It has
been fourteen months since I read my last adult novel. The last one was A
Discovery of Witches,
the first in the All SoulsTrilogy. I
remember loving it and being excited for the future publications. Shadow of Night is the second.
My first concern was the new book’s setting –
Elizabethan England – Europe in 1590 to be both more general and precise at the
same time. The original book worked so well because it was about a thoroughly
modern woman in contemporary times. Diana Bishop was intelligent, ambitious,
active, self-sufficient and set in her ways. Women were not like that in the
sixteenth century. If they were, they would be notable or stand out like a sore
thumb.
Truth be told, I actually enjoyed the setting
once I got into it. I preferred Prague to England by far, but then that’s my
own ancestry speaking. The author is obviously very knowledgeable – a history
professor no less. I enjoyed the sights, sounds, smells, and clothing of an
earlier time. While I thrived by reading about this setting, the main character
drowned.
There were two choices available for the
author and her character. Diana could have chosen to remain hidden while
Matthew did the work or brought it to her. Or she could have attempted to fit
into society while Matthew did the work or brought it to her. The problem was
that Diana didn’t have time to prepare for the greatest role of her life and
that kind of negated the second choice.
But what actually happened was neither. Diana
and Matthew never attempted to hide and they only attempted, rather ill-ly, to
fit in to society. And everyone knew something was wrong. Diana couldn’t hide
from daemons, vampires or witches. She stuck out like that sore thumb! And yet,
since she was already doing such a bad job of fitting in, she didn’t choose
option three to just be herself. No, instead she became a rather awkward
sixteenth century lady who mainly tried to please her husband.
Matthew wasn’t doing a very good job either.
In fact, my two favorite characters from the first book were entirely
non-existent in the second. They were rather irritating actually. I did not
enjoy them. And they were competing with the most notable men, and occasionally
women, of the century! Walter Raleigh, Christopher Marlowe, Queen Elizabeth and
Rudolph II to name only a fraction of the famous cast.
I could write pages and pages of what I did
not enjoy about this book, but I’ll end with this. Diana and Matthew went back
in time to find and retrieve Ashmole 782 and to find an experienced witch to
teach Diana how to use her magic. In five hundred, seventy-seven tedious pages,
they were unable to actually accomplish their mission. They found the book
eventually and lost it. They found teachers and left them behind when something
seemingly more important came up. So the book blessedly ended, but the plot
never advanced.
I read books so you don’t have to. Go back to
your Anne Rice collection. Where vampires are actually vampires and not
political spies.
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