The Book of Life

I'll write a review of the series as a whole. "What!" you say? How could I have read the series and yet given it a one-star rating? If it was that bad, why didn't I just leave it midway or better still read just the first book. You see, I purchased the whole d***n series and I've hardly ever, in my life, abandoned a book once I've started reading it.

The book is BORING. Even skimming is a task. While the premise of the book had initially fascinated me, the book quickly devolved into an unnecessary and elaborate thesis on just about everything. There's fantasy, sure. And historical references galore. Enough to qualify as historical fiction. But then there's just so much discussion about wine. And tea. And architecture. And anything and show more everything else the author could think of. You have to wade through a hundred pages to get even five pages worth of information that's actually pertinent to the story.

The romance between Matthew and Diana is sappy and thoroughly unexciting. Matthew, despite having lived for innumerable centuries, has no character to speak of. He looms like an overgrown bat (no pun intended!) and has simply no contribution to make throughout. He might as well have been absent. Diana, despite being a qualified historian, comes across as a highly subservient woman simply pandering to Matthew to make him feel needed.There's no depth to any of the characters, for that matter. With all the time the author has spent on describing yoga poses and Indian food, she'd have done better sketching her characters with more to their persona than just the superficial witch/vampire. Ysabeau, Sarah, Marcus, Emily--there was so much to be done with them than just the bare bones we're presented with.

Book 2 was especially bad with the kind of artistic licence the author has taken with the historical characters. So, almost all the most famous people of the time are daemons, witches, or vampires. Anyone who's got anything going for them is bound to be one of these. And so, Shakespeare, poor human that he is, has nothing original to say. All his writing is either derived from Marlowe or inspired by a time-traveler from the future. Really? It seems Ms. Harkness harbors a special dislike for Shakespeare. And the whole rigmarole is just too much. The whole book could have been written in fewer than fifty pages, for all the content that it provides. And the time travel: how could Diana and Matthew's long presence not affect history? And how convenient that the original Matthew of that period just disappears.... where does he disappear to? how will he pick up the threads once he's back... these questions are all unanswered, and we, gullible and naive that we readers are, are expected to swallow this spiel. And why were Jack and Anne introduced? Like Matthew, they seem to have no part to play.

The third book's not as bad as the second one, but the faults are the same. One good thing is that there's a bit less of Matthew, though just a bit. The whole blood rage thing doesn't work. Neither does the weaver bit. Or the Book of Life. I mean what is the book? How was it made? Who made it? None of the questions that have been raised from the beginning have been answered.

Pathetic. Writing the review has made me even angrier. Wish I could ask the author to refund my money and time. DO NOT READ. show less

In the final book of the All Souls Trilogy, Diana and Matthew have returned to the present where they must face down the Congregation who will enforce the law banning relationships between vampires and witches. They also must finally procure the Ashmole 782 manuscript, which may hold the answers about Matthew and Diana's soon to be born twins. At the same time, one of Matthew's vampire children threatens to destroy everything they hold dear.

A really solid conclusion to the trilogy. While I remain not at all interested in Diana and Matthew's romance (Team Gallowglass!), the plot and world Harkness has created continue to be fascinating. Watching everything come together for the series' conclusion was satisfying and I really enjoyed the show more read. show less

So, more than seven years after I read 'A Discovery Of Witches' I finally read 'The Book Of Life', the last book in the All Souls trilogy and I enjoyed myself. The almost six hundred pages of the book slid by in a curl up on the sofa with a coffee binge read that was relaxing and exciting at the same time. The story was well told. I admired how Deborah Harkness managed to start the novel in a way that caught me up with the previous books without and tedious repetition or clumsy info-dumping and set the tone for a series of highly charged encounters with layer upon layer of secrets behind them. For me, the ending satisfying, resolving the main conflicts and mysteries without being too neat and tidy.

This was the book were Diana finally show more comes into her own. She's in control of her power, she has children to protect and she's determined to use the Book Of Life to bring down the Covenant that puts her family at risk. It did surprise me that, when Diana finally came into her power, she used it as if she had been born into the de Clarmont family. She slipped on the wealth and entitlement of the de Clarmont's like a tailored jacket and became someone truly formidable. This is no longer the woman we met in 'A Discovery Of Witches'. This is someone who on having finally understood the her options and abilities had been constrained by the power of the Congregation her whole life, took hold of her power and focused it on their destruction. It seemed to me that the various vampires and witches who had conspired to stop her along the way had had very good reason to do so.

There were lots of scenes in the book that caught me by surprise.

I loved that Deborah Harkness gave us a detailed account of the birthing of the twins, drenching it in physicality and making Diana's pain and exertion into something emotionally powerful.

The other scenes that surprised me I loved rather less. These were the scenes where Benjamin abducted and imprisoned witches and live-streamed their gangrape and eventual death and where he killed children as a way of torturing Matthew. Then there were the scenes that showed the terrible things that were done to Matthew. The images are strong and bloody and vicious and I'd rather not have had them in my head. I know that these scenes are no stronger than I might have read in a book by Anne Rice or Clive Barker but I hadn't expected them here. They took the book and Diana into a darker, more violent place that seemed much more threatening than anything that they encountered in their travels in the Sixteenth Century.

It took me almost to the end of the book to understand that this whole trilogy is primarily a love story. I never quite understood why Diana felt so attracted to the monstrous Matthew, a vampire with the blood of hundreds of his own kind on his hands, or how she could accept his sire, Ysabeau de Clermont, who spent decades hunting and killing witches. I know it was supposed to be a grande amore but it didn't feel like that to me. This time around, I was very aware of the de Claremont's immense wealth and unquestioned privilege and how seductive it is. An ancient, remote castle in France, made so much less remote when you arrive by helicopter. A Queen Anne Townhouse, fully furnished and with hot and cold running servants in Central London, given as a wedding gift. Easy, private travel between countries and continents and never ever having to think about the cost of anything. It seemed to me that Diana fell in love with what the de Claremont's offered her as much as she did with Matthew and, by the end of this book, she had made herself a pillar of the de Claremont's power. It seemed to me that I was also being seduced into thinking of the de Claremont as the good guys: as if their good taste in art, their education, their scientific endeavours and their loyalty to each other made their sense of entitlement and the violence that they wrought to keep themselves secure, entirely acceptable. We've travelled a long way from a New England haunted house and a belief that all Creatures are equal and should be free. Diana Bishop's liberalism turned out to be of the deeply conservative kind that grants liberty to others as long as her own privilege is preserved.

Having said all that, this was an enjoyable book with memorable characters, strong emotions, and a clever plot delivered with a skill that made it easy to fall into the de Claremont's world and believe in it.

I recommend the audiobook, expertly narrated by Jennifer Ikeda. Click on the SoundCloud link below to hear a sample. show less

I've been not-so-patiently awaiting this third volume in Harkness' All Souls trilogy for months, and when it arrived I barely had the patience to finish the book I was in the middle of before diving right in. I read it--yes, all 560+ pages of it--in less than a day (luckily its arrival just happened to coincide with a brief moment of free time). In the leadup I had the chance to re-read both the earlier volumes, which was excellent since I was able to have most of the plot in my head as I read.

I don't want to spoil anything at all about the series, so I will simply say that this is an excellent capstone volume, ably tying up the loose threads from the previous two volumes and doing just what it needed to do to complete the trilogy. I'm show more sorry it's over, but I hope that this is not the last we'll see of these excellent characters and the world Harkness has built for them. Harkness' great ability to blend her historical knowledge with a darn good story continues to be on full display here, happily. show less

The third book in the All Souls Trilogy is by far the most entertaining—full of humor and intrigue. Matthew and Diana, who is now pregnant with twins, time-walk back to present-day Step-Tours where tragedy awaits. But that's just the beginning. As the search for the Book of Life and a cure of the vampire's blood rage ramps up, a brilliant scientist named Chris Roberts, an old friend and colleague of Diana's, turns up and offers his help. Chris's lab is full of scientific advancements. I almost felt like I needed to take a molecular biology class to keep up. Then, when Matthew leaves on a quest to form a new scion, the loyal Gallowglass is left to protect Diana. I love Gallowglass. He's such a hunk—he can carry my books anytime. And show more it's so cute how he calls Diana Auntie, even though he's hopelessly in love with her. The action is non-stop as the babies are born, the Congregation is dealt with, and the monster, Benjamin Fox, if finally subdued. In the end, the discovery that all creatures are a mix—some even part human—is something that relates to modern times where, even now, tensions over racial inequality runs high.

I was sorry to read the last page but will take away many things from the All Souls Trilogy. Amount them, a higher respect for ancient history, old books and manuscripts, and the study of science. But since the books are primarily an epic love story between the vampire, Matthew de Clermont, and the witch, Diana Bishop, I will also consider the notion that love—no matter how dangerous and difficult to obtain—is always worth the struggle. show less

The Book of Life - Deborah Harkness
audio performance by Jennifer Ikeda
2 stars

I really wanted to be able to give this book at least three stars. Having read the first two books, I knew the entire premise ( vampires and witches, genetics, oh my!) was ridiculous and the writing was bad. I hoped to be entertained and amused by likable characters in unlikely settings. It did make me laugh, sometimes at the author’s deliberate humor, but mostly at how bad it was. It was funny. That would usually be enough for me to give a book three stars.

If the book might rate 3 stars for its comedic value, two things knock it back. The audio performance was dreadful. This book was the (hopefully) last book in a series. Ikeda did a great job of creating show more characters in the first two books. Her voicing went a long way to making those books palatable. What possible reason could there be to change the voices of major characters in the last book? Not only did the voices change, she made two major characters indistinguishable. It was like attending a play and having the lead actor substituted, without reason, by a badly prepared understudy, after the first act.
And, yes, I did know that the marital tribulations of the witch Diana and the vampire Matthew, were a thinly disguised promotion for marriage equality. Not a problem, I’m very much a supporter. But, I dislike propaganda and I hate being preached at. This book had plenty of both. It became tedious.

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Matthew and Diana are back from the past and ready to face whatever the future holds. This means more loss, more uncovering of secrets, more love, and more danger. As the rush to find Ashmole 782 draws to a close, each character involved in Matthew and Diana’s life together must discover his or her true mettle because a test of loyalties is only half of the battle. For it is a battle – not just of blood but also of wits, something fans of the series will recognize immediately as being a signature aspect of the story. The Book of Life is a culmination of Matthew and Diana’s story as everything previously experienced funnels into the final showdown between sides for the ultimate secret.

The Book of Life is not a novel to pick up on a show more whim. Not only does it require a clear memory of the previous two books, it is a cerebral story. There are many references to Diana’s experiences in Elizabethan England as well as Matthew’s and Diana’s courtship from the first novel. Readers who do not remember Diana’s struggles to discover her powers or Matthew’s research at Oxford may miss connections between past and present. Also, readers head back into the labs with Matthew and his family as his research becomes a central part of the story. The numerous and detailed discussions of genetics may be intimidating to some, but Ms. Harkness excels at making the most complex genetic coding understandable and interesting as it pertains directly to Diana’s and Matthew’s fate. Between the historical references, something necessary when the main character is 1500 years old, and the science, readers must pay attention because everything is a clue.

Not that paying attention is difficult when the story is as exciting as it is and the characters are so delicious. Matthew and all of his vampire family remain perilously close to their baser instincts, maintaining that sense of danger first sensed in Matthew upon his initial appearance. Adding to that is Diana’s growing sense of purpose and greater acceptance of her powers, which are so immense that she also balances on the precipice of control. It creates an atmosphere of barely-contained calm as each is tested to the extreme. As for the secret finally revealed, it is worth the wait. The Book of Life really does hold all the answers, for the Bishop-Clairmonts as well as for readers.

While Ms. Harkness never shies away from a battle scene, particularly gory ones involving dismemberment or other bodily tortures, it is the psychology of the story that also entices a reader. The mental issues involved with every aspect of Matthew’s and Diana’s lives are remarkably clear, understandable, and realistic. The mental stamina involved with remaining alive for more than a few hundred centuries, for hiding among humans, for fighting one’s true nature, for the fear and anger associated with danger targeting family members – there is no wonder that Matthew and Diana appear to be on the edge. Just as with her science, her psychology of her characters’ minds is utterly compelling.

The Book of Life is the type of series finales about which fans dream. It has everything readers want plus more than they could imagine. Ms. Harkness does a superb job answering remaining questions and providing as much Matthew and Diana as fans need. The conclusion to this intense story is satisfyingly complex with the perfect blend of fantasy, science, and adventure that has so strongly defined the entire series. Any ending to a great story is bittersweet as readers must let go of beloved characters; while this does hold true for The Book of Life, one finds that she takes the bite out of her finale by providing stellar action, an enchanting story, and amazing characters that feel more like long-lost friends than pieces of fiction. Of course, if she opts to give readers a glimpse into future Matthew and Diana adventures, no one is going to complain. show less