About the Author
Deborah Harkness is a professor of history at the University of Southern California and bestselling author of A Discovery of Witches. She has received Fulbright, Guggenheim, and National Humanities Center fellowships, and her most recent scholarly work is The Jewel House: Elizabethan London and the Scientific Revolution. She also writes an award-winning wine blog, goodwineunder20.blogspot.com . Learn more about Deborah Harkness online at www.deborahharkness.com.
About the Book
Equal parts history and magic, romance and suspense, A Discovery of Witches is a mesmerizing and addictive read that Angelology author, Danielle Trussoni, calls “a strange and wonderful novel of forbidden love and ancient spells that turns every preconception about magic on its head.”
A Discovery of Witches begins on a late September afternoon when Diana Bishop, a bright, young historian studying amidst the ancient stacks of Oxford ’s Bodleian library, calls up a medieval manuscript of alchemical illustrations. As soon as she picks it up Diana realizes that the book—Ashmole 782—is an enchanted object of untold power. As it turns out, Diana is not only a first-rate scholar of seventeenth- century chemistry but also a descendant of a long and distinguished line…of witches. She’s spent her adult life distancing herself from her supernatural destiny, and after a quick look at Ashmole 782 she sends the book back to the stacks and her magical history with it.
However, Diana isn’t the only one who has noticed that the manuscript has resurfaced, and her discovery immediately sets the fantastical underworld stirring. It soon becomes apparent that Ashmole 782 is a coveted treasure that’s been lost for centuries and Diana is the first and only being that has met the terms of its spell. Soon she finds herself beset by members of all three magical species—daemons, witches, and vampires—who swarm upon Oxford , seeking the text. She finds a crucial ally in Matthew Clairmont, a dashing geneticist and a vampire, whose preeminence in his field has been achieved after years upon years upon years of study. The two team up to battle the forces rallying against them to unlock the secrets of a manuscript whose pages promise clues to a mysterious past and uncertain future.
Learn more about A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness and read an exclusive excerpt of her book at Frank Mundo’s LA Books Examiner.
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Frank Mundo is the author of The Brubury Tales (foreword by Carolyn See), which is available on Amazon.com in paperback and in eBook. The Brubury Tales is a finalist for Reader View’s 2011 Reviewer’s Choice Award for poetry.
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