The Book of Life (Movie Tie-In): A Novel (All Souls Series)Audio CD

Back in their present, Matthew and Diana must deal with grief, the realities of becoming parents, and the complex and dangerous dynamics of creature politics and vampire families; Diana must embrace her weaver magic, and Matthew must deal with his blood rage.

(Though reviews are inherently subjective, I prefer to provide some organization to my opinions through the use of a personal rubric. The following notes may contain spoilers.)

Plot and Setting: 4.8 -- Plot is engaging from start to finish. Has many unique elements, no major holes, and a sense of focus. Setting is clear and believable. Timeline may be a bit hard to follow. Again, a story with many facets, tied together by Diana and Matthew's relationship and the difficult things they each must learn to accept about themselves, particularly as they become parents and as they navigate the dangerous waters of creature politics. True love, danger, sacrifice, and all that good stuff. Good landmarks to keep track of time passing, but quite a few larger leaps through time, which is a bit disorienting.

Characters: 5 -- Relatable, realistic, interesting, dynamic characters. Even minor characters have depth, as do the relationships between characters. All the characters continue to be complex and brilliant. They grow and develop and challenge and help each other, and it's great. Diana is interesting in this one: her unusual, supernatural characteristics take over in more and more ways, and yet she is still very much herself most of the time. And of course there are babies, and people relating to babies, which is always a chance for adorableness and deep emotion.

Mechanics and Writing: 5 -- Few, if any, typos, punctuation issues, or word errors. (<3/100pgs) Intelligent use of POV. Skillful writing that adds to the story. I actually only spotted one error in the entire book, and it was a trivial one. POV is mainly 1st-person Diana, with some scenes (mostly when Diana is not present to narrate, but not always) in a sort of universal 3rd-person narrative, dipping into the thoughts of whoever is needed to tell the important details. The POV in this one did start out a little strangely, as it took a little while to get back to Diana's familiar narration, and sometimes we are shown Diana from someone else's perspective, which was a bit disconcerting.

Redeeming Value: 3.2 -- Partially focused uplifting themes or lessons. Drugs, alcohol, violence, etc, are not glorified, though there is definitely shaky ground. Several mildly explicit sex scenes. Implied moral guidelines for behavior. This one feels darker and more violent; Benjamin is truly evil and depraved, using rape, torture, and murder to further his own agenda, or just for the fun of it. And Peter Knox is right up there with him. Several sex scenes between Matthew and Diana, but again, they may be fairly explicit, but not gratuitous. Strong themes of honesty and acceptance, bravery and love.

Personal Enjoyment: 4.5 -- I loved it. Highly enjoyable and very entertaining, with perhaps an issue or two that tempered my pleasure. I’d enjoy reading it again.

'The Book of Life' is breathtaking and amazing. It's everything that was incredible about the last two books (excepting, of course, the historical fiction aspect of 'Shadow of Night'), with the added benefit that finally, all the questions are answered, and most of the loose ends tied up. I loved it without reservations. There are so many things I want to share about the book and my reactions to it, but I can't tell you some of the best parts because, well, spoilers.

The first few chapters start off slowly, as Diana deals with her grief over a missing character and she and Matthew adjust to the world to which they've returned. Soon the pace quickens, and the revelations start piling up, one discovery upon another. Plot twists and surprising turns abound, making for a thrilling read; I could hardly turn the pages fast enough in my eagerness to see what came next.

Many old friends and enemies appear, several of them quite unexpectedly, and there are a few terrific new additions to the cast of characters (well, new or expanded; some of them had cameos in the first book.) Diana and Matthew occupy center stage, of course, joined by various members of their expanding family as well as allies. The complexities and challenges of vampire family life, particularly in the de Clermont family, drive some of the plot, as do the politics of the Congregation. The race is still on to find the missing papers, locate Ashmole 782 and discover its secrets, but there are other threats and challenges to meet as well.

Harkness is an articulate, intelligent, and insightful author, and her scholarly training and meticulous research are evident throughout -- nowhere more so than in the scenes set at Yale and in Oxford. Genetics plays a big part in the novel, as does historical research. Harkness also excels at bringing her world alive, whether it's the sixteenth-century London of 'Shadow of Night' or the Yale, Oxford, London, New Orleans, and Venice of 'The Book of Life' (to name but a few of the book's many settings.) It's clear that she's been to these places; she provides vivid, evocative details that never overshadow the scene's main focus.

And while Harkness has always had a sense of humor, it is more evident in this novel. Not that the book as a whole is comic; on the contrary, it's suspenseful, touching, exhilarating, heartwarming, and chilling by turns. But the comic moments, when they appear, are funny enough at times to have startled shouts of laughter out of me. (I thought of quoting one, but I don't want to ruin the fun of stumbling across them.) She has even put herself in the book! There's a marvelous but almost throwaway line when Diana is recalling the people who had access to a particular manuscript (not Ashmole 782), and one of them is a writer of popular fiction with an interest in alchemy.

'The Book of Life' enthralled me from start to finish. It's one of the finest series enders I've ever read: satisfying on every level, yet leaving me wishing for more. I can't wait to see what Deborah Harkness does next. For now, I'll have to settle for reading the whole trilogy again.

Diana Bishop, witch and historical scholar, is now wed to the vampire and scientist, Matthew Clairmont; together they are seeking to discover several scientific facts about their DNA. For Matthew seeks to understand the composition of his “blood rage,” Diana seeks to learn more about the “weaving” skills she possesses that seriously affect the magic she is learning to control in her magic; and finally they seek the missing pages of the magical alchemical book Ashmole 782, which is “The Book of Life.” These major characters are assisted by a covey of witches from New York, thwarted by Matthew’s evil son, Benjamin, and assisted by other scientists who are human, vampire, and members of the Congregation of Witches. This is normally a highly unlikely union as vampires and witches are usually highly suspicious of each other and are more enemies than colleagues. Add to the intense tension arising from Matthew and Diana’s reappearance from the 1500s to the present the fact that Diana is now pregnant with twins. Will they be vampire, witch or human? Will they possess the devastatingly destructive blood rage that Matthew has learned to control? How will the virulent enmity of Matthew’s son and the orders of the leader of Matthew’s family affect Matthew and Diana’s relationship? Ashmole 782 is the quest and the reader will be stunned by the gradually revealed truths about the composition of this book of magic and the reasons why many characters will do anything to find the missing pages and thus gain possession and power of the ancient tome! The Book of Life… is carefully plotted, with tender and endearing moments of passion and love between Matthew and Diana; beautiful descriptions of several pivotal places, scenes of fierce conflict in which the battles increase the closer the characters come to the answers to each mystery they seek to solve, and detailed scenes involving the skilled analysis of DNA common, yet unique, to the witches and vampires in this quest. While this may annoy some readers, it is actually quite necessary to provide credibility to the rest of the mystery of the main characters and the Book of Life. Deborah Harkness is a skilled writer who has crafted a very different trilogy of novels that educates the reader about witches and vampires, avoids the stereotypical treatment of this topic, and succeeds in presenting an intelligent, albeit fictional, treatment of some historical realities about witches and vampires. It’s quite an achievement and not for those who want a light read. The Book of Life is fiction about the paranormal, history, science, romance, the supernatural and more, a noteworthy and memorable read! This is highly recommended, fiction written by an author who knows how to develop and embellish a great story!

Deborah Harkness's All Soul's Trilogy, which I just finished, will, I believe, become a classic of the fantasy/romance genre. Readers start with A Discovery of Witches, travel back in time with Shadow of Night and end up, very satisfactorily, with The Book of Life. In Book 1, A Discovery of Witches we meet Diana Bishop and Matthew de Clermont, as they fall in love at first sight in the Bodleian Library at Oxford University in London. Once Diana fills out that call slip which brings forth a mysterious and unreadable book, Ashmole 782, every single "person" sitting anywhere in that library starts creeping closer to Diana. When she can't decipher the book she sends it back, but not without riling more than a few library patrons. Matthew rescues her.

Diana is a witch, but she has been spellbound and doesn't know it. Matthew is a vampire, but he is totally unlike any vampire we have ever met so far in literature or on either the big or small screen and he is so much more. I doubt there is a single female reader who would not wish that she was the one that Matthew assisted in the library that fateful day. There may even be more than a few men who feel that same way.

Diana knows how to be a professor but she has no idea how to be a witch. In Book 2, Shadow of Night, she travels back in time to find great teachers who will call forth her talents. She is more talented than anyone imagined. While in the past Diana marries her vampire (well who wouldn't) in spite of the Congregation, which rules vampires, witches, and daemons ("creatures"), and which has made cross-creature marriage illegal. Diana arrives back in the present in Book 3, The Book of Life pregnant with Matthew's babies, absolutely a taboo according to the Congregation (and thought to be impossible).

In The Book of Life Diana and Matthew must deal with Matthew's family, Matthew's evil son, Benjamin (possessed of the "blood rage" from which Matthew and his other children also suffer), the birth of the twins, the shock felt by the entire community of "creatures" and the censure of the Congregation. In order to deal with all of this Diana and Matthew must find the two pages that are still missing from Ashmole 782, which they know as The Book of Life, and then Diana must go back to the Bodleian and call back Ashmole 782 to make the book whole. She is sure it contains lost knowledge about witches, vampires and daemons, knowledge which will make the Congregation change the Covenant, will make her marriage to Matthew legal, and will keep her new babies from being assassinated.

Yale University, the college where Diana Bishop teaches plays a key role in Book 3. Matthew's blood rage has long driven him to study vampire genealogy and DNA. Others believed that witches and vampires, being separate species could not procreate and yet here is Diana pregnant and eventually presenting the de Clermont family with the twins conceived of Matthew; Rebecca and Philip. What the very tolerant, congenial, and scientific colleagues at Diana's campus find out about "creature" DNA and what Diana eventually learns from The Book of Life is surprising and makes an important plea for tolerance that resounds in the real world occupied by us as humans. (You can form your own judgment about whether "creatures" are real or not.)

I love the academic settings for these books which form a sort of library sandwich. Harkness's vampires will have you clamoring for someone to take a bite of you. The skills that Diana finds that belong to her, the most talented in a long line of witches, are also enviable and very effectively written, full of symbolism and connections with antiquity, but I must not describe them in detail. There are no daemons among the true main characters in this book but we see several examples, both good and evil, of this class of creature.

I was very happy with Book 3 which answers our questions, contains the penultimate battle, and gives us some of the happy endings that bring equal happiness to our reader's hearts. All this, and those connections that can be drawn with our human perceptions of race and DNA, make this an excellent trilogy indeed. I am sad that it is done, as I always am whenever I finish a very enjoyable and engrossing novel or series of novels. We look forward to whatever else you may write; Deborah Harkness, but these books will stand the test of time.