A Discovery of Witches (All Souls Trilogy, #1)

A Discovery of Witches is a 2011 historical-fantasy novel and the debut novel by American scholar Deborah Harkness. It follows Diana Bishop, a history of science professor at Yale University, as she embraces her magical blood after finding a long-thought-lost manuscript and engages in a forbidden romance with a charming vampire, Matthew Clairmont. A Discovery of Witches was first published in hardcover on February 8, 2011, by Penguin Books, becoming a New York Times Best Seller upon its release. It has since been released in paperback and also as an ebook. The novel has been translated into more than 36 languages. The book received mostly positive feedback from literary critics. It was praised for its intelligence and the mixture of history and fantasy, although some critics felt the plot was trite and the pacing was slow. Comparisons were made between other popular fantasy series, namely Twilight and Harry Potter. The novel began as a "thought experiment" for Harkness, who had previously only published works of historical non-fiction. She drew upon her academic background as a historian and her studies of alchemy, magic, and the occult. A Discovery of Witches is the first installment in the All Souls trilogy, followed by Shadow of Night (2012) and completed with the third novel in the series The Book of Life (2014). Three seasons of a television adaptation of the trilogy were acquired by Sky One and were broadcast in 2018, 2021, and 2022. In June 2019, Harkness released a novella, "Time's Convert". This followed the early lives of Matthew de Clermont and his soon-to-be son, Marcus MacNeil, during the American Revolution.