Friday Friyay: 'Shadow of Night' (All Souls #2) by Deborah Harkness

Happy Friday! Hozier released his new album, Unreal Unearth, which means that while today might not be very productive, but it will be very inspiring. Last weekend, surrounded by lightning, thunder, and hail the size of pingpong balls, I re-read A Discovery of Witches and fell in love with it all over again. It's just delightful, so I decided it was time to tackle the rest of the series as well. I started the second, Shadow of Night, on Wednesday but will probably sit down for it properly on Saturday. These quotes will contain spoilers for the first book, just a heads up!

Picking up from A Discovery of Witches’ cliffhanger ending, Shadow of Night takes Diana and Matthew on a trip through time to Elizabethan London, where they are plunged into a world of spies, magic, and a coterie of Matthew’s old friends, the School of Night. As the search for Ashmole 782 deepens and Diana seeks out a witch to tutor her in magic, the net of Matthew’s past tightens around them, and they embark on a very different—and vastly more dangerous—journey.

Book Beginnings is at home on Rose City Reader, hosted by Gilion Dumas, and Friday 56 at Freda's Voice, hosted by Freda. I'll also be joining the Book Blogger Hop, hosted by Billy over at Ramblings of a Coffee Addicted Writer. All quotes are taken from an ARC and may be different in the published book.

BB:

'We arrived in an undignified heap of witch and vampire. Matthew wad underneath me, his long limbs bent into an uncharacteristically awkward position. A large book was squashed between us, and the force of our landing sent the small silver figurine clutched in my hand sailing across the floor.' 1%

Although I felt that the idea of timewalking felt a little rushed in A Discovery, I did really like the idea of it and I love how it's being explored in the first few chapters. I would be just as obsessed with going into the past as Diana is, so that's really drawing me in straight away.

F56:

'I was still trying to figure out what the offerings meant and how they had gotten there when Matthew shot up the stairs in a soundless blur. He stopped abruptly.' 56%

Dang it, I spoiled myself while looking for a quote. Technically I'm already pretty spoiled because I saw GIFs of the TV show on Tumblr... Now I'm just extra desperate for it to be Saturday so I can dive in! I'm only on chapter 2 and this book has almost 600 pages so this weekend will be delightful.

BBH:

This week's question comes from Billy:

Do you prefer to read standalone or series books?

Well, as I'm literally quoting from the second book in a series today I can't say I don't like series. I do love a well-constructed series in which some things are clearly already planned out. I want an overarching arc throughout a series, as well as arcs for the individual books. BUT a series for me nowadays really shouldn't be more than a trilogy. As a kid I loved that there were seven HP books, but now I just don't feel like committing to something for that long. Also, no hate, but recent Fantasy series I've tried to get into that stretch past trilogy into five or six books, they just felt slow to me. It doesn't help that each of those books was like 800 pages on its own... that's not necessary. (I just saw that the All Souls trilogy technically has a fourth (and fifth?) book, but it's a prequel and I'm ignoring it.)

I love a good standalone as well, though, because it tells a full story but leaves enough for me to imagine around it. And I think a standalone can be extra challenging because the author knows everything relevant needs to be in there, that they can't keep spinning tales, adding details, and introducing new characters to keep it going.

That's it for me this week! Have you read the All Souls trilogy?