Shadow of Night by Deborah Harkness

*I was given a free copy of this book for review purposes. The review is based solely on my opinion and was not influenced by author or publisher. 

Shadow of Night picks up exactly where Discovery of Witches leaves off. Diana and Matthew time-walk to Elizabethan England in search of knowledge, information and the elusive Ashmole 782. It’s a dangerous time to be a witch or to be fraternizing with one. Can they survive long enough to find what they seek? Will they like what they find?

In the second book of The All Souls Trilogy author Deborah Harkness introduces us to an array of colorful characters. Humans, witches, daemons and vampires are all represented. One of the great things about several of these characters is that you may already be familiar with them. The author takes historical figures and unveils their paranormal sides. While I really enjoyed the story, it did take me a little longer to find my rhythm with this book. There really weren’t any ‘big’ scenes in this book as there were in Discovery of Witches. Shadow of Night progressed more like a slow burn, it took a little bit to reach the correct temperature, but once it did it stayed steady. With the author’s attention to detail it was easy to imagine myself in each locale experiencing events along with the characters. I think incredibly cast of characters was my favorite part of the book. The development of the different characters was subtle, I didn’t realize how familiar with a character I had gotten until some small event would make me say to myself “I really love this guy” or “I hope he gets what’s coming to him”. There are two characters that I would say are my favorite in this novel, Philippe and Gallowglass. I can’t actually choose just one! They both seem a certain way when you first meet them but they are actually multi-faceted, even more so than other characters. The author gives us a little peek at each side of these men and I hope to see more of them in the third and final book.

This was a great book and I’m really looking forward to the wrap-up of the series. This is a must-read for fans of historical fiction, romance, paranormal and mystery genres. 

My Rating: 4/5 Stars