The Black Bird Oracle
The exhilarating new All Souls novel featuring Diana Bishop and Matthew Clairmont
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4.2 • 105 Ratings
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- $12.99
Publisher Description
'The Black Bird Oracle gives us everything we've come to expect and love from Deborah Harkness's All Souls series. More magic, more lore, more politicking and discovery' 5* READER REVIEW
'I cannot put into words how much I LOVED this book' 5* READER REVIEW
'What a BOOK. Exactly what I needed in prep for witchy season' 5* READER REVIEW
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'Haunting in every way. A story thick with family secrets, human heartache, and the kind of deep magic only Harkness can conjure. You will be enchanted' LEIGH BARDUGO
'Harkness's lush prose makes a fantastical world real enough to touch' JODI PICOULT
The first shadows fall on a Friday afternoon when a single, dying raven delivers an invitation to the witch, Diana Bishop. It calls her home to the hallowed ground of Ravenswood, to a place and a family she has never known.
And when Diana and her husband Matthew Clairmont learn that their seven-year-old twins must have their magical powers tested, Diana decides to forge a new future for her family, hoping to find answers at the Proctor ancestral home.
There, Diana becomes her great aunt Gwyneth's pupil in Higher Magic. And as Diana walks an unknown path, she must journey to some of the darkest places within her family history - and herself - if she is to unlock greater power.
An instant Sunday Times bestseller, The Black Bird Oracle returns to the world of All Souls, sweeping readers back to the Salem Panic to shine a light on the intertwined legacy of the Bishop and Proctor families.
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Discover for yourself why readers have fallen under the spell of Deborah Harkness's All Souls series . . .
'Bewitches you and doesn't set you free' 5* READER REVIEW
'It was so good to be back in the world of Diana and Matthew . . . as captivating as ever!' 5* READER REVIEW
'My favourite book of all time' 5* READER REVIEW
'Absolutely phenomenal . . . It was completely spellbinding' 5* READER REVIEW
'A masterpiece' 5* READER REVIEW
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
Deborah Harkness returns to the world she first mapped out in 2011’s A Discovery of Witches, the hit fantasy saga that’s since been adapted for television. In the fifth instalment in the All Souls series, star-crossed central couple Diana and Matthew must contend with formalities around their seven-year-old twins, who sit at the cusp on their magical inheritance. Yet as Diana confronts the next generation’s potential power, she gets drawn back into her family’s turbulent history via her powerful great-aunt. Longtime fans of Harkness will relish the core characters’ extended lineage, yet newcomers can just as easily come in fresh.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Bestseller Harkness carries the contemporary fantasy world of her All Souls series (after 2018's Time's Convert) into a new generation with this messy adventure. Pip and Becca, the seven-year-old hybrid vampire-witch twins of New England witch Diana Bishop and French vampire geneticist Matthew de Clermont, are due to be examined for their own eerie talents by the shadowy Congregation. Diana, fearful for them and anxious yet eager to expand her own higher-magic powers, is summoned by ravens to meet her father's relatives in Ravenswood, near Ipswich, Mass., where she and her children endure occult meetings with assorted family ghosts. She also receives magical tarot coaching from Great-Aunt Gwyneth and battles inimical local witch Meg. Matthew, previously the series' wolfish romantic lead, here subsides into a supportive househusband so that Diana, fueled by rabid curiosity and sluiced with endless tea, can pursue her supernatural vocation. There's little heat for romantasy fans to latch onto, and the payoff of the twins' testing is made to wait for future installments. Readers will wish they had an annotated family tree to understand the tangled web of Diana's relations. The result is ambitious, long-winded, and a bit of a muddle.
Customer Reviews
Magical family inspiration
Story of love between couples, families and extended family and friends weaving a strong sense of magical love & belonging
Upends canon and inconsistencies annoying
I was so looking forward to this 5th instalment. I can’t properly express my disappointment without spoilers. All I will say is Sarah is unrecognisable, Diana is apparently not that powerful a witch after all and Stephen Proctor was apparently controlling and coercive? The writing is fine but what Harkness has done to beloved characters in the guise of opening up new plot arcs is hard to accept.
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Loved it, I want more 💖