This is the third book in the All Soul's series by Deborah Harkness. With this book, Harkness attempts to close up a triptych of books that follow witch Diana Bishop and vampire Matthew Clairmont (along with a myriad of other memorable characters) in their quest to find an ancient text and change a centuries old law that prevents creatures from intermarrying. This book also focuses on Matthew's quest to find (and ultimately destroy) his evil son, Benjamin, who has been wreaking murderous havoc around the world.
I was happy to finally finish this trilogy since I want to move on with the series on Netflix, but also because this book was about 150 pages too long. It moved particularly slowly in parts and was more mundane then I expected a conclusory book to be. I loved Diana's parts of the novel, but found that the parts involving Benjamin and his tortuous antics were old, worn and stereotypical. There were parts that were funny - at one point, Harkness makes a joke about what vampire blood would do to the mosquito population that gave me pause for a chuckle and which was appreciated since a lot of the book felt very heavy. The secrets of the Book of Life, when revealed, were pretty predictable. I wanted it to be something more sexy and crazy.
I did love the action of the ending - which I won't give away here and I hope to see more of Gallowglass, one of the main characters in future novels. I liked that Diana came into her own power (finally!) in this book. It was too long coming.
I'd suggest that you read this book, if only to provide yourself with closure to a series that has taken time to wade through, but I think it's perhaps the weakest of the three books featuring Diana and Matthew.
I love this series. It is one I own in hardcover, ebook, and audio. I hope you continue with the rest of the books beyond the trilogy. They are so good!
ReplyDeleteI just got the two most recent ones out of the library! They're fantastic!
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