Also, the publisher would like to invite you to join Harkness and her editor Carole DeSanti, the author of The Unruly Passions of Eugénie R, for a virtual book event on BookTalk Nation on June 4th at 2pm EST. Fans can join by phone and buy personalized copies of the book by ordering online here.
Shadow of Night (All Souls Trilogy #2)
Author: Deborah Harkness
Paperback Release Date: May 28, 2013
Publisher: Viking Adult
Buy Links: Amazon / Barnes and Noble
Description:
IT BEGAN WITH A DISCOVERY OF WITCHES.
Historian Diana Bishop, descended from a line of powerful witches, and long-lived vampire Matthew Clairmont have broken the laws dividing creatures. When Diana discovered a significant alchemical manuscript in the Bodleian Library,she sparked a struggle in which she became bound to Matthew. Now the fragile coexistence of witches, daemons, vampires and humans is dangerously threatened.
Seeking safety, Diana and Matthew travel back in time to London, 1590. But they soon realise that the past may not provide a haven. Reclaiming his former identity as poet and spy for Queen Elizabeth, the vampire falls back in with a group of radicals known as the School of Night. Many are unruly daemons, the creative minds of the age, including playwright Christopher Marlowe and mathematician Thomas Harriot.
Together Matthew and Diana scour Tudor London for the elusive manuscript Ashmole 782, and search for the witch who will teach Diana how to control her remarkable powers...
Q: A Discovery of Witches debuted at # 2 on the New York Times bestseller list with publications following in 37 countries. What has been your reaction to the outpouring of love for A Discovery of Witches? Was it surprising how taken fans were with Diana and Matthew’s story?
A.
It has been amazing—and a bit overwhelming. I was surprised by how
quickly readers embraced two central characters who challenge our
typical notion of what a heroine or hero should be. And I continue to be
amazed whenever a new reader pops up, whether one in the US or
somewhere like Finland or Japan—to tell me how much they enjoyed being
caught up in Diana’s world.
Q: Last summer, Warner Brothers acquired screen rights to the trilogy, and David Auburn, the Pulitzer-Prize-winning writer of Proof,
has been tapped to pen the screenplay. Are you looking forward to your
novels being portrayed on the big screen? What are your favorite
casting ideas that you’ve heard from friends and readers?
A.
I was thrilled when Warner Brothers wanted to translate the All Souls
trilogy from book to screen. At first I was reluctant about the whole
idea of a movie, and it actually took me nearly two years to agree to
let someone try. The team at Warner Brothers impressed me with their
seriousness about the project and their commitment to the characters and
story I was trying to tell. Their decision to go with David Auburn
confirmed that my faith in them was not misplaced. As for the casting, I
deliberately don’t say anything about that! I would hate for any actor
or actress to be cast in one of these roles and feel that they didn’t
have my total support. I will say, however, that many of my readers’
ideas involve actors who have already played a vampire and I would be
very surprised if one of them were asked to be Matthew!
Q:
SHADOW OF NIGHT opens on a scene in 1590s Elizabethan England featuring
the famous School of Night, a group of historical figures believed to
be friends, including Sir Walter Raleigh and playwright Christopher
Marlowe. Why did you choose to feature these individuals, and can we
expect Diana and Matthew to meet other famous figures from the past?
A.
I wrote my master’s thesis on the imagery surrounding Elizabeth I
during the last two decades of her reign. One of my main sources was the
poem The Shadow of Night
by George Chapman—a member of this circle of fascinating men—and that
work is dedicated to a mysterious poet named Matthew Roydon about whom
we know very little. When I was first thinking about how vampires moved
in the world (and this was way back in the autumn of 2008 when I was
just beginning A Discovery of Witches) I remembered Roydon and thought “that
is the kind of identity a vampire would have, surrounded by interesting
people but not the center of the action.” From that moment on I knew
the second part of Diana and Matthew’s story would take place among the
School of Night. And from a character standpoint, Walter Raleigh,
Christopher Marlowe, George Chapman, and the other men associated with
the group are irresistible. They were such significant, colorful
presences in Elizabethan England.
Q:
In SHADOW OF NIGHT, we learn more about the alchemical bonds between
Diana and Matthew. In your day job, you are a professor of history and
science at the University of Southern California and have focused on
alchemy in your research. What aspects of this intersection between
science and magic do you hope readers will pick up on while reading
SHADOW OF NIGHT?
A. Whereas A Discovery of Witches focused on the literature and symbolism of alchemy, in Shadow of Night I’m
able to explore some of the hands-on aspects of this ancient tradition.
There is still plenty of symbolism for Diana to think about, but in
this volume we go from abstractions and ideals to real transformation
and change—which was always my intention with the series. Just as we get
to know more about how Elizabethan men and women undertook alchemical
experiments, we also get to see Matthew and Diana’s relationship undergo
the metamorphosis from new love to something more.
Q:
SHADOW OF NIGHT spans the globe, with London, France, and Prague as
some of the locales. Did you travel to these destinations for your
research?
A.
I did. My historical research has been based in London for some time
now, so I’ve spent long stretches of time living in the City of
London—the oldest part of the metropolis—but I had never been to the
Auvergne or Prague. I visited both places while writing the book, and in
both cases it was a bit like traveling in time to walk village lanes,
old pilgrim roads, and twisting city streets while imagining Diana and
Matthew at my side.
Q: Did you have an idea or an outline for SHADOW OF NIGHT when you were writing A Discovery of Witches? Did the direction change once you sat down to write it?
A.
I didn’t outline either book in the traditional sense. In both cases I
knew what some of the high points were and how the plot moved towards
the conclusion, but there were some significant changes during the
revision process. This was especially true for SHADOW OF NIGHT, although most of those changes involved moving specific pieces of the plot forward or back to improve the momentum and flow.
Q: A Discovery of Witches
begins with Diana Bishop stumbling across a lost, enchanted manuscript
called Ashmole 782 in Oxford’s Bodleian Library, whose secrets Diana and
Matthew are still trying to uncover in SHADOW OF NIGHT. You had a
similar experience while you were completing your dissertation. What
was the story behind your discovery? And how did it inspire the
creation of these novels?
A.
I did discover a manuscript—not an enchanted one, alas—in the Bodleian
Library. It was a manuscript owned by Queen Elizabeth’s astrologer, the
mathematician and alchemist John Dee. In the 1570s and 1580s he became
interested in using a crystal ball to talk to angels. The angels gave
him all kinds of instructions on how to manage his life at home, his
work—they even told him to pack up his family and belongings and go to
far-away Poland and Prague. In the conversations, Dee asked the angels
about a mysterious book in his library called “the Book of Soyga” or
“Aldaraia.” No one had ever been able to find it, even though many of
Dee’s other books survive in libraries throughout the world. In the
summer of 1994 I was spending time in Oxford between finishing my
doctorate and starting my first job. It was a wonderfully creative time,
since I had no deadlines to worry about and my dissertation on Dee’s
angel conversations was complete. As with most discoveries, this
discovery of a “lost” manuscript was entirely accidental. I was looking
for something else in the Bodleian’s catalogue and in the upper corner
of the page was a reference to a book called “Aldaraia.” I knew it
couldn’t be Dee’s book, but I called it up anyway. And it turned out it
WAS the book (or at least a copy of it). With the help of the Bodleian’s
Keeper of Rare Books, I located another copy in the British Library.
Q: Are there other lost books like this in the world?
A.
Absolutely! Entire books have been written about famous lost
volumes—including works by Plato, Aristotle, and Shakespeare to name
just a few. Libraries are full of such treasures, some of them
unrecognized and others simply misfiled or mislabeled. And we find lost
books outside of libraries, too. In January 2006, a completely unknown
manuscript belonging to one of the 17th
century’s most prominent scientists, Robert Hooke, was discovered when
someone was having the contents of their house valued for auction. The
manuscript included minutes of early Royal Society meetings that we
presumed were lost forever.
Q:
Unlike Twilight’s Bella and Edward—hormonal teenagers who meet in the
halls of a high school—your leading characters Matthew and Diana are
established academics who meet in the library of one of the most
prestigious academic institutions in the world. This is a world where
vampires and witches drink wine together, practice yoga and discuss
philosophy. Are these characters based on something you found missing
in the fantasy genre?
A. There are a lot of adults reading young adult books, and for good reason. Authors who specialize in the young adult market are writing original, compelling stories that can make even the most cynical grownups believe in magic. In writing A DISCOVERY OF WITCHES, I wanted to give adult readers a world no less magical, no less surprising and delightful, but one that included grown-up concerns and activities. These are not your children’s vampires and witches.
My life has been a series of
left turns that nevertheless took me in the right direction (though 
Giveaway: (1) Paperback copy of SHADOW OF NIGHT + alchemical buttons - US only!
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