vincentwielders

I would recommend this novel to someone looking for a guilty pleasure romance or sexy vampires. A Discovery of Witches is heavy on the romance with a little Da Vinci Code thrown in for good measure. If you love history and science the Da Vinci code parts are spectacular. The text is speckled with fascinating tidbits about alchemy's role in the birth of science. More than once, it had me stopping to run to wikipedia to look up some historical artifact or scientific process. It sparked my interested in human evolution and ancestral genetics so much so that I've been reading books on those topics! Dr. Harkness did her research when she wrote this book. Too few fiction writers take the time to verify the reality of their plots against science and history by talking with expert researchers (that is, when an author is striving for something that approximates reality). I hope her work sets an example for others. The wonderful factual bits diminish substantially as the book progresses, replaced with pages and pages of romance between the novel's two primary protagonists which are - unfortunately - boringly flat characters that are more Mary Sue than realistic. I love well-written novels with romance, but something about these characters got under my skin. I found Diana to be particularly annoying and more at home in a fanfiction. If someone asked one of these two characters "What are your weaknesses, your flaw?", their response would undoubtedly be some kind of talent disguised as weakness, like "Oh, I'm a hard worker and sometimes I work too hard." Honestly. I really wanted to love this book - the plot has so much potential. So much! Sadly, this book left me extremely wanting in the character development department. However, I would wager a guess that this isn't from lack of talent so much as Harkness' Ph.D. background. A transition to creative writing can be difficult after years spent in the nonfiction realm of academic papers and books. She has the potential to be a wonderful fiction writer and I hope that, with continued adventures in creative writing, her character skills will blossom.

2022-10-21 05:45