Book review: All Souls Trilogy by Deborah Harkness
This is a hugely popular trilogy with legions of followers on the net - a series which catapulted a hitherto unknown author to bestseller charts overnight. One of my book-loving friends had read the first book and had recommended it to me. So obviously I started reading the series last week with high expectations.
“It begins with absence and desire.
It begins with blood and fear.
It begins with a discovery of witches.”
It begins with blood and fear.
It begins with a discovery of witches.”
"A Discovery of Witches" is the first book of the series and undoubtedly the best one of the lot. It is an odd book to review - while I didn't exactly adore the book, I didn't dislike it either. There were certain elements which I found interesting and I was willing to invest more money and time to read the next two books. That is when the things which were mildly irritating in the first book really went on to become full-blown, frustrating habits of the author - her incredibly slow pacing of the plot, penchant for introducing numerous random characters with no relationship to the story, tendency to over-indulge in her pet passions such as history and science, and propensity to tell the readers repeatedly about a person's character rather than showing them.
 |
| Source: gettyimages |
The series starts with Diana Bishop, an intelligent and respected professor of Oxford and Yale who during her research in the Bodleian Library of Oxford University accidentally discovers an enchanted old manuscript, or to be more accurate, a palimpsest. Mysterious writings appear on the book and she realizes that it has something to do with magic. Diana comes from a long line of witches, with both her parents being witches. However, following her parent's brutal murder when she just was a child, she has refused to be in contact with any form of magic. So she hastily returns the bewitched book, Ashmole 782, to the library and walks away unconcerned about it till a host of magical creatures start following her to get their hands on the book. We come to know that besides humans, the world is inhabited by three types of supernatural creatures - witches, vampires and daemons, each race with unique abilities and strictly forbidden to intermingle with the other races, as part of an ancient Covenant enforced by a dictatorial Congregation. The foremost among the supernatural creatures who pursue Diana is a 1500 year old vampire called Matthew Clairmont, a handsome and distinguished professor of biochemistry.
There is a case of insta-love here and I felt my first disconnect with the story. As a connoisseur of the romance genre, I savour deeply felt romances where the hero and the heroine share a bond beyond words. I have often immersed myself in words written by many gifted authors who have made me feel every glance and every touch fraught with meaning that is exchanged between the lead pair. In this book, Diana and Matthew talk a lot about their forbidden love and apparently do a lot of things for love, yet throughout it I felt no passion between them, even less than that between Twilight's Edward and Bella (which I hadn't thought was possible!). I never did understand how and why Diana and Matthew fell in love so fast, given that they are mature adults and not infatuated teenagers in the throes of their first crush. In fact, this entire series left me strangely untouched at the emotional level, and hence I never did care much for the main characters.
Matthew is too good to be true - super rich, intelligent, famous, respected and excelling at everything he does - vampire, scientist, aristocrat, spy, warrior, prince, knight - is there anything he isn't competent at? Yet his ideas about women leave a lot to be desired. He spends inordinate amounts of time bossing Diana around, growling for no apparent reason and making stupid decisions which are never fully explained, such as the climax at the end of the series. Why exactly did he do something as stupid as surrendering to the antagonist - just so that Diana could steal the limelight at the end, as the author had intended to all along? We are repeatedly told how deadly and dangerous Matthew is, especially with all the "blood rage" thing going on, in the second and third books. But his actions never demonstrate these tendencies and I never felt the danger that is supposedly his second nature. Trust me, I have read about a lot of deadly assassin heroes who have a ruthless and deeply tortured side to them, but Matthew just felt like a cardboard assassin to me.
Diana is only marginally better - she started grating on my nerves in the first book when she, an apparently independent woman, appeared content to rely on and be guided by Matthew, just because she was in love with him. Her stubborn refusal to use magic and insistence that magic was at the root of all problems, in spite of evidence to the contrary, was also frustrating. However, I liked her a little better than Matthew because in the end of the first book, she saved Matthew from a female vampire bent on revenge and in the second book, she started raising the issue of who wears the pants in their relationship. I also liked her learning how to create and weave spells and her bonding with the witches in the sixteenth century.
Book 1 still passed muster because of characters such as Ysabeau and the Bishop House (which is a character in itself, complete with magical mischievous tendencies and resident ghosts). I had liked the climax of the first book and was willing to forgive the author's tendency to go off the track and repeat herself, thinking that she might get better with time.
In Book 2, "Shadow of Night", Matthew and Diana are supposedly time-travelling to Elizabethan London in the sixteenth century to retrieve Ashmole 782, better known as the "Book of Life" which is purported to contain the secrets of evolution of all the three types of supernatural species. However what do they actually do after reaching there? They spend time debating with the prominent historical figures of the Elizabethan era including Christopher Marlowe, Sir Walter Raleigh, Mary Sidney, Shakespeare and even Queen Elizabeth, get married again in France at Sire Phillippe's insistence, and adopt two unknown orphans Jack and Anne. Why were so many characters introduced and what bearing did they have to the main story? I have no idea.
The author wakes up towards the end and Diana and Phillip realize that Diana still hasn't learnt any magic and they have not tracked the book either and there is a hasty scramble to get back to the plot! I would have liked to see more of the witches who taught Diana and learn more about the firedrake Corra's background. Instead we get to meet Rudolf II, the lecherous Holy Roman Emperor and some other extraneous characters in Prague who only confuse the story further. At the tail end, we come across the main villain who it is soon revealed is the root cause of all the mess. Book 2 was the worst of the three books and I skimmed through it, omitting a large number of pages where nothing significant happened. The only redeeming features of Book 2 were the introduction of Phillippe, Matthew's omnipotent father, and the funny Gallowglass (my favourite character in the series).
By Book 3, "The Book of Life", I had almost given up hopes of the author redeeming herself and this was almost a DNF for me. I skipped chapters in the middle and only then was able to complete it. However, it turned out to be better than the second book. I liked the camaraderie among the family and friends of Diana and Matthew and their willingness to stand by our lead pair in times of crisis. However, more irrelevant characters were introduced such as the witches of Madison, the present-day London witch coven, Diana's scientist friend Chris, her librarian friend (Lucy I think) and members of the dreaded Congregation. Conversely, I didn't get to see more of characters I had found interesting, such as Andrew Hubbard - he had an intriguing background and came across as a thought-provoking character. I would also have liked to see more of Corra, Diana's mother Rebecca, the Bishop House and the ghost Bridget Bishop. Aunt Emily's fate is also never fully explained - what she had been trying to achieve and why. My biggest complaint is that not enough time was devoted in the end to explaining how the "Book of Life"will be put to use, considering that gaining it had been the objective of the entire series. Again, Gallowglass and Ysabeau were the only characters I liked, though I kind of liked Jack too. I have a feeling that we will have a sequel featuring Gallowglass in the near future (which I suspect will again be 800 pages long and which I won't subject myself to!).
Matthew is too good to be true - super rich, intelligent, famous, respected and excelling at everything he does - vampire, scientist, aristocrat, spy, warrior, prince, knight - is there anything he isn't competent at? Yet his ideas about women leave a lot to be desired. He spends inordinate amounts of time bossing Diana around, growling for no apparent reason and making stupid decisions which are never fully explained, such as the climax at the end of the series. Why exactly did he do something as stupid as surrendering to the antagonist - just so that Diana could steal the limelight at the end, as the author had intended to all along? We are repeatedly told how deadly and dangerous Matthew is, especially with all the "blood rage" thing going on, in the second and third books. But his actions never demonstrate these tendencies and I never felt the danger that is supposedly his second nature. Trust me, I have read about a lot of deadly assassin heroes who have a ruthless and deeply tortured side to them, but Matthew just felt like a cardboard assassin to me.
 |
| Source: getlink.youtube.com |
Diana is only marginally better - she started grating on my nerves in the first book when she, an apparently independent woman, appeared content to rely on and be guided by Matthew, just because she was in love with him. Her stubborn refusal to use magic and insistence that magic was at the root of all problems, in spite of evidence to the contrary, was also frustrating. However, I liked her a little better than Matthew because in the end of the first book, she saved Matthew from a female vampire bent on revenge and in the second book, she started raising the issue of who wears the pants in their relationship. I also liked her learning how to create and weave spells and her bonding with the witches in the sixteenth century.
Book 1 still passed muster because of characters such as Ysabeau and the Bishop House (which is a character in itself, complete with magical mischievous tendencies and resident ghosts). I had liked the climax of the first book and was willing to forgive the author's tendency to go off the track and repeat herself, thinking that she might get better with time.
In Book 2, "Shadow of Night", Matthew and Diana are supposedly time-travelling to Elizabethan London in the sixteenth century to retrieve Ashmole 782, better known as the "Book of Life" which is purported to contain the secrets of evolution of all the three types of supernatural species. However what do they actually do after reaching there? They spend time debating with the prominent historical figures of the Elizabethan era including Christopher Marlowe, Sir Walter Raleigh, Mary Sidney, Shakespeare and even Queen Elizabeth, get married again in France at Sire Phillippe's insistence, and adopt two unknown orphans Jack and Anne. Why were so many characters introduced and what bearing did they have to the main story? I have no idea.
 |
| Source: guardian.uk |
The author wakes up towards the end and Diana and Phillip realize that Diana still hasn't learnt any magic and they have not tracked the book either and there is a hasty scramble to get back to the plot! I would have liked to see more of the witches who taught Diana and learn more about the firedrake Corra's background. Instead we get to meet Rudolf II, the lecherous Holy Roman Emperor and some other extraneous characters in Prague who only confuse the story further. At the tail end, we come across the main villain who it is soon revealed is the root cause of all the mess. Book 2 was the worst of the three books and I skimmed through it, omitting a large number of pages where nothing significant happened. The only redeeming features of Book 2 were the introduction of Phillippe, Matthew's omnipotent father, and the funny Gallowglass (my favourite character in the series).
By Book 3, "The Book of Life", I had almost given up hopes of the author redeeming herself and this was almost a DNF for me. I skipped chapters in the middle and only then was able to complete it. However, it turned out to be better than the second book. I liked the camaraderie among the family and friends of Diana and Matthew and their willingness to stand by our lead pair in times of crisis. However, more irrelevant characters were introduced such as the witches of Madison, the present-day London witch coven, Diana's scientist friend Chris, her librarian friend (Lucy I think) and members of the dreaded Congregation. Conversely, I didn't get to see more of characters I had found interesting, such as Andrew Hubbard - he had an intriguing background and came across as a thought-provoking character. I would also have liked to see more of Corra, Diana's mother Rebecca, the Bishop House and the ghost Bridget Bishop. Aunt Emily's fate is also never fully explained - what she had been trying to achieve and why. My biggest complaint is that not enough time was devoted in the end to explaining how the "Book of Life"will be put to use, considering that gaining it had been the objective of the entire series. Again, Gallowglass and Ysabeau were the only characters I liked, though I kind of liked Jack too. I have a feeling that we will have a sequel featuring Gallowglass in the near future (which I suspect will again be 800 pages long and which I won't subject myself to!).
 |
| Source: Fotor |
This series had all the ingredients of an entrancing novel - a forbidden love story, an urban paranormal fantasy, a literary mystery, an epic battle - and I really wanted to like it. However, I can only rate it at 2.5 out of 5, and that rating is just because of its interesting premise and not its actual execution. All in all, it may be worth a one-time read if you are curious to know what all the hype is about, but be prepared to skip large portions of the second and third books if you want to ever complete the series and not fall asleep mid-way!
Thanks for this very insightful review. It will be a big help for people who are deciding whether they should invest time and effort to read these history-driven tomes:) I did like Book 1 though I think I will just save Book 2 and 3 for reading on a day sometime in the distant future or if I do decide to complete the trilogy will stick to following Diana's actions. Plenty of more promising stuff awaits being chosen in my TBR pile:)
ReplyDeleteMy objective of writing the review was indeed to make readers aware of the pitfalls of reading all three of these tomes back-to-back, so that they could go into the series with their eyes open and not start it when they don't have a lot of time on their hands :)
DeleteOn another note, I do like your touch of humor! "The author wakes up towards the end and Diana and Phillip realize that Diana still hasn't learnt any magic and they have not tracked the book either and there is a hasty scramble to get back to the plot!" Haha
ReplyDeleteTrust me, there are times when it really feels that the author, in her fanatical zeal to introduce all the prominent historical figures of the time, has forgotten all about the plot! :)
Delete