Mic Breaks Only discussion

I completed the audio version of A Discovery of Witches. The tale follows the budding relationship of witch Diana Bishop and vampire Matthew Clairmont. Establishing a new relationship is difficult, particularly when forces of evil are stalking you because of a very special magical text, all of your family disapproves, and an ancient bureaucratic group of supernatural beings have commanded that vampires and witches shall NOT intermingle.

Diana Bishop, though powerful, is uneducated and untrained in how to use magic. We delve deeper into her backstory, particularly the suspicious deaths of her parents, and why she struggles with things that come so easily to other witches.

We meet a slew of Diana and Mathew's family and friends including Mathew's best friend and Scotsman daemon Hamish, Matthew's son Marcus, and Matthew's mother Ysabeau. We follow the couple's travel to France where Diana learns more about Matthew's previous lives and loves from his mother Ysabeau.

Since the fate of daemons, witches, and vampires seems to depend on recovering the magical text that Diana found and then lost at the Bodleian library, the couple decides to travel back in time for a two-fold purpose. Foremost is to recover the magical text Ashmole 782, second, but just as important, is to find someone to train Diana to be a proper witch since she possesses impressive innate abilities that few modern day witches have experience with.

I continued my witchy audio book tour with Shadow of Night. We begin the story with Matthew and Diana landing in Elizabethan London. Diana as a historian is beside herself to be in the company of people she has admired solely through literature. Diana's present intersects with Matthew's past as she is wholly immersed into his old group of friends who are more than a little surprised to find Matthew in a serious relationship with a woman that doesn't fit in for the time or the setting. What I enjoy most about this romance is the historical fiction aspect. The sequel meshes even more famous figures in with Harkness's creations.

I read Saga, Vol. 8 and had high hopes when I saw Alana very pregnant on the cover of the book. My hopes were short lived as soon as I opened the cover. Petrichor and Hazel's interactions are one of my very favorite things about this installment. Alana has some exciting and unexpected side effects from her miscarriage and I am very entertained by her interaction with the poop monsters. Hazel has been practicing her magic and she has become quite adept at using it correctly with only a moment's notice. By mid-book she has saved both of her parent's asses.

Alana projects a vision of her lost son in the future and the family becomes attached very quickly before Alana's health rapidly declines. She arrives just in the nick of time at the scariest abortionist I have ever seen, but looks are indeed deceiving as we learn more about this particular "end-wife".

Sir Robot saves Petrichor from an unsavory trio and their relationship develops leaps and bounds in record time. We learn a lot more about the Will's past as he is being tortured by one of the most detestable characters in this book. Upsher is about to take desperate measures because of starvation, but is fortunately stopped by Ghus at the last minute. The book ends with a feel good reunion and I'm very much looking forward to the next volume.