A Discovery of Witches
- 720
- Pages
- about 13 h
- Reading time
- NYT bestseller · 8 weeks on the list, peaked at #4
Affiliate link: buying through it supports BookRank at no extra cost to you.
Our view
“A Discovery of Witches” is at heart a romance between a witch and a vampire, set among old manuscripts. Readers who come for that pairing are well served. Some of those drawn by the mystery find that it advances very little across more than seven hundred pages, and that the pace sags towards the end. Diana is an engaging lead, and the book suits readers with time to give her.
The view of the BookRank editors, written from readers’ ratings and comments. It does not affect the score or the book’s place in a ranking.
About the book
A Discovery of Witches is a 2011 historical-fantasy novel and the debut novel by American scholar Deborah Harkness. It follows Diana Bishop, a history of science professor at Yale University, as she embraces her magical blood after finding a long-thought-lost manuscript and engages in a forbidden romance with a charming vampire, Matthew Clairmont.
Reading order · All Souls Trilogy
Full order & progress →- A Discovery of WitchesThis book
7.57.5 / 10 - Shadow of Night
7.97.9 / 10 - The Book of Life
8.08.0 / 10 - Time's Convert
7.77.7 / 10 - The Black Bird OracleThe Black Bird Oracle–Not ranked yet
Where the score comes from
The sources average 7.4 across 763 ratings. With that many, the reader vote carries 84% of the weight and the score stays at 7.5 — the Romance average of 7.6 barely moves it.
| Source | Average | Ratings | Weight |
|---|---|---|---|
| Open Library | 7.8 | 50 | 7% |
| Hardcover | 7.4 | 713 | 93% |
Frequently asked
How long is A Discovery of Witches?
It has 720 pages — longer than 74% of the ranked books in Romance.
In this book
Themes this book shares with others — each leads to the best books on it.
If you liked this
Same shelf — Romance — with scores between 7.4 and 7.6, closest to this book.
