The Book of Life (All Souls) by Harkness, Deborah (2014) Hardcover Hardcover

Slightly pretentious Twilight-spawn, actually, as if all of this highbrow attention to history and science and art could obscure the fact that we're still talking about two stories where an obscenely wealthy and dangerous old vamp falls in love with a mousy, not-very interesting human and their love is obsessive and forbidden, and over the course of the series Mousy Girl gets her groove back and becomes Queen of the Mary Sues, and when the couples breed the Powers That Be are disgusted and afraid of the unknown dangers that these rare forbidden vampire-hybrid babies represent, and vow to wipe out the whole Cullen/de Clermont clan.That said, there's a reason Twilight made Stephanie Meyer rich, and there's a reason all of these books are bestsellers. Mock all you want, with good reason (and even Harkness mocks, when her vampires haughtily insist they don't sparkle), but the fact is, these books are entertaining. Twilight lets you shut off your brain and get carried away in the fantasy of forbidden attraction; All Souls takes you on the same journey without shutting off your brain.I read A Discovery of Witches in February 2011, with no idea it was the start of a trilogy, and when I got to the cliffhanger ending, I was so gobsmacked it took me several days before I could sleep again. When Shadow of Night came out in 2012, I got an ARC copy and took a week's vacation so I could savor it properly. But since then, I've moved house, had a second baby, weathered a lot of changes at work, and I'm generally a lot busier, and so when the long-awaited final book in the All Souls Trilogy showed up on my Kindle, while I was excited to see it, I didn't have time to drop everything and devour it. Moreover, I didn't have time to re-read the first two books to refresh my memory, which in retrospect would have been very helpful. Consequently, I spent the first quarter of The Book of Life catching up on vaguely remembered details from the complicated world Harkness developed in the previous books.The Book of Life picks up more or less where Shadow of Night leaves off: time-traveling supernatural power couple Diana Bishop (a witch) and Matthew Clairmont (a vampire) have returned to the present day from 1590, where Diana was learning how to use her rare spell-weaving powers from the more powerful witches of that age. (One of the overarching plot issues is that the magical world is weakening in the modern age: witches cast less effective spells, vampires are less able to make new vampires, and daemons are more prone to insanity than genius.) Diana is pregnant with twins, a secret which will get them in very hot water with the Congregation (the governing council of the magical creatures), because witches, daemons, and vampires aren't allowed to marry outside their own kind, much less reproduce.Book of Life ties up the convoluted strands of the series-wide plot: the search for the ancient manuscript, Ashmole 782, that all of the creatures believes holds the key to their survival; the long-anticipated confrontation with the Congregation over Diana and Matthew's forbidden relationship; the explanation (and solution) to the problem of weakening magic. In reaching these conclusions, the book delves deeply into a lot of less central subplots: there is a lot of time devoted to the gordian knot of political and familial loyalties and obligations in the de Clermont vampire clan, a lot of time devoted to the analysis of genetic material in the pages from Ashmole 782 and DNA-testing of various magical creatures, and a lot of time devoted to traveling and describing the many settings of this book, including various locations in France, upstate New York, New Haven, London, New Orleans, Oxford, Venice, and Chelm, Poland.The entire series has been plagued by pacing problems. Deborah Harkness's attention to detail is at once the series' greatest strength and also its greatest weakness. The extensive descriptions of places, people, history, furniture, art, and so on make the reader feel like s/he is right there in the story, but sometimes Harkness gives us more detail than we could possibly need. In A Discovery of Witches, the never-ending descriptions of Diana's clothes and meals made me crazy. In Shadow of Night, Harkness told us more about arcane alchemical processes than any reader (except perhaps a Ph.D. candidate) could possibly care to know. -And here in Book of Life, perhaps more than ever, the details get in the way of the story.Let me explain: As the capstone of the trilogy, Book of Life is the climax the whole series (all 1800 pages of it) has been building to. The reader therefore has a sense of urgency in seeing how certain plots resolve that the detailed narrative often frustrates. Some examples: Matthew's mother, Ysabeau, gets held prisoner early on by the Congregation. Despite expressing some concern about it (and after learning why imprisonment might be especially traumatic to Ysabeau given her history), Matthew and Diana hie off to the States and spend several months gardening and cleaning the Bishop homestead in New York rather than working on a plan to free her. Later, they learn that the Book of Life's main villain is holding a witch hostage and repeatedly raping her, trying to breed with her. Matthew and Diana express horror and outrage... and then go to Yale and spend several more weeks futzing around in labs and libraries. Then, Diana has a pregnancy complication and gets put on bed rest while she and Matthew are on separate continents. Rather than rushing to her side, Matthew spends a week carving infant cradles. Later still, Matthew himself is a hostage of the Big Baddie, and Diana hurries to France... to feed her babies. Now, as a relatively new mom myself, I get that babies need to be fed, but surely not even the most hard-core breastfeeding enthusiasts would object to the sitter offering a little bit of formula so that Mom can go save Daddy from Mortal Peril.The baby plot was almost as ridiculous and cringeworthy in Book of Life as it was in Breaking Dawn. The birthing scene was less horrifying, thank God, and the Bishop-de Clermont babies have reasonably normal names and growth patterns, but they still prefer blood to milk, and there's a ridiculous scene in which Diana tells her husband that their daughter is "not a vampire. She's a vampitch. Or a wimpire." (p. 424). Seriously?!Book of Life has a point of view problem (as does Breaking Dawn, now that I think of it). Some of the book is written in first-person POV, as narrated by Diana. Some of the book is in third-person POV, usually limited to Matthew or other characters, but sometimes almost omniscient. Whatever rhyme or reason there may have been to the POV changes, I found them jarring and unnecessary.One plot I wish the series had developed more fully (and I say that with some hesitation, when there were so many plots that could and maybe should have been pared down), is the issue of Diana's mortality. Unlike Twilight's Bella, Harkness's protagonist has no intention of becoming a vampire. That means this is a story of a timeless, all-consuming love between a woman who will live a mere handful of decades compared to her husband's millennia. Perhaps the most empowering aspect of this love affair (especially contrasted with Twilight) is that both Diana and Matthew are happy with Diana the way she is, and don't wish to change her... but I still think they need to confront the issues in a more meaningful way. At one point, Matthew tells Diana that his greatest wish is to grow old with her, which of course can't happen -- Diana's response is to conjure him a few grey hairs for Christmas, a wholly unsatisfactory answer to a real and pressing problem.Reading over my review, it all sounds more negative than my actual reading experience reflects. I have a lot of nitpicky complaints, but overall, this book, and this series, is great entertainment. It's long and complicated and full of delicious (and sometimes maddening) detail, and the romance is compelling and the stakes are sky-high, and for a lot of people (including me) the All Souls trilogy is total reading catnip. I envy newcomers to the series who have the time to dive into all three books and read them in one epic 1,800 page binge, all at once, because I bet the story would be all the more transporting and satisfying that way, rather than interrupted by the long wait between book releases.

I have loved this series ever since I read the first book!Hopefully there will be a fourth one that explores the twins’ growing years & the trials and tribulations thereof!

A great resolution to the mystery if The Book of life. I live the dynamic the author has created with these two characters. I keep rereading because I can so clearly imagine their bond. I am rereading to find easter eggs for the next book. Their could be a lot. .

Deborah Harkness's All Soul's Trilogy, which I just finished, will, I believe, become a classic of the fantasy/romance genre. Readers start with A Discovery of Witches, travel back in time with Shadow of Night and end up, very satisfactorily, with The Book of Life. In Book 1, A Discovery of Witches we meet Diana Bishop and Matthew de Clermont, as they fall in love at first sight in the Bodleian Library at Oxford University in London. Once Diana fills out that call slip which brings forth a mysterious and unreadable book, Ashmole 782, every single "person" sitting anywhere in that library starts creeping closer to Diana. When she can't decipher the book she sends it back, but not without riling more than a few library patrons. Matthew rescues her.Diana is a witch, but she has been spellbound and doesn't know it. Matthew is a vampire, but he is totally unlike any vampire we have ever met so far in literature or on either the big or small screen and he is so much more. I doubt there is a single female reader who would not wish that she was the one that Matthew assisted in the library that fateful day. There may even be more than a few men who feel that same way.Diana knows how to be a professor but she has no idea how to be a witch. In Book 2, Shadow of Night, she travels back in time to find great teachers who will call forth her talents. She is more talented than anyone imagined. While in the past Diana marries her vampire (well who wouldn't) in spite of the Congregation, which rules vampires, witches, and daemons ("creatures"), and which has made cross-creature marriage illegal. Diana arrives back in the present in Book 3, The Book of Life pregnant with Matthew's babies, absolutely a taboo according to the Congregation (and thought to be impossible).In The Book of Life Diana and Matthew must deal with Matthew's family, Matthew's evil son, Benjamin (possessed of the "blood rage" from which Matthew and his other children also suffer), the birth of the twins, the shock felt by the entire community of "creatures" and the censure of the Congregation. In order to deal with all of this Diana and Matthew must find the two pages that are still missing from Ashmole 782, which they know as The Book of Life, and then Diana must go back to the Bodleian and call back Ashmole 782 to make the book whole. She is sure it contains lost knowledge about witches, vampires and daemons, knowledge which will make the Congregation change the Covenant, will make her marriage to Matthew legal, and will keep her new babies from being assassinated.Yale University, the college where Diana Bishop teaches plays a key role in Book 3. Matthew's blood rage has long driven him to study vampire genealogy and DNA. Others believed that witches and vampires, being separate species could not procreate and yet here is Diana pregnant and eventually presenting the de Clermont family with the twins conceived of Matthew; Rebecca and Philip. What the very tolerant, congenial, and scientific colleagues at Diana's campus find out about "creature" DNA and what Diana eventually learns from The Book of Life is surprising and makes an important plea for tolerance that resounds in the real world occupied by us as humans. (You can form your own judgment about whether "creatures" are real or not.)I love the academic settings for these books which form a sort of library sandwich. Harkness's vampires will have you clamoring for someone to take a bite of you. The skills that Diana finds that belong to her, the most talented in a long line of witches, are also enviable and very effectively written, full of symbolism and connections with antiquity, but I must not describe them in detail. There are no daemons among the true main characters in this book but we see several examples, both good and evil, of this class of creature.I was very happy with Book 3 which answers our questions, contains the penultimate battle, and gives us some of the happy endings that bring equal happiness to our reader's hearts. All this, and those connections that can be drawn with our human perceptions of race and DNA, make this an excellent trilogy indeed. I am sad that it is done, as I always am whenever I finish a very enjoyable and engrossing novel or series of novels. We look forward to whatever else you may write; Deborah Harkness, but these books will stand the test of time.

This book is the 3rd book in the All Souls Trilogy. Enjoyed it, I love stories about witches and or vampires. This book is much better than the second book of the series. The second book was VERY SLOW moving and introduced too many characters.This book finishes the tale of Dianna and Matthew. Escapist fun!

Deborah you have given me so much joy reading your book. I hope there are more that inspire me to loose sleep to continue reading.😊😊😊😊😊😊😊

I found the entire series thoroughly gripping. I initially bought it on Kindle, but now decided that I wanted the actual books and give it a third read. I loved the story, the characters and the lore, especially when mixed with actual historical figures and facts. I even bought the TV series on DVD's and have watched them more than once. If you like stories involving witches, vampires and daemons, you will enjoy this series.

Simplemente espectacular, lleno de aventura y clímax en cada parte del libro, que manera de escribir de esta gran historiadora

このシリーズの前編、日本語版の「魔女の目覚め」と「魔女の契り」は、とても面白く一気に読んでしまい、読み終わった後、すぐに最初から読み直しをしてしまいました。初読では酌み取れなかったところの表現や機微に触れることができ、何度も楽しむことができました。小説で、読み終わった後直ぐに最初から全てを読み返すようなことは初めてで、それだけこの小説にハマっています。日本語版の完結編を待っていたのですが、待てずにUSのAmazonでは英語版を読むことにしました。英語はあまり得意ではないので、読むよりは聴く方が挫折しないだろうと思い、Audio版を購入しました。CDで19枚でしたが、自分の期待とは異なる筋書きの意外な展開もあり、面白く一気に2日で聴いてしまいました。筋書きは、自分で実際に読んで楽しんでください。このシリーズの先の２つを楽しめたのでしたら、きっと同様に楽しめると思います。今この本を読むためにKindleを購入したところです。Auditoを再度最初から聴きながら本も同時に読んでいます。何度も楽しめています。

The All Souls Trilogy is amazing. I fell in love with it since book one and I don't know what to do now the story is over.Now let's talk about The Book of Life.I know why Emily died but I still think it was pointless. It was sad to lose her and Diana would've killed Knox regardless her death because he killed her parents and that's reason enough to hate someone. Baldwin is stupid and I hope he finds love in his life to make him less heartless.It was unexpected to see Benjamim as the greatest villain since he only appears on a few pages in book two. My jaw literally dropped when he confesses he killed and tortured Phillipe. Wow!And what to say about Phillipe? He is such an amazing character that even dead his strength and presence is disturbing. All he done for Diana, the gifts, the letter and everything he prepared for the trilogy events made me cry. He shouldn't be dead!I loved to see Jack again, he was such a great kid on Shadow of Night! He went trough so much pain in his life (mortal and immortal) that I hope he grows mature, now he found his parents.Some people said they hated seeing Mathew being tortured and that he looked weak in this book. I don't think so. He has a lot at stake now - Diana and his kids - so it's not a surprise that he acts so carefully, he wants to protect his family. Besides, vampires are different creatures, I still don't understand completely how its society works.Diana doesn't look like herself, she is stronger and is more confortable with herself and her powers. Finally!!!Gallowglass is my favourite character and I felt sorry for him. Why did he fell in love with Diana???? So cruel, Deborah!!I gave it a 4 star review because I felt that the book was incomplete. There are many characters in it and few pages to tell their stories. I've been reading Deborah's interviews and she will clearly write more books about this family, witch makes me happy.I truly hope that she writes a series about Gallowglass finding the love of his life and living adventures.Please, Deborah! Write a series about Gallowglass!!! I'm not the only one who likes him and wants to read his story.Have mercy on us!!!!

読み終わって一週間、まだ他の本を読む気になりません。失われた三枚のページも、本の内容も、マシューの命と引き換えの女神の要求も謎と思われたものは明かされ、シリーズは終わります。最終巻を待つ間に期待が高まりすぎたのでしょうか？少なくとも僕にはがっかりでした。Descovery of witchsではバンパイヤと魔女の出会いと恋愛がベースですが、ファンタジーのなかに錬金術、生命の進化、遺伝工学を折り込み謎を秘めた新手のミステリーと満足しました。Shadow of nightsでは中世の封建社会での裕福な家族の描写が半分以上で筋から大きく外れていくような気がしましたが、ラストに向けての伏線と展開なのだろうと勝手に想像していました。　謎はあまりにあっけなく、バンパイヤと魔法はどうしたの？というぐらい、単に熱愛のはてに結婚したその後の一人称による恋愛小説。伏線や添え物と思われたものがメインに思えました。　キャラクターも弱くなり、魔法など一切不要の強くたくましい母親に親族他皆従う。これだけ主題もキャラも変わると作者が違うのかと思い、ようやく一巻を捲ってみると語彙や文章に差はなさそう。うーん。　少なくとも僕にはダメで、彼女の本はもう開く気がしませんが、日常生活の中の恋愛小説ととらえた方、結末を知りたい方はどうぞ。