The Black Bird Oracle: A Novel (All Souls Series)
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER - Diana Bishop journeys to the darkest places within herself--and her family history--in the highly anticipated fifth novel of the beloved All Souls series, hailed as "your next favorite fantasy read" (Harper's Bazaar). "The Black Bird Oracle deftly explores the nexus of memory, history, and parenthood--the magic, pain, and promises mothers pass onto their children."--Jodi Picoult
The stunning hardcover of The Black Bird Oracle features a custom-stamped case, beautiful endpapers, and a premium dust jacket! 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.
The stunning hardcover of The Black Bird Oracle features a custom-stamped case, beautiful endpapers, and a premium dust jacket! 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.
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Community Reviews
I adore this series but this one went off the rails for me. How is it that the last four books Diana and Matthew have been solid, and this one they are constantly questioning each others motives and fighting? Also, where the hell was Marcus?
Wasnât Diana the most bad ass witch in centuries? Why did that get ignored so thatâs sheâs back to being a novice? Also did not enjoy the Meg arc that just felt petty and dramatic.
The complete left turn of Sarahâs character was awful and completely unhinged. There was so much information about higher magic, and obscure jargon and idiosyncratic terms of yore, and yet this story felt unmoored.
Still mostly enjoyed the book based on my love for Gwyneth, the ghosts chatter, and the depiction of the childrenâs characters, as confusing as I found that to be. This was clearly a bridge novel for some greater reveal and hereâs hoping itâs executed in a more adept way that is respectful to the groundwork previously laid.
Wasnât Diana the most bad ass witch in centuries? Why did that get ignored so thatâs sheâs back to being a novice? Also did not enjoy the Meg arc that just felt petty and dramatic.
The complete left turn of Sarahâs character was awful and completely unhinged. There was so much information about higher magic, and obscure jargon and idiosyncratic terms of yore, and yet this story felt unmoored.
Still mostly enjoyed the book based on my love for Gwyneth, the ghosts chatter, and the depiction of the childrenâs characters, as confusing as I found that to be. This was clearly a bridge novel for some greater reveal and hereâs hoping itâs executed in a more adept way that is respectful to the groundwork previously laid.
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