Mad Musings on: 'Shadow of Night' by Deborah Harkness

This series is beyond anything I've ever read! I've been totally drawn into this world since March - It consumes me! It probably doesn't help (or does it?) that I'm a part of a great All Souls group that are all just as obsessed as I am. Deborah packs so many 'Easter Eggs" into her books, we will probably never find them all, but we are sure up to the challenge of trying! I've learned, from this book, so much about Elizabethan England and Europe, than I never knew before. I feel like the main characters, Diana and Matthew, are personal friends of mine!

So anyways, Shadow of Night is #2 of the All Souls Trilogy (#3 title has yet to be announced...)and it continues right where the first story left off - with our friends literally stepping into the year 1590. Deborah weaves a wonderful spell with her attention to history, and her hidden eggs of information that you can research to find (hint: Google everything! All the names, anything that is particularly described... EVERYTHING!) One shining strand, which is the historical characters we meet (Walter Raleigh, Christopher Marlowe, Henry Percy and Thomas Harriot are just the first of a long line up...) is cleverly intertwined with original threads of a paranormal, romantic, adventure timetravelling, bodice-ripper that happens to include strings of witches, vampires and daemons. And they are bound together in a knot so complex, I had to read the book twice in a row to 'get' it all!! 

I am in the process, just like I did for A Discovery of Witches, of building a pinterest board of many of the hidden eggs that I and others have found, and I'm also including many other links to places and objects that are found in the book - just because I wanted to actually see what, for example, a farthingale bum roll was, or what the streets of Elizabethan London looked like in 1590... Visit my pinterest page here :)

http://pinterest.com/tlmfarmgirl/shad...

- Did I mention the Deborah Harkness drops in every once in a while to leave me comments and hints or to tell me if I'm off track? I'd love to hear your comments on pinterest.... See you there!!

Here's the official book blurb:

"Together we lifted our feet and stepped into the unknown"—the thrilling sequel to the New York Times bestseller A Discovery of Witches

Deborah Harkness exploded onto the literary scene with her debut novel,A Discovery of Witches, Book One of the magical All Souls Trilogy and an international publishing phenomenon. The 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.

Now, picking up from A Discovery of Witches’ cliffhanger ending,Shadow of Night plunges Diana and Matthew into Elizabethan London, 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 782 deepens.

Deborah Harkness has crafted a gripping journey through a world of alchemy, time travel, and magical discoveries, delivering one of the most hotly anticipated novels of the season.  -