October 2011 eBook of the Month.

One of our Great Reads you may have missed in 2011.

The first in the All Souls trilogy, it’s 640 pages of pure pleasure. Involving, intriguing and compelling, this book may look long but, trust me, it’s well worth it. The premise is that our world contains three types of supernatural being: vampires, witches and demons. They interact with humanity, often as our greatest creative artists and benefactors, but basically they live hidden lives. And what happens when a vampire falls in love with a witch …? Of course, there is so much more here; conspiracy, history, mythology, mystery, ghosts, even the promise of time travel. It’s big in all senses, an epic work, and it’s not over. I can’t wait for the next one.

Synopsis

It begins with absence and desire. It begins with blood and fear. It begins with a discovery of witches. When historian Diana Bishop opens an alchemical manuscript in the Bodleian Library, it's an unwelcome intrusion of magic into her carefully ordered life. Though Diana is a witch of impeccable lineage, the violent death of her parents while she was still a child convinced her that human fear is more potent than any witchcraft. Now Diana has unwittingly exposed herself to a world she's kept at bay for years; one of powerful witches, creative, destructive daemons and long-lived vampires. Sensing the significance of Diana's discovery, the creatures gather in Oxford, among them the enigmatic Matthew Clairmont, a vampire genticist. Diana is inexplicably drawn to Matthew and, in a shadowy world of half-truths and old enmities, ties herself to him without fully understanding the ancient line they are crossing. As they begin to unlock the secrets of the manuscript and their feelings for each other deepen, so the fragile balance of peace unravels...

Reviews

'Intelligent and off-the-wall, it will be irresistible to Twilight fans'
The Sunday Times

'Write what you know, debut novelists are told, and Professor Deborah Harkness has accordingly set hers in the world of academia... A bubbling cauldron of illicit desire...all the ingredients for an assured saga that blends romance with fantasy'
Daily Mail

'An inventive addition to the supernatural craze... Historian Harkness's racy paranormal romance has exciting amounts of spells, kisses and battles, and is recounted with enchanting, page-turning panache'
Marie Claire

'A romp through magical academia'
Guardian

About the Author

Deborah Harkness is a professor of history at USC, specialising in science and medicine in early modern Europe. She is the author most recently of THE JEWEL HOUSE (Yale, 2007), based on her ground-breaking work on how science was practiced in Elizabethan London. (And she really did once find a missing manuscript in the Bodleian Library!) More books by this author Author 'Like for Like' recommendation