When Twilight came out, I read and enjoyed it like many others, but it was the first Vampire book I'd read since Dracula. I've read many vampire books since then, but the Twilight series, even though I'm totally over it, ( I didn't think much of the movies) still has a kind of magic about it that other books don't. It has nothing to do with whether it's well written or not, it has to do with the flavour of the series, the feeling it left me with. There's a lot you can say about the story, both good and bad, but the warm aftertaste for me comes from the character's struggle to live a compassionate life. That's a rare theme in a YA book, or in any popular fiction actually, but compassion is a powerful thing and has the ability to move people deeply. Ms Meyer deals with the same theme but in a different way in her book, The Host. If you haven't read it, then do, even - or perhaps especially - if you didn't like the Twilight Series. In The Host, we have another being dedicated to living a … [Read more...]
Review: Shadow of Night by Deborah Harkness
Title: Shadow of Night Author: Deborah Harkness Publisher: Penguin Genre: Historical fantasy Shadow of Night is the sequel to the popular book A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness. That novel introduced Diana Bishop, Oxford scholar and reluctant witch, and the handsome geneticist and vampire Matthew Clairmont; together they found themselves at the center of a supernatural battle over an enchanted manuscript known as Ashmole 782. At the end of the first book, which I enjoyed immensely (though I read the paperback and struggled with the tiny text), Diana and Matthew go back in time and we are left wondering where they end up. In this book we find them in Elizabethan London in a world of spies, subterfuge, and a coterie of Matthew's old friends, the mysterious School of Night that includes Christopher Marlowe and Walter Raleigh. Here, Diana must locate a witch to tutor her in magic, Matthew is forced to confront a past he thought he had put to rest, and the mystery of Ashmole … [Read more...]
