From My Bookshelf: All Souls Trilogy

This edition of From My Bookshelf is part book haul, part celebration for finally having the All Souls Trilogy on my shelves, and part celebration of a Maine independent bookstore.

I read A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness in the summer of 2016, and loved nearly everything about it. The romance, the writing, the folklore. I finished Shadow of Night and The Book of Life in the autumn of that same year, and on top of finding a new series to love, my general love for series was reignited. I really could not have had a better experience with these books.

Fast forward to now, the spring of 2020, the era of COVID-19, and the era of making an extra effort to support local bookstores. Many of my local indies have been using Instagram and Facebook as a way to advertise new acquisitions or general stock, and I’m glad I happened to be on Instagram when Quiet City Books posted this boxed set of the All Souls Trilogy.

At the used book price and with all of them neatly together, I couldn’t resist commenting SOLD and purchasing them right away. The set arrived within a couple of days with a nice handwritten note and all of the excitement of getting a package of “new” books. I’m still giddy over them, and as with any purchase of a book I love, that giddiness is sure to last. Now to plan a reread of the series…

A Discovery of Witches: When historian Diana Bishop opens a bewitched alchemical manuscript in Oxford’s Bodleian Library it represents an unwelcome intrusion of magic into her carefully ordinary life. Though descended from a long line of witches, she is determined to remain untouched by her family’s legacy. She banishes the manuscript to the stacks, but Diana finds it impossible to hold the world of magic at bay any longer.

Shadow of Night: A Discovery of Witches introduced Diana Bishop, Oxford scholar and reluctant witch, and the handsome geneticist and vampire Matthew Clairmont; together they found themselves at the center of a supernatural battle over an enchanted manuscript known as Ashmole 782. Drawn to one another despite longstanding taboos, and in pursuit of Diana’s spellbound powers, the two embark upon a time-walking journey.

The Book of Life: After traveling through time in Shadow of Night, the second book in Deborah Harkness’s enchanting series, historian and witch Diana Bishop and vampire scientist Matthew Clairmont return to the present to face new crises and old enemies. At Matthew’s ancestral home at Sept-Tours, they reunite with the cast of characters from A Discovery of Witches—with one significant exception.