Shadow of Night
A Novel
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4.4 • 442 Ratings
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- $15.99
Publisher Description
The #1 New York Times–bestselling sequel to A Discovery of Witches is as “enchanting, engrossing, and as impossible to put down as its predecessor” (Miami Herald)
J. K. Rowling, Stephenie Meyer, Anne Rice—only a few writers capture the imagination the way that Deborah Harkness has done with books one and two of her New York Times–bestselling All Souls trilogy. A Discovery of Witches introduced reluctant witch Diana Bishop, vampire geneticist Matthew Clairmont, and the battle for a lost, enchanted manuscript known as Ashmole 782.
Harkness’s much-anticipated sequel, Shadow of Night, picks up from A Discovery of Witches’ cliffhanger ending. Diana and Matthew time-travel to Elizabethan London and are plunged into a world of spies, magic, and a coterie of Matthew’s old friends, the School of Night. As the search for Ashmole 782 deepens and Diana searches for a witch to tutor her in magic, the net of Matthew’s past tightens around them, and they embark on a very different—and vastly more dangerous—journey.
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
The follow-up to A Discovery of Witches adds lacy collars and Elizabethan court intrigue to the magic and romance of the All Souls trilogy. Diana Bishop and her vampiric lover, Matthew Clairmont, travel back in time to find a sorceress powerful enough to teach Diana how to use her magical gifts. That Matthew was alive (or undead) in this past quickly complicates things. Deborah Harkness uses her historian’s knowledge of life in the 1600s to make this fantastically unconventional love story pulse with life.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Propelled by her successful fiction debut, A Discovery of Witches, historian Harkness concocts an energetic if chaotic sequel filled with witches, daemons, vampires, wearhs, weavers, and warm-bloods (aka humans) racing to retrieve a lost manuscript that details the origins of supernatural species, which, in the wrong hands, could hasten their extinction. The first novel culminated in the mixed marriage of vampire/scientist Matthew de Clermont to historian/untrained witch Diana Bishop. This novel opens with the newlyweds time-traveling to Elizabethan England so Diana can study witchcraft; never mind they're burning witches in Scotland or that in London an educated American woman doesn't exactly blend in. There, they hope to retrieve magical manuscript Ashmole 782, last seen in Oxford's 21st-century Bodleian library. Diana gets in touch with her inner firedrake, Matthew with his father, but they can't find a tutor for ages, and they can't rescue the manuscript without a trip to Prague. Supporting Diana and Matthew in their quest is a secret society that includes dashing Walter Raleigh and dangerous daemon Christopher Marlowe. Harkness delights in lining up the living dead and modern academic history, as in her explanation of how a forger named Shakespeare, with supernatural prompting, takes up playwriting. This tale of a feminist Yankee in Queen Elizabeth's court charms amid the tumult, as the gifted heroine and her groom fight for generations and another sequel to come in order to protect the magical world that's all around us.
Customer Reviews
Shadow of the Night
Loved the characters and story . Totally disliked the ending as there were too many unanswered elements. Would not mind this so much if the third book didn't take so long to become available .publishers get it togeather !
Shadow of Night
I have so enjoyed spending time with Matthew and Diana once again. It will seem like forever before their journey continues.
Not a great sequel
Felt like there were unnecessary characters and not enough character development for those that were of actual interest.