The Book of Life,book three of Deborah Harkness' All Souls trilogy, follows Matthew and Diana as they return to the present and reunite with their loved ones under tragic circumstances. Determined to find the last missing pages of the Book of Life (a.k.a Ashmole 782), they must build new alliances and face old foes.
This final installment was quite similar to Shadow of Night in the sense that the author had too many ideas regarding the plot, the subplots and the characters. And, instead of making difficult choices, she decided to keep all of her ideas, and work with everything she had which, in the end, it didn't pay off as there were too many loose ends and no real sense of closure.
The never ending subplots and the appearance of new characters who did not bring anything to the main plot participated in slowing down the story and its pacing. I truly believe that with a bit more editing and sticking to the original cast, especially the enemies present in A Discovery of Witches, the plot would have been much better. Gerbert, Satu and Knox were the main characters opposing Diana and Matthew since book one. It would have been perfect to continue with them, going deeper with their characters and show how dangerous and powerful they are instead of propelling some new character out of nowhere into the role of the mastermind villain.
Despite the fact my All Souls trilogy reading experience is negative, I must say that Deborah Harkness' style is amazing. She is extraordinary when it comes to describe landscapes, works of art, and architecture as well as alchemical illustrations (which is not surprising considered that she is herself a historian of science professor). But when it comes to developing characters, making them grow, and having them earn their skills I must say that she is not totally successful.
There is no real moment in The Book of Life, even in A Discovery of Witches and Shadow of Night, where Matthew realises that he is abusive, and truly decides to change. As for Diana, she starts off as this intelligent and independent woman with a brilliant career as a history of science professor ahead of her to someone who loses herself through her unconditional love for Matthew becoming unable to think for herself as well as being dependent to her husband whom treats her like a child. This is why it was extremely difficult to root for either of them as characters but also to support their romance which I consider absolutely unhealthy.
What was also missing for me as I was reading Deborah Harkness' All Souls trilogy was that I did not think that vampires were acting like vampires. None of them were really using their vampiric abilities instead they were constantly talking and making empty threats while drinking a glass of fancy red wine. This is also true for the way witches were depicted and how, instead of showing us their powers and how they use it, the author was continuously telling us of how good, how skilled and how powerful Diana and some other witches were without proving it. I faced a similar issue with the status that the daemons held in this series. Daemons did not have real powers or abilities compared to vampires or witches and, for this reason, they were disregarded by the other two species as not important. And here again, I have trouble understanding why none of the daemon characters couldn't have played a much bigger role in the search for Ashmole 782 alongside Diana and Matthew as it would have been interesting to see how disruptive a friendship between one member of each species can create a sense of fear within the Congregation and how it could fracture its very power.
To conclude, unlike Diana's abilities to weave spells and tie knots, Deborah Harkness had difficulties tying her main plot and subplots together which resulted in me not being able to have a real sense of closure at the end of book 3. The All Souls trilogy wasn't an interesting and enjoyable read but it is probably because romance urban fantasy isn't a genre for me.
Harkness, D., The Book of Life, London, Headline Publishing Group, 2014.