Review: The Black Bird Oracle - Vilma Iris | Lifestyle Blogger

Deborah Harkness first introduced the world to Diana Bishop, an Oxford scholar and witch, and vampire geneticist Matthew de Clermont in A Discovery of Witches. Drawn to each other despite long-standing taboos, these two otherworldly beings found themselves at the center of a battle for a lost, enchanted manuscript known as Ashmole 782. Since then, they have fallen in love, traveled to Elizabethan England, dissolved the Covenant between the three species, and awoken the dark powers within Diana’s family line.

Now, Diana and Matthew receive a formal demand from the Congregation: They must test the magic of their seven-year-old twins, Pip and Rebecca. Concerned with their safety and desperate to avoid the same fate that led her parents to spellbind her, Diana decides to forge a different path for her family’s future and answers a message from a great-aunt she never knew existed, Gwyneth Proctor, whose invitation simply reads: It’s time you came home, Diana.

On the hallowed ground of Ravenswood, the Proctor family home, and under the tutelage of Gwyneth, a talented witch grounded in higher magic, a new era begins for Diana: a confrontation with her family’s dark past and a reckoning for her own desire for even greater power—if she can let go, finally, of her fear of wielding it.

In this stunning new novel, grand in scope, Deborah Harkness deepens the beloved world of All Souls with powerful new magic and long-hidden secrets, and the path Diana finds at Ravenswood leads to the most consequential moments yet in this cherished series.

Series:

All Souls

Book 5

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Review: The Black Bird Oracle
By Deborah Harkness

Review: The Black Bird Oracle

On ominous message beckons Diana Bishop to the Proctor family home, where she confronts her past and wrestles with her desire for a higher power.

Diana Bishop and Matthew Clairmont receive formal summons from the Congregation: they must test the magic of their seven-year-old twins, Becca and Pip. As they grapple with the news, an unkindness of ravens delivers a cryptic message and a magical ring to Becca. After an equally foreboding message from her great aunt, Diana returns to Ravenswood—her father’s ancestral home—to uncover the magical twining of these portentous occurrences.

Under the tutelage of her aunt Gwyneth Proctor, Diana descends into an unfamiliar past, reckoning with her desire for a more dangerous path to power. Fated to fulfill an ancient and powerful prophecy, Diana explores her identity and pushes the boundaries of her powers. Driven by curiosity, desire, and a ruthless determination to protect her family, Diana embraces an unfamiliar darkness that paves a new future for the Bishop-Clairmonts.

Harkness’ prowess as a gifted storyteller is evident in the rich, immersive narrative. While threads of history and science are woven through, it’s witch magic that takes center stage in this latest installment. Beloved characters and new ones vivify the pages of this new evocative and masterfully penned adventure. I loved seeing Diana explore who she is and desires to be, navigating the ensuing tension with Matthew—while still coming back together with the love and passion we’ve come to expect. I’ve missed these characters dearly and cannot adequately describe the joy of being back in this world. Perfection.

Clamoring for the next installment.

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