Recommendation: There’s a TV show for this
Where to read: In private (or in public with a “fuck yeah, I’m reading soft-porn and I’m not ashamed to admit it” attitude)
Read with: Rosé, lean into it
In brief: #stillabetterlovestorythantwilight
Historically slightly interesting, weirdly keen on yoga and raw food diets, hastily romantic, takes a distinctly lax approach to consistent characterisation and positively pornographic in its description of old wines. To be fair, the wine cellar and the library are, given the danger of incidental exsanguination, just about the only possible argument for dating a vampire. It is slightly concerning in its depiction of supernatural drinking habits (I don’t remember the last time I got through three bottles of wine with a would-be lover although I’d be surprised to remember anything after two).
It’s redeemed from compete banality by one rather lovely piece of imagery (finally a description of falling in love Shakespeare didn’t do first and better) and it takes the rather refreshing view that a man should be good with his hands. On balance, save yourself the bother and the risk of getting caught reading the darn thing on public transport and/or the gym and just watch the TV show. If you’re going to put up with the guff you might as well get the thoroughly dishy Matthew Goode playing an Oxford don/with his kit off.
I mean really….
Adapted from Deborah Harkness best-selling trilogy of novels, A Discovery of Witches is a bold and romantic thriller that uncovers a secret underworld of extraordinary beings hiding in plain sight for fear of persecution by humans they are vampires, witches and daemons. Brilliant historian Diana Bishop is a witch denying her own heritage. But when she unexpectedly calls up an ancient, bewitched manuscript from Oxfords Bodleian library, one that was thought by the creatures to be lost and could answer the mysteries of their existence, she finds herself thrown into the heart of a dangerous mystery and into the path of the enigmatic geneticist and vampire Matthew Clairmont. Matthew is driven to solve the looming threat of the creatures decline and extinction, but their unlikely alliance to find the book before it falls into the wrong hands and their deepening relationship threatens to violate age-old taboos and shake the fragile peace that exists between the species. Starring: Pino Maiello, Alex Kingston, Valarie Pettiford.
PS. can the fucking Yankies get around pre-marital sex in fiction already. Y’all need to get real about this.
PPS. Mad props for having the only time travel plot-line EVER featuring pre-travel vaccination. I mean seriously, who in their right minds would go back in time without vaccines against cholera, smallpox, rabies, tetanus, tuberculosis, typhoid, polio and plague (at the very least).
Bookshelves & Bourbon 