Shadow Of Night
Book Two of the All Souls Trilogy
By Deborah Harkness
Published in 2012
Genre: Fantasy, Historical Fiction
So just to recap - this trilogy is about witches, deamons and vampires with more than one forbidden romance. Diana studies alchemy and hides from her witchiness. Matthew is a vampire with a dark past. Together with the help of their families they are working to find the answer to everything and why their paths were always destined to cross.
From the first sentence you are thrown back into the story, almost as if the last book never ended. It’s exciting from the get-go. You have to pay a lot of attention at the start as so many new characters are thrown in. The book is still written in chapters but split up into six parts which I liked. Book two also moves along quicker than Book one did.
Book two is set in the past which I tend to find really interesting. The characters travel back in time and you get to find out which specific actions impact the future. Authors must have to put so much into researching and learning about the past to link it all together which shows true dedication! Although Harkness is already an historian so maybe it was easier for her. Seeing history from a different angle with some fantasy and magic added in is always fun, especially when events match up to real life and you think to yourself mmm maybe that did happen. I don’t believe the boring version of history we learn about at school anyway as there is clearly so much more that’s happened but is being hidden from us in today’s world but that’s a conversation for another day.
There was less of a magical discovery in this sequel but it contained more of a historical element. I personally really enjoy the travelling into the past and learning about it. Later on you get to see how it joins together in the future. That’s my kind of thing really showing the circle, or should I say web, of time and all that jazz.
Matthew and Diana are unconditionally in love, their relationship grows as we get to know the characters in more depth. For me, this book was more captivating than the first in the series. I think the first book had a lot to explain where as this one saw more action. It ended on a very tedious note. There’s one thing Diana doesn’t know yet that we do as the reader, she will discover this soon but I have no idea what else book three will entail. A war is coming but how the battle will happen I haven’t caught on to any giveaways yet.
If you like YA witch stories with a hint of spice in the romantic element then this series is a must. I’m an adult who does really like YA, I haven’t read so much adult fiction yet. This novel is maybe more of a crossover category between them. Some of the intimate scenes in the books although subtle are also quite blunt and it surprised me a little bit. Maybe I didn’t expect sex to be mentioned in books very often as when Fifty Shades came out some years back everyone seemed to be so shocked about it I assumed the topic was never written about, (not that this book is Fifty Shades level at all).
This book is probably 3 and a half/4 stars out of five for me and it’s on the list of recommendations. Time to dive into book 3/3!
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