Fabulous Fiction Firsts #238

Sat, 02/05/2011 - 4:49pm by muffy

Deborah Harkness, a professor of history at the University of Southern California, a Fullbright, Guggenheim, and National Humanities Center scholar/author (The Jewel House: Elizabethan London and the Scientific Revolution) surprised everyone in her circle, including herself when she secretly started writing A Discovery of Witches,* a novel about a centuries-old vampire, a spellbound witch, and the mysterious manuscript that draws them together.

While researching in the stacks of Oxford's Bodleian Library, young Yale scholar Diana Bishop unwittingly calls up a bewitched alchemical manuscript. Descended from an old and distinguished line of witches, Diana wants nothing to do with sorcery but her discovery sets a fantastical underworld stirring, and soon a horde of demons, witches, and vampires descends upon the library and she is the only one who can break its spell. Once "neckbiter"-good-kisser, and renowned geneticist Matthew Clairmont enters the scene, well, you can guess what comes next in this literary and sophisticated "bodice-ripper".

Called by reviewers as "one of the better fantasy debuts" in recent memory, it will appeal to fans of Lauren Willig's Pink Carnation series, as well as fantastic romances such as Diana Gabaldon's Outlander series. There are also the faint whispers about Harry Potter and the Twilight saga. Well, I'll let you be the judge.

* = Starred review