TIME'S CONVERT: ALL SOULS SPIN-OFF: return to the spellbinding world of A Discovery of Witches

Good story but not like other DH books

Excellente cuarta entrega de la serie. El libro está en perfecto estado. Envío super rápido y embalaje protegido. Muy contenta!

I’ve read all of the books in the All Souls Trilogy. It’s a wonderful series, and before diving into this new book, I’m glad that I’d read them. In my opinion, Time’s Convert is not a standalone. It had been a while since I’d read the other enjoyable books in the series. During those journeys, I recall feeling almost overwhelmed with the details. . . sometimes in a good way, sometimes not. Entire paragraphs deserved their own place on the history shelves, the prose was wonderful, the characters well-drawn, the plots tight. Sometimes I felt the books extremely intellectual, but I had bravely plowed forward reading hoping that some of the knowledge might stick in my wee brain. My highly anticipated journey with Time’s Convert ended with mixed feelings. The good news first. This book earns five stars for its intense research. I’m positive Ms. Harkness did her homework and worked her ass off getting the details of the timing, settings, events, and real-life historical characters correct. I felt in safe hands and not misguided into a complete fantasy world. Vampire, witches, and daemons aside, of course. Characters like Thomas Paine, Ben Franklin, and Lafayette, for example, all have dialogue, but fictitious though that may be, I felt good that the author wasn’t leading me too far astray and plucking stuff out of the air solely for entertainment. (Unlike The Crown on Netflix which I really truly thought was not wholly fiction. Is it? Angry here and digressing). To the tougher part of my review, even though I’m American, the sections on the Revolutionary War did not interest me. During these scenes, primarily the middle section of the book, the plot felt tossed aside and the read lagged. There were so many characters, names, towns, homes, events dropped, I needed a chart. Some of those characters had their own arcs and I found I just did not care. It was during this middle section where I found myself wondering what the book was even about. Where was Ms. Harkness going? It felt like a bunch of separate stories that bumped into one another for no purpose. Eventually I realized that the book was about the tale of Phoebe and Marcus and their vampire becomings. Phoebe’s transition was in real time, and Marcus, because he is an old vampire, is told in flashback. Interspersed between Phoebe’s grand awakening and difficulties, and Marcus’s really long backstory (how many towns did we follow him through during this book? How many years? Too many to count), there were the De Clermonts – the main family of vampires as well as the main witch character – Diana. But those wonderful characters were way secondary. They had plots and problems too, but they were side stories and led nowhere. And the thing was, I love those characters. Every single time Ysabeau enters a room I get excited. Diana’s magic is beyond cool. Baldwin is way interesting. I want to sail with Gallowglass, or at least drink with him. Had I not read the other books, I would have been totally lost on who all these people were and their relevance. I imagine Ms. Harkness had to decide about whom to write for, and she chose. I have tremendous respect for this author and what she’s accomplished and will most likely read the next installment. Or anything else she writes, for that matter.

After having read the all souls trilogy I need to have more stories about this wonderful family. The book give a glimpse on Marcus past life and the chance to watch at Matthew and Diana family

While the story was simply mesmerizing, the formatting could have been better to make the story easier to follow for example with each new chapter put the character whose POV is being addressed would have helped a lot and not just a day and number of the month but the year as well so the reader could recognize when they were back in the present time, I ended up spending more time than warranted trying to figure out whose POV the chapter was about and it became annoying and took away from my thrill of the story. I really enjoyed the parts with Diana, Mathew and the children. Marcus's recollections from his past are fascinating and Phoebe's first days as a vampire are amazingly written. So much history so little time from the perspective of this human but I guess a vampire would say so much history lived through one timeless life.

Great ending for the series. Lots of closure for us readers. Keep wishing for one more ha ha ha ha