Book Review - Deborah Harkness's The Book of Life
The Book of Life by Deborah Harkness
Published by: Viking Adult
Publication Date: July 15th, 2014
Format: Hardcover, 576 Pages
Rating: ★★★★★
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Just one step is all it takes to return to their old lives despite the changes they have undergone. Back to the present which Matthew and Diana have been unknowingly peppering with anomalies their family have been keenly following. A portrait here, a book there, signs of their lives for those trapped in the present of those they love in the past. And then a step, a few flights, a drive, and they are home. Matthew and Diana have returned to Sept-Tours. They may be reunited but everything has changed. There have been loses while they were gone, and they must mourn them. Em was brutally taken from them and it taps into one of Diana's worst fears, that she won't be able to say goodbye to those she loves. But more than that, the family must adjust to cataclysmic changes while playing by the rules of the Congregation and Baldwin swinging his dick around. Diana has learned much from the Elizabethan witches, but also from her father who she encountered in the past. They have put her on the right path but her education is incomplete, she must now walk it alone. She is the rarest of witches, a weaver. Which means she makes her own spells and that accounts for why the spells of others never worked for her much to her aunt Sarah's dismay. As much as she wishes she could have stayed in the past to learn from a fellow weaver their position was too precarious and Kit's dislike of Diana took a deadly turn. But more than that, Diana is pregnant with Mathew's children. She had already miscarried a miracle baby once in the past and now she's pregnant with twins. Children Matthew is ferally protective of. Now that he and Diana are married and mated his blood rage is stronger than ever. He could even possibly pose a risk to his unborn children. Which means it's time to put all his cards on the table. Those who are his family must know all the secrets he has been keeping. They must know of the blood rage, they must know of the babies, they must know that Ashmole 782 is made up of the dead, and they must come together to forge their own scion, one that won't be under Baldwin's control. Everyone is given a task, which means they must scatter to the four corners of the Earth, and for Matthew, being away from Diana could literally drive him insane. But the truth about blood rage must be uncovered, Ashmole 782 must be retrieved, the Congregation must be brought to heel, and the Covenant must be repealed. And preferably all before Diana gives birth. In the end there will be a battle, but will it be political or will Matthew's dangerous past come back to haunt him? Because with vampires there are always more secrets.
The first time I read The Book of Life I was annoyed by what I perceived to be too much science in this volume. Or as Gallowglass so eloquently said; "This family was more fun when we had fewer medical degrees." Oh, how I smile thinking about that now. My actual blood rage over Matthew getting a lab position at Yale to study his blood rage. I have to laugh at past me or else I'd cry. Because the truth is all the hoopla over the science and the Covenant are dispatched within twenty pages at the end of the book because of all of Diana's new Dark Willow powers. The science was never the point. The Covenant was only partially the point. The hot mess that is this family was the point. And I am here for it. I am here for people from the past showing up and going, oh, by the way, I'm your grandson and that young scamp you loved in Elizabethan England? Well, I turned him into a vampire and, well, things did not go well. Because vampires are nothing but drama, bring on the Lestat level antics. It's understandable, they've been around for centuries and have amassed so many secrets and names and identities that it's amazing they can keep track of it all. So for Diana to have a full debrief on everything to do with Matthew and his past, well, that would probably take more books than Anne Rice has written about vampires. But the shocking thing to me is that sometimes they just walk away from each other. Oh yeah, there's a whole bunch of vampires in New Orleans that are the children of Marcus, we just don't talk about them. The family is big and unwieldy and has so many grudges, I mean, there really is nothing messier than vampire family drama. Throw in a few daemons and witches and humans and I just can't get enough. They all care for each other, deep down, even Baldwin, but the drama is bloody. Which is so appropriate for them. And the thing here is that the family is reconfiguring with the new scion. Because while Matthew will be the "head" Diana is the "heart." This causes chaos and upheaval and change. And it's the change I'm not so sure about, though it's so messy I'm still here for it. At the beginning of this series Diana was the conduit for the reader. She was fairly normal, aside from the whole witch thing. But over time, as her relationship with Matthew has deepened, she has become something other then human, something more. She is beyond supernatural, which makes her totally unrelatable. She literally is her own tatted up deus ex machina. Convenient? Yes. Believable? Not quite. And seeing as I totally am buying into vampires and witches having babies, that's saying something. But it doesn't make me want to reunite with this family any less. Bring on Time's Convert!
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