Book 2 of the All Souls Trilogy picks up where it left off, with our narrator witch, Diana Bishop, using her timewalking powers to take herself and the vampire, Matthew de Clermont, back in time in order to hide Diana while she learns to use the powers she grew up ignoring and unable to use. The book takes place almost entirely in the year 1590 across a few different locations - London under the reign of Queen Elizabeth, the de Clermont family home, Sept-Tours, in France, and Prague in the Czech Republic.
The first thing I will say is that I definitely enjoyed this one better than the first book. My problem with the first book was that there was often so much focus on the characters' day to day lives that there was almost no room for actual story movement and development. This book helped even those scales and I felt much more engrossed in the story though there was still too much of the former issue. With this second one, most of the first half concerned Diana adjusting to Elizabethan life as well as finding out what Matthew was like hundreds of years before she was even born. And the official introduction of Phillipe de Clermont, but more on him later. The second half was when we got some more story movement, getting back to the reasons that Diana and Matthew went back to 1590 in the first place - finding a teacher for Diana to learn about her magic and tracking down the Ashmole 782 manuscript.
Though the first half did not concern much of the overarching story, I will say that it was a lot more interesting as it told us more about the All Souls world by introducing the reader to different people and customs amongst the three creature species of witches, vampires and daemons. In terms of using the characters' day to day life and experiences of creating this world for us, Harkness' writing quality definitely improved and made it more of a story rather than chapters that felt like lists of different feelings. I do feel that there are elements of the first half of the book and the second half could have been more intertwined with one another and would have been more balanced than it came out. The fortunate part of time travel in a story is having the opportunity to meet characters who were previously deceased - Phillipe.
Phillipe's reaction to Matthew choosing Diana as his mate and his later acceptance of her almost completely matches Ysabeau's but not identical. By introducing us to Phillipe, we meet the most important person of the de Clermont clan and he is well worth a character waiting for. He challenges the protagonists on their belief in themselves and one another, he challenges how sure they are about their cause and their love for each other. Phillipe is easily a character you admire not only because of how much power and influence they exude but also because of how smart they are, how after impossibly long amounts of time events are still unfurling the way he planned and intended. Phillipe gets no more than 200 pages out of 600+ in this book but his presence is felt and you understand how the de Clermonts have the respected and feared position they hold amongst all creatures. He is one of the two highlights of this book.
The other highlight is getting to know Elizabethan age witches. This is set in a period of time when the witch trials in England and Scotland were extremely common so the witches you meet are likely to be tough as nails to survive undetected and escape persecution. Considering the reactions of all other characters in the present day of a witch and vampire even daring to talk to one another in a friendly manner, the way the Elizabethan witches received them was very different and a breath of fresh air. This is still a world with the Congregation and Covenant in existence, we haven't gone back to before it existed but this is also when the creator of that particular organisation was still alive and could keep himself involved with whichever member of his family fills a vampire seat at the time. Though the de Clermonts still hold a seat on the Congregation in the present day, it feels like Phillipe's presence in the world allowed it to be less of a threatening organisation and more protective. The witches are such wonderfully varied and interesting characters that they are also characters I felt as readers we had too little time with and would have loved to see more of them. Alas, the story must move along after the witches provide us with some important answers about what Diana saw in Ashmole 782, which we do get a peek at in its full undestroyed form.
One of the great things about this trilogy is that it follows adults who are content with their lives and know their own path in life, they're sure of themselves in a way you don't get with many younger characters in a lot of novels. That's not to say there isn't any change and character development, there is - but it's quite enjoyable going through these moments of self-discovery with characters who are quite confident and sure of themselves. They know what they want out of life. And it is in this detail that makes part of Diana and Matthew's relationship really stand out. Tragedy does strike some way into the book, something quite heartbreaking for the two main characters and it is in how Harkness tackles the issue that this really shines. It feels very mature and very real. She easily could have approached it in a way that was very idealistic and story-like, a daydream about how someone might wish it would be resolved but she doesn't do that. The way she writes it and the characters during this obstacle feels so real that it doesn't matter that it's between a vampire and witch because they feel it the same way anyone else might. And dealing with tragedy in a very real and human way is something a lot of fantasy novels are lacking in.
You do also get a look at what the other characters in the present-day get up to while Diana and Matthew are gone so they aren't entirely forgotten or absent. This includes the characters from the makeshift Shadow Congregation from the end of the first book as well as members of the Congregation who are still investigating and looking for Diana, Matthew and the Ashmole 782 manuscript. It was a smart move to include them as the books are so long you could easily forget them and their importance by the time you get to book 3.
Reasons to Recommend:
- Historical fiction with magic in the mix
- A romantic fantasy where the female lead is a strong and capable character but freely chooses to bind herself to another
- If you read the first book and enjoyed it or really hoped it would get better (it does!!)
- The second season of the TV adaptation will be on in one week and this book is the basis for it
- If you enjoy books about witches or vampires or both
I rate this book around 6.75/10, I couldn't choose between 6.5 and 7. The slow start lost a higher rating for me and Diana and Matthew's more intimate moments still make me cringe when I read them, there's something about them that just feels awkward. It does get a higher rating than the first book because I did find myself more interested in the main characters' story and what was going on around them this time around more than the others around them.
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