The Book of Life by Deborah Harkness

I liked this book much better than the second one in the trilogy. Back to present day; back to family; back to characters that I know; back to the main point of the story. Harkness is certainly verbose - and I really don't need to read about every characters every thought and movement - but she does paint a picture!

I love books about strong women, and Diana continually got stronger as the story developed. Diana and Matthew's relationship was more of a partnership instead of a dictatorship in this third book. I really liked how Diana became the person of knowledge and power in the Bishop-Clairmont scion, as well as the Congregation itself.  Diana made a point though of saying her knowledge and skill would be used for justice rather than a pursuit of vengeance or power.

This story is another example of people not accepting each other's differences - or being afraid of the differences; an abuse of power by the strongest; a resistance to change. These are very common themes, in books and in life.  The "discovery of witches" that happened so long ago and now finally resurfaced with the Bishop-Clairmont family: a willingness to change is the secret of survival. Vampires, Witches, Daemons all wanted to keep their "species" pure, with no "corruption" from the other species. Sound familiar? It was interesting that Harkness carried the scientific research throughout the story, which added to the impact that they were not different "species", but all of the same species, with differences.

I thought The Book of Life was a well-written conclusion to this story.  I liked it as much as The Discovery of Witches.  (Maybe more so because Diana was such a stronger person in this one.)

Wendy's Rating: ****