A Discovery of Witches
Historical scholarship and paranormal romance in unexpected combination. Diana Bishop, witch and scholar, falling in love with vampire Matthew Clairmont. Harkness brings genuine intellectual depth to the fantasy romance genre; her world is richly constructed and her love story is given the space to develop over three volumes. A literary romance that wears genre clothes comfortably.
Nearly six hundred pages, and a remarkable share of them describe tea, wine vintages, rowing, and yoga. Matthew's courtship runs on surveillance and commands, which the book codes as devotion; Diana acquires whatever power each crisis requires. Harkness's Oxford scholarship is real. The plot it decorates moves like a sabbatical.
The case for it and the rest of the canon open with Pro.
