyone. That’s it. The majority of the book is their relationship and past or powers. It is just so tedious and detailed and nothing happens. There was very little action and even then it is crammed into the back 200 pages of the book.

The first 300 pages are laying massive massive amounts of background. Our characters are college professors and highly intelligent. So approaching a vampire as a historian would we get mind boggling minutia of name dropping from history, antiques, people, places, wars, dates, etc. I get it, he is old, and important. And approaching a witch as a scientist might we get a full almost 2 chapters of DNA results, and mitochondrial DNA, and markers that say you have fire power, or water, or necromancy etc. There is also this incredibly boring bit about Darwin’s origin of the Species and how that may or may not apply to how witches and vampires evolved.

The romance - it was a case of insta love. (As many vampire books are). They know they have found their mate, the smell is right, the tugging etc etc. Matthew is an old fashion over protective, alpha male figure who struggles to treat Diana as anything other than a damsel in distress. It is a big source of argument through the books, but I dunno, I’m all for the dominant male type but something was off. He gets better as it goes but not a fan of Matthew.

The dialogue was terrible especially in the beginning. (It gets better as it goes but too little too late). Again the main characters are professors and highly intelligent and the conversations they have are just such. The author assumes you are familiar all the subjects discussed and doesn’t explain anything. (I mean I’m trying to decide if that is better or worse when the author assumes you are dumb and explains everything) Have you ever listened to two professors talk passionately about their areas of interest? The chapters on DNA or Darwin my eyes glazed over and my mind turned to mush. Also it wasn’t just the academic stuff too. For example Diana and Matthew have 5 dates and we get details of every course they eat at every meal and how it was prepared and smells. We get detailed scenes of yoga and all the poses and breathing and rowing. It was just so overly detailed. Also about midway in the book we get to meet Matthew’s vampire family and they speak an old dialect of French many phrases and conversations are in French and they aren’t translated. You are stuck just like Diana reading phrases (or poems) and having no clue what they say. Diana’s work has her examining illuminated manuscripts and I did find that a bit interesting and Da Vinci code-esc. Looking for hidden clues in the old drawing but she would tell you what she saw and what they meant I didn’t feel like I had a chance to solve or figure out anything on my own.

The back half of the book does pick up and get better, but I was too bored to care. There was finally some action and conflict but it was so minimal compared the first half of the book. Then they brought in less than 100 pages from the end this weird bit about the ability to time travel and I knew I was done. (I can’t stand time travel books- generally (there are always exceptions)). Diana’s family’s house though is a really cool bit. I love how the house worked and was told. (Sadly House you couldn’t save me). I wish we would have gotten to the Bishop House and the aunts sooner.

I’m not interested in continuing the series. I hear there is time travel in the next ones and that’s a big no-no for me. ...more

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Jan 27, 2019 Amy rated it really liked it

I am actually giving this book 3.5 stars and rounding up. I admit I tried to listen this audiobook years ago and stopped when the story started dragging along. Now, the TV show has come out and I have always had something of crush on Matthew Goode the actor who is playing Matthew. I thought I would give A Discovery of Witches another go. I do admit it is long drawn out and sort of a magpie of other stories that have come before but it wasn’t as terrible as I thought it was going to be. A Discove ...more

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Oct 04, 2013 Anne Denise rated it did not like it

Shelves: real-stinkers, vampires-at-the-mall

Martha Stewart Living with a dash of Twilight and the Corpus Hermeticum.

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Feb 28, 2019 Imperio rated it it was amazing

Shelves: favorites

I completely loved this book. The plot, characters and story were all captivating. I legitimately felt sad when I finished it because I didn't have enough time to buy the sequel before I ran to work.

Loved this book so much I re-read it this year. Original review stands. ...more

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