When I say that I fell in love with A Discovery of Witches upon reading it’s first few chapters, I’m not exaggerating in any way. Deborah Harkness has a truly mesmerising and compelling narrative style and is able to bring her settings to life, creating this supernatural-dipped Oxford where witches, vampires and daemons roam the library shelves, the walls soaked in history and prestige and mystery, and where an ancient tome serves as the catalyst of a high-stakes war between species.

First, let me make it clear that A Discovery of Witches has an older protagonist, Diana Bishop, and as such Diana’s perspective is more mature and worldly than other dark academia protagonist’s I have come across. Diana is in her late-twenties and has a PhD, things that aren’t so relatable to most readers but together signal that academia aspect of the story. Not only is it academia-centric, but it’s history with a focus on alchemy. What’s more prestigious than a historian with expertise in alchemy, or old science as it were. Seeing an older protagonist in a dark academia had me immediately hooked because I felt so much more engaged in the plot due to her perspective. The maturity in the prose and the more realistic view of the world and life in general is something I really like about this book.

Diana’s struggles with trauma, self-doubt, social pressures and peer pressure make her such a relatable and likeable character because it shows how human she is. I get really annoyed when supernatural creatures lack human emotion, especially those who are part human. To have Diana stand firmly to her naive human values and be jilted by such human beliefs and mentalities makes the existence of supernatural creatures so much more believable. While my reservations toward insta-love and quick-burn romances are not favourable, I understand that due the nature of the story, Diana and Matthew’s relationship, and the significance of Diana’s abilities coming to the surface as they do and when they do all align with the overarching plot and direction of the story.

One thing I really appreciate with this book are the moments of stillness. Rowing along the river in the early morning. The quiet moments while practicing yoga. The landscape surrounding them in the Scotlish Highlands and at Sept-Tours in rural France echo that balance between dark academia and history which also solidify for me the characterisation of Diana and make her feel less out of place than she may seem at the beginning. The setting seems to reflect the academia aspect of the book – science and history and art and nature – and it makes the book feel like it’s tied in a nice pretty bow, perfectly finished and surrounding this gift of a novel.

I was in the middle of rereading A Discovery of Witches last September when I had to stop and sell my copy of the All Soul Trilogy. I laughed about it at the time because I’d been putting off rereading it for various reasons and when I finally got around to picking it up again and actually read Shadow of Night and The Book of Life I had to give them up. I wasn’t too bummed about it because I was intending to get different versions of the books and, as the saying goes, absence makes the heart grow fonder. A Discovery of Witches is slowly making its way to me through the library and you best believe I will devour it in one sitting when it arrives. It’s about time I reread one of my favourite books ever and you can guarantee that I’m checking everyday to see if it’s my turn.