A Discovery of Witches - Deborah Harkness (All Souls #1)

A Discovery of Witches had been on my to-read list for a while, in a sort of vague, "That sounds interesting, maybe someday" way.  It bumped its way up towards the top when I needed a book involving Halloween for my reading challenge--while books that take place entirely on Halloween seem to be few and far between, books that have a climax or conclusion involving Halloween seem to be more common, and this book is one of them.

Diana is witch in a world where there are basically four types of humaoids: humans, and then three types of "creatures," witches/wizards, vampires, and daemons.  But Diana has scorned her witchy ancestry and tries to use magic as little as possible.  This changes when, in the course of conducting research for a conference, she stumbles across an enchanted manuscript that no one else has been able to get for hundreds of years.  Diana doesn't really care for it, and sends it back to the stacks, where it vanishes again--and finds herself being stalked by all kinds of creatures who want her to get it back for them, including vampire Matthew, with whom Diana quickly develops a romantic attachment.

This is a long book for its type.  The pacing is decidedly better in the first part, when Diana is in Oxford and is being increasingly stalked by creatures and little bits of her magic occasionally pop up.  Once she and Matthew decamp for France, however, things slow down.  There's meals and horseback riding and dancing in a castle he built.  Yes, there's a little bit of drama while they're there, but overall the pace is much slower, and the slow pace continues--again with one anomaly--once they move on from France to the US.  And while I normally like a strong romantic plot in my novels, no matter what their primary genre falls into, this one just didn't seem to hit the right points.  There's no sizzling chemistry or attraction between Diana and Matthew; in fact, the repeated reminders of how cold he is seems like a complete turn-off.  There aren't any good kissing scenes, or any sort of other scenes, if you know what I mean.  (Which, you know, aren't necessary, but if you're going to write a 600-page book relying heavily on romance...)

Diana herself is also a Special Snowflake Supreme.  She has All the Powers, which of course no one else has, and is the only witch--literally the only one--to be stronger than her parents were.  Now, I am not entirely against Special Snowflakes.  In some cases, I actually quite like them.  Diana was obnoxious, though.  Not as a person, but as a concept.  There's no sign of her magic her entire life, and then suddenly she views a report of her DNA and they start popping out all over the place, stronger than anyone has ever seen.  This seemed a bit odd, honestly.  Apparently the use of her magic is tied to "need," but that didn't seem to be the case in most of the instances in which her magic made its appearance.

Overall, this was an okay one.  It was one I found myself picking at rather than just reading, which is generally an indication that I'm not enjoying it very much.  There were some interesting concepts here, but the pacing and romance were off, and Diana's Special Snowflake status was annoying.  I also have absolutely no interest in where Diana and Matthew are going next, so I think I'm probably unlikely to read the second book.

2 stars out of 5.