If you'd told me ten years ago that I'd become a fan of stories featuring vampires and witches, I probably wouldn't have believed it. But here I am four books in to Deborah Harkness's fat and juicy volumes still enjoying myself tremendously. Here's a link to my review on Shiny of this latest delightful and sometimes rather informative romp. I can't believe many people reading this will be unaware of the adventures of gorgeous, centuries-old, vampire Matthew Clermont and his delightful witch wife Diana Bishop, but if you are, take it from me, there's a lot of fun to be had here, and some apparently solid historical research too.
Of course if you've got Sky you may already have been watching A Discovery of Witches, the dramatisation of the first volume of the All Souls Trilogy (this new one is a sort of offshoot, though the same characters appear). I haven't got Sky otherwise I'd be watching it.
Briefly, Time's Convert centres on a young (well, actually 2oo year old) vampire named Marcus, who has fallen in love with a 'warmblood', beautiful Phoebe, who has undertaken to be transformed into a vampire. A long period of separation is necessary, and to keep Marcus from going crazy his stepmother Diana encourages him to tell her the story of his life, which spans two revolutions, American and French, and takes in lots of exciting adventures on the way. Just the thing for those long autumn evenings, with Halloween on the horizon.
