I have been on the fence for over a year about reading A Discovery of Witches. It sounded interesting, but people were so divided on how much or how little they liked it. People either loved it or hated it and that made me worry a little bit. Usually, if a book is that polarizing, I tend to agree with the group that doesn’t like the book at all. But I finally decided to sit down and read and I’m now kicking myself for waiting so long.

A Discovery of Witches has a bit of everything. There’s a romance with a vampire, there’s science and history, there’s mystery and magic, there’s heroic knights; you think of something, and I’d be willing to bet it’s somewhere in this book. Somehow Harkness manages to fit all of this into one book without making it seem heavy and overdone. The beginning of the novel felt a little heavy and slow, and there was quite a bit of info dumping and description, but getting past that is so worth it.

The story is set up with the discovery of a manuscript important to so many different groups, but that only sets up the fight that is the rest of the novel. The manuscript opens Pandora’s Box, in a way, and the rest of the novel is Diana and Matthew fighting forces that are bigger than themselves. They must overcome everything set in front of them and work together to try and find the secrets the world has hidden away with time. Harkness has told this story beautifully. I actually slowed my reading pace down so I could drink in every word on the page, not wanting to miss a thing.

A Discovery of Witches is a fantastic, beautiful novel that drew me in and hasn’t let go. The world of witches, vampires and daemons has me enchanted and I’ll definitely be reading what’s to come in Diana’s story.