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Michelle Olson
, May 19, 2013
(view all comments by Michelle Olson)
Our Review, by LITERAL ADDICTION's Pack Alpha - Michelle L. Olson:
Shadow of Night, the second installment of Deborah Harkness’s ALL SOULS TRILOGY was a wonderful pastiche of factual history and entertaining fiction, all woven together to create a work of art worthy of any intellectual reader.
Shadow of Night picks up where A Discovery of Witches leaves off, though new readers who are jumping in to this book without having enjoyed the debut novel will have no problems catching on.
Written in several parts, the novel follows Matthew and Diana as they travel back to Matthew’s past in 1590 in search of several things ��" a witch skilled enough to instruct Diana and hopefully give some answers regarding the incongruence of her magic, and the complete ‘book of origins’ being the main two. As they assimilate themselves in Elizabethan times, some big secrets are revealed, relationships and loyalties are both forged and tested, and they undergo the delicate dance of completing their mission without utterly altering the present reality.
It’s very difficult to write a comprehensive review for this book without spoilers, so I’ll just keep it surface level and say that Shadow of Night is not a light-hearted, quick read (especially not at 584 pages). It’s a well developed, beautifully written, and intricate tale built around some incredible factual research and set in a complex yet compelling world of wonder. The characters are well developed and the twisted facts in the fiction had me doing research into the true lives of the individuals Deborah bases her characters on days after finishing the book, smiling all the while in acknowledgement of the sheer creative cleverness involved.
So in short, LITERAL ADDICTION gives Shadow of Night 4 ½ Skulls. If you’re looking for a book that mixes fact with fantasy fiction, utterly entertains and yet intellectually challenges, and sticks with you long after you’ve turned the last page, this series is definitely for you.
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