I was incredibly excited to read this book, and while I was a little surprised to see how dense it truly is (small print, 579 pages, and the size of a standard hard cover book, not mass-market paperback) I wasn't daunted.

Then I started reading.

I'm not going to lie. A Discovery of Witches, the first in the All Souls trilogy by Deborah Harkness, is not the book for me, though it seemed to have all the elements I was looking for: strong witch heroine, central magic-based plot and crisis, ample romance. And, after a long string of young adult novels, I was seriously ready for some adult content.

The novel revolves around Diana Bishop, descendant of Bridget Bishop, famous for being the first woman executed during the Salem Witch Trials, on her mother's side and John Proctor, another victim of the Trials, on her father's side. Since witches inherit their magic via genetics, Diana is extremely powerful. Except she refuses to use magic, as her parents' use of magic is what led to their grisly murder. She also refuses to allow magic to influence her work as a historian, wanting her reputation to be earned honestly. I respect that.

While preparing for a keynote presentation about alchemical illustrations, Diana finds a mysterious, magical manuscript supposedly lost for centuries. Cue onslaught of [magical] creatures to Oxford, where she's working, all intent on getting their hands on the manuscript.

One of those creatures—the general term for non-human—is Matthew Clairmont, vampire. Like all vampires in romance novels, he is extremely old.

Side note: I would really like to find a vampire romance where the vampire is new to his vampire-ness. If you know of any, please do tell.

He's also an extremely possessive (go figure), extremely frustrating (and not in a good way), extremely moody (surprise, surprise), extremely handsome (have we missed any vampire clichés?), extremely tall (oh, right, that one) scientist. Enough said about that guy.

Diana and Matthew fall in love, and their love is forbidden (shocker!) because of an ancient covenant between all creatures that prevents any cross-creature tomfoolery and shenanigans from exposing their [magical] existence to humans. (They're not invisible or anything, just like to lay low.)

I'll give this to Harkness: she really devoted a lot of time to developing the mythology and history of creatures and fitting them within our reality. Points there.

Anyway, I made it to chapter 29, or a full 365 pages into the novel before I just had to give up. Sorry that this review is written without a full understanding of the novel. But I think that being able to confidently walk away is its own type of review. Still, here's why I put it down once and for all.

1. Diana. Is. Boring. Think an older version of Anastasia Steele from Fifty Shades of Grey. It's not that she doesn't have a personality: it's that she has multiple. She's headstrong and fierce at one point, submissive at another. She basically spends the book thinking to herself "I'm totally going to do this! Oh, but Matthew might not like it, so I won't." Or "Screw Matthew's secrets. He shouldn't be keeping this stuff from me. Oh, but now he's angry, so I'll just stop and do what he says." She's constantly being told that she knows nothing about vampires (which is true), so she can't question their judgment and must follow their rules. And she does.


2. Diana is "special." Not only is she extremely powerful because of her lineage, but she actually possesses every magical trait witches have been known to possess. As Matthew explains, most witches can only use two to three traits (e.g., clairvoyance, spell casting, potions, etc.) and command two elements (e.g., water, fire, earth, air, etc.). But Diana can do everything. And, of course, since she's rejected her nature, she has no idea how to control her magic, which is starting to surface after all these years of non-use. Ugh.


3. Matthew. Or, Christian Grey without the (not at all life-like) BDSM kinks.


4. Diana's aunt, Sarah. Or, "You didn't want anything to do with magic, Diana, so I didn't feel it pertinent to tell you about such governing bodies like The Congregation and centuries-old rules like the covenant even though they basically control us all and you'll be killed if you disobey."

And now that I'm writing this list down, I'm wondering if the All Souls trilogy is just a magic-infused version of Fifty Shades of Grey. Because it really does have all the elements that I hated in that series. Maybe Harkness wrote a Fifty Shades of Grey fanfiction and that story became this book. Hmmm.