Sarah Kelsey's Reviews > A Discovery of Witches

Well well, Mary Sue, Mary Sue, Mary Sue. I haven't encountered you for a few books. Now I know where you've been keeping yourself.
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Updated: March 3, 2011.

I struggled to finish this novel. The book started out so well with an interesting protagonist, a bibliophile's dream setting, and wonderful descriptions of illustrated manuscripts. The plot tugs at the small thread of 'paranormalcy' in the protagonist's life, and everything goes south from there. Literally south. They leave England and go to France, and nothing good ever seems to happen in France. Why does she go to France? One might well wonder. It's because her wine connoisseur, yoga master, Oxford fellow, French and vampire boyfriend takes her there. Edward- er, I mean Matthew becomes her very protective vampire husband and, in spite of the fact that his list of superlative credentials continues to grow, this superman's top priority seems to be feeding her and giving her foot massages. Apparently he has nothing better to do. Ah, ladies, what an impossible standard we set for our heroes. Please remember that next time you cuss out a model for being too skinny.

My biggest problem with this story isn't the love interest, though he's pretty difficult to stomach; it's the conflict development around the protagonist. Diana, our heroine, suddenly gets what amounts to unlimited power about halfway into the book, power which she sometimes uses and some times does not. Why? This is not clear. The weak explanation for this is that she is panicked on some occasions and uncertain on others. This contrasts jarringly with the fact that Superman continually tells her how brave and decisive she is, and she does occasionally act bravely and decisively. She seems to have sudden attacks of damsel-in-distress, an affliction which does not follow from her other behaviors or her internal monologue. It's understandable why the author has to do this; she's made her protagonist omnipotent. Without these character anomalies, the text has no conflict and the plot is broken. However, with these anomalies, the main character is broken. This book is fundamentally flawed.

What I did love about this book were the descriptions of the texts and the settings. The author does a lovely job bringing to life the various settings and props of her story. The text suggest that quite a substantial amount of research provides the foundation for this story, and I hope that's true. Not being a scholar of medieval manuscripts, I don't know. Nothing stood out as a glaring error to me, and what little bit I did recognize meshed with what I knew.

The book is clearly set up for a sequel, probably a trilogy. In future installments I hope the author puts some limits and rules on the protagonist's power, especially if they explain some of her erratic choices in the first novel. It's too late to fix the saccharine plasticity of the protagonist and her man, but perhaps this is targeting just romance readers who are used to slapping Edward Cullen's romantic perfection onto Fabio's physique and sliding a couple of PhD's and a stock portfolio into his back pocket. It could have been so much more than that.

I would certainly consider reading a Harkness book again. It's obvious from this book that the woman knows how to write. I'd just prefer a little less perfection in the central characters.