41. Shadow of Night - Deborah Harkness

#2 in All Soul's Trilogy
2012, Viking
for Adults
584 pgs.
HC $28.95
Genre:  Fantasy/Historical Fiction
Rating:  2.5 It was okay....

Setting:  for the most part, 1591 England, France, and Prague, with bits and pieces of contemporary America and parts of Europe
OSS:  Historian/researcher/reluctant witch Diana Bishop and her vampire lover Matthew deClermont Roydon time travel back to Elizabethan England, France, and Prague for two reasons - to help Diana learn how to deal with her until-now-hidden witch talents, and to look for a very old book, Ashmole 782, that could be the secret of vampire, daemon, and witch past and future.

Okay, so Diana and Matthew have traveled back to relive Matthew's life in 1591, where he is spy for Queen Elizabeth, and friends with Walter Raleigh and Christopher Marlowe.  Christoper Marlowe is his closest, friend and also a daemon creep.  They "adopt" two waifs, argue a lot, dabble in alchemy, look for the hidden book Ashmole 784, and try to find teachers for Diana, to help her learn to use her powers, without any of the witches they encounter trying to kill her.

This book was waaaay too long...about 200 pages too long.  It was divided into six parts (though the sixth part was so much shorter than the others, it was like an afterthought).  The only one I really relished was the second part, at Saint-Tours.  The rest was all so similar that I found it very tedious. Too many characters, and many from the first book, The Discovery of Witches, were talked about without any hints as to why we were supposed to remember them.  I read a lot of books, I finished The Discovery of Witches ages ago, and I truly couldn't remember the details that Deborah Harkness took for granted I'd remember.  I had to go to the bookstore and read the last 50 pages of the first book to remind myself what was going on before I could restart this second book.  My opinion?  Interesting....but tedious.  Will I read Book 3?  Probably.  Maybe.  Possibly. I rated this a 2 ("it was okay") on Goodreads- I'd probably rate it a 2.5 if there was a way to.