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A review by bookedoc
A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness
5.0
I know there are contradictory reviews of this book but I am in its corner. A Discovery of Witches is on my old favorites shelf and I have reread it twice now. While I agree that the romance is quite a slow burn and takes some patience, I appreciate the more organic way Matthew and Diana build their relationship vs a lot of the instant love romantasy novels out there (even though that’s sometimes fun too, admittedly).
My favorite aspect of this book is that while the romance slowly heats up, there is a lot of depth to the story as it explores more thought provoking themes such as self discovery, friendship and found family, prejudice and changing oppressive social norms. Each character in the book is complex and has an interesting backstory and rich personality that is fun to learn about as they develop throughout the book. Additionally, the weaving of real historical events and figures with the fantasy of witches and vampires is well done and more “believable” (as believable as a story about witches and vampires can be, anyway).
It’s also a great breakout book to those that are newer to the fantasy genre because there’s so much more to the story than just the magical detail. I’ll always recommend it!
Happy reading (:
My favorite aspect of this book is that while the romance slowly heats up, there is a lot of depth to the story as it explores more thought provoking themes such as self discovery, friendship and found family, prejudice and changing oppressive social norms. Each character in the book is complex and has an interesting backstory and rich personality that is fun to learn about as they develop throughout the book. Additionally, the weaving of real historical events and figures with the fantasy of witches and vampires is well done and more “believable” (as believable as a story about witches and vampires can be, anyway).
It’s also a great breakout book to those that are newer to the fantasy genre because there’s so much more to the story than just the magical detail. I’ll always recommend it!
Happy reading (: