This was not a big writing month for me. The last two weeks we’ve been living on these awesome spring rolls and I haven’t been cooking anything new. But, I am excited about the encroaching fall and want to start making soups and casseroles and pot roasts.

I’ve also been reading a lot, as always. About a month ago my mom started nudging me about reading this new book, “A Discovery of Witches”, saying it was great fun. I picked it up and then I couldn’t put it down.

Deborah Harkness’s book was a seriously fun time. The story follows Diana Bishop, a historian that happens to be from a long line of very talented witches. After the tragic death of her magical parents at a young age, she has turned her back on the family craft. Now as an adult, the key to her magic and her family’s unfortunate turn falls into her lap. At the same time, she encounters Matthew Clairmont, a 1,500 year old vampire who wants something that she has, only to find out that he might want much more.

The first few pages in I thought that I had fallen into something too cheesy to get into. A few pages more and I realized that there was more to it than I would have imagined. This is a world with witches, vampires, and daemons living in secrecy. It is a story filled with history, science, and adventure. It was great fun to watch the creatures who should be enemies fall for each other. They have to go against their own kinds and their own histories to be together.

It was an excellent time. And of course, as soon as I finished it, I had to pick up the sequel, Shadow of Night.

In this book, Matthew and Diana decide that to find a witch powerful and knowledgeable enough to be a proper teacher for Diana, and to hide from the new enemies they have created, they must go back in time to hide out. This story takes place in Elizabethan England. They meet many fun historical figures and continue to get themselves in constant trouble, all the while entwining themselves even deeper together. It was a great follow up book and I look forward to the last in the trilogy.

Think of this series as Twilight for grownups. These aren’t angsty teens, but adult people making reasonable (usually) decisions. It was great fun and even if it isn’t a great work of literature, the books are very well researched, being written by an actual historian and all. This gives them a depth that you don’t often find in the fantasy genre.

Pick this up to enjoy on one of these chilly fall afternoons, curled up in your favorite chair with a cup of something warm.