Shadow of Night

"Shadow of Night" is the second book in the All Souls trilogy written by Deborah Harkness.  I've written about the first book, "A Discovery of Witches." 

SPOILER ALERT

The second book picks up right where the first book left off - Diana and Matthew landing in Elizabethan England.  A lot of the book is about Diana getting adjusted to living in that time period, as well as adjusting to being Matthew's wife.  In this era, Matthew is a spy for Queen Elizabeth I and a member of the Congregation.  He is also known as Matthew Roydon, the leader of the "School of Night," a group of men who are known for heretical thoughts.  The other members are playwright Christopher "Kit" Marlowe, mathematician and astronomer Thomas Harriot, explorer Sir Walter Raleigh (famous for being the founder of the Lost Colony at Roanoke), aristocrat Henry Percy (the 9th Earl of Northumberland), and poet George Chapman (who wrote the poem "Shadow of Night"). 

In Harkness's world, Marlowe and Harriot are daemons, while the others are humans.  Marlowe is also in love with Matthew, and is immediately adversarial towards Diana.  Diana meets Matthew's vampire father, Philippe, who ends up having a great influence on her, and runs into her own father, Stephen Proctor.  Diana and Matthew also interacts with other historical figures such as Queen Elizabeth I, Emperor Rudolf II, astronomer John Dee, alchemist Edward Kelley, and poet and author Mary Sidney (Countess of Pembroke), who becomes a friend of Diana's.  They travel from England to France to Prague, and Diana eventually finds the training that she needs from witches in London.  Diana finds out that like her father, she is a weaver, a special kind of witch who can create spells instead of just reciting existing ones.  They also track down Ashmole 782 while it is intact, and discover something monstrous about the book, but in the end they cannot take the book back to the present. 

There are brief glimpses of the present time.  A lot of the other members of the Conventicle, such as Matthew's vampire mother Ysabeau and Diana's witchy aunts Sarah and Emily, have gathered at Sept-Tours, the de Clermont family's castle, in order to prepare for battle with the Congregation.  There are hints at terrible things happening, but no detail.  I hope Harkness will go into further detail in the next book about what happens in the present while Diana and Matthew are back in time.

This book is more stuffed than the last one.  Harkness clearly knows her Elizabethan era and delights in including a lot of details.  Sometimes it gets to be a little too much, but overall the book is still enjoyable.  Diana's struggle in adjusting to the Elizabethan era and in becoming a wife to a very possessive vampire is actually relatable, and Harkness has a very clear sense of who Matthew and Diana are as characters.  Their love story is still intact despite all the challenges, even though there is more danger ahead.  I look forward to the next installment.