{2015 TBR Pile Challenge Review} SHADOW OF NIGHT by Deborah Harkness

Kathy's Review:

(Copied with her permission from her personal blog, Grown Up Book Reports)

You may have wondered if something happened to me. Nope, just getting through this dog of a book!

This was a disappointment, compared to A Discovery of Witches, which I enjoyed enough to want to read on. I don’t know that I feel that way after this book. I slogged through this one, sometimes only able to read 1-2 pages at a time before growing bored. I almost gave up on this book several times, but my stubbornness prevailed. That, and I had hope that I’d begin to settle in to the book and find things about it that I enjoyed.

This turned into a historical fiction piece quickly. And I’m not a big fan of that genre. Diana and Matthew time travel to the 1500’s, in England, and land among famous figures such as Walter Raleigh, Christopher Marlowe and Thomas Harriot. And some guy called Will Shakespeare. Turns out some of these guys are daemons! Who knew?

There are a lot of vampires, witches and daemons in Elizabethan London. And they all are intrigued by Diana. The part where she learns how to make her spells is kind of cool. There are pockets of interesting stuff that happens. But other than that, I was bored to tears by all the side plots happening with these historical figures.

I don’t know if I'm up for reading book three. This took me three weeks to get through. I have way too many other books in line to worry about finishing this series. Someone tell me how it ends!

*This was one of my alternate choices for the 2015 TBR Pile Challenge.