Book Review - Deborah Harkness's Time's Convert
Time's Convert by Deborah Harkness
Published by: Viking
Publication Date: September 18th, 2018
Format: Hardcover, 448 Pages
Rating: ★★★
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Phoebe Taylor is about to become Phoebe Alice Najima Catherine Taylor de Clermont. In just ninety days. Ninety days that will test her and Marcus's sanity because they have decided to abide by vampiric tradition after Diana and Matthew did things their inimitable way, upending all customs and decrees, which means Phoebe and Marcus aren't allowed contact during this time. For mated supernaturals it is nearly impossible to remain apart. Yet their family will make sure they follow the rules, no matter how weak their own resolve becomes. While Phoebe is transformed in luxurious surroundings with every need catered to, from delivered kills to a banquet of blood, Marcus is visiting Diana and Matthew at their home in Limousin, France, Les Revenants. Vampires are notorious for hoarding secrets. And a vampire will never tell another's story. It is forbidden. Yet being unsettled in mind and body Marcus feels the need to unburden himself. As Phoebe undertakes the journey he himself took hundreds of years earlier, he wants to tell his story. He wants to talk about Marcus MacNeil and Diana is only too happy to oblige. Filling in the blanks of his past with Philippe's correspondence and information she gleans from the internet. Marcus was born in Western Massachusetts in the year 1757. His father was a violent drunk and Marcus would do anything to leave the small town of Hadley. The first time he ran away he ended up fighting in the Battle of Bunker Hill. He might have been young be he was a crack shot. Little did he know that that day was his first exposure to the supernatural world he would one day inhabit. At the advice of an ancestor of Diana's he returns home. His entire life is consumed with learning what medicinal knowledge he can and rereading Thomas Paine's Common Sense. Because what the war needs more than a crack shot is doctors who understand what Washington and his men are fighting for. When he murders his father to save his mother and sister during one of his drunken rages Marcus flees. He takes on the assumed name of Galen Chauncey and is soon helping the sick and wounded wherever he finds them. When he helps a wounded Marquis de Lafayette he seals his fate. The Marquis is there with Matthew and under Philippe's protection. So years later, when Matthew finds Marcus dying of the fever, Matthew explains to him that he can be saved. He can live forever. Marcus was so delirious he would have agreed to anything. Needless to say what came next was quite a confusing time. Revolutions weren't living up to their ideals and Marcus had traded one overlord for another. Yet as his dear friend Thomas Paine said, "Time makes more converts than reason." And Marcus had all the time in the world. And soon enough Phoebe will be by his side.
When it was announced that there was going to be a companion book in the All Souls series focused on Marcus I was, without exaggeration, completely indifferent. I actually wasn't even going to buy it but I'm a completest and one day when I was at Barnes and Noble it was majorly discounted so I figured I'd pick it up. It's now been sitting on my bookshelves for almost a decade gathering dust. The reason to finally read it wasn't just because I was rereading the original trilogy with an eye to finally picking up The Black Bird Oracle, the main reason was Edward Bluemel. So Edward Bluemel played Marcus in the television adaptation of the original trilogy. He was well cast and was in the ascendant, with roles on Killing Eve and Sex Education. I particularly enjoyed him on Belgravia: The Next Chapter. And then came My Lady Jane. I can not adequately express my obsession with this series and Edward Bluemel and his bubble butt as Lord Guildford Dudley. I randomly think of this show and his wicked smile and bedroom eyes and for a few moments in this chaotic world I am at peace. And I also just realized that for Carrie I have Prime Video Ultra so I could watch the series again without ad interruptions. Excuse me for the next few hours.... OK, I'm back. So Edward Bluemel gave me an image of Marcus that let me connect with the character and be willing to dive into Time's Convert. Previously in this series there have been glimpses of Marcus's life, a talented doctor turned during the American Revolution who has grown to be a snarky scientist who finds the love of his life while searching for clues as to his father's survival when Matthew and Diana timewalked. Here we get his history, but it felt like we were doing it as a speedrun. Here's his abusive childhood, here's his revolutionary ideals being crushed in America and France, here's what happened in New Orleans. A key point of the series up until now is how secretive vampires are. Their histories have to be prized out of them and here's Marcus trauma dumping because he has to stay away from the love of his life for ninety days while she transforms into a vampire. Yeah, so there's the whole parallels between him and Phoebe, whatever, it all just felt too slight because the trouble with Marcus is that it all boils down to Daddy Issues and a desire for freedom. First there was Obadiah, whom he killed, then there was Matthew AND Philippe, and then he made himself a Daddy in an attempt to find his "true father" and it was all a bit too much of the same. Because his Daddy Issues tie in to his desire for freedom, so I guess we could even label George III and Louis XVI as Daddy's, because they too don't understand his desire for freedom. The true freedom Thomas Paine wrote about. So Marcus spends a hundred some years trading one tyrannical overlord for another until Diana comes along and changes Matthew for the better and Marcus finally gets the found family of his dreams. Isn't that sweet? No. Not really. It was kind of pathetic. Deborah Harkness threw in some Diana and Matthew to bulk out the book, and the least said about Phoebe's transformation the better. I don't want to say that it was a self-fulfilling prophecy that I assumed Time's Convert would be the weakest in the series, because I really wanted to like it. The problem is it is the weakest in the series.
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