REVIEW for Discovery of Witches

TITLE:                  Discovery of Witches

AUTHOR:            Deborah Harkness

GENRE:               NOVEL

RATING:             3 Stars

Thank you to the Penguin Group for sending me a copy of this book.

For those who regularly read my blog, you know that this is not really my usual type of book.  However, in the last few months, I have been trying to expand my reading tastes, mainly because this genre of book is so popular right now that finding anything in other genres is becoming both a challenge and a huge frustration.  So, when I got the opportunity of reading this one, I jumped on it.

Having said that, I will readily admit that I may very well not be the target audience for this book after all.  Firstly, it is a pretty big tome - with over 550 pages - which, for someone who is only "dabbling" in the genre is extremely daunting.  Nonetheless, I persisted.

My overall comment on the book would be: okay to fair.  I loved the main character Diana Bishop who comes from a long line of "supernatural" characters and who has chosen to "fight her fate" by living the life of an "ordinary person". However, fate has other ideas for her and soon, thanks to her profession, she finds herself right in the middle of vampires and other various "undead" who are determined to make her realize what her true calling in life (and other realities) is.

If you are looking for a historical lesson, then this book is complete.  The author, I have read, is a teacher, which would explain the extreme details about history and locales in this book.  Although some of it was quite interesting, some of it definitely managed to "bog" down the storyline.

As I mentioned, however, the main character is charming, strong, witty and intelligent - just the type of main character that I enjoy in a novel - which is why I rated this novel a 3 star.