The Black Bird Oracle

Starred review from June 1, 2024

Harkness returns after a six-year hiatus in her "All Souls" series, whose most recent outing was 2018's Time's Convert. She picks up the story as witch and professor Diana Bishop is wrapping up the spring semester at Yale. She and her family--her vampire husband (knight/geneticist Matthew) and their twin Bright Born children--are preparing to head to Oxford. When an unkindness of ravens descends, carrying a magical ring and a message, their plans change. It's time for Diana to meet her father's side of the family, under the leadership of Gwyneth Proctor, an extraordinary witch of great knowledge. The visit carries with it promise and peril, as it pulls Diana into another stream of magic and a new realm of danger--a risk to both her and her children. Harkness balances the novel's threats with deep joy, filling the book with new characters (many of them ghosts), the power of nature, and the connection of family. Affirming Harkness's skill as a storyteller, the 464 pages unfold at a delightful speed, constantly moving the plot forward but also offering a lovely lull that creates a sensory experience; readers will get lost in the novel's details--magic camp flags, the mysterious Ravens' Wood, variously flavored teas, and the history of the Salem witch trials. Harkness is equally good at characterization. She puts a large cast in play while also reaching across the series and wonderfully blending new characters into a family that spans centuries, secrets, and expertises. VERDICT Marked by Harkness's deft evocations and appreciation of learning, this is a book to treasure. The portentous ending, rife with new story threads and threats, will leave readers hoping that she doesn't wait another six years to continue the series.--Neal Wyatt

Copyright 2024 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

June 1, 2024
In the fifth novel in her best-selling All Souls trilogy, Harkness revisits the world of the witch-vampire couple Diana Bishop and Matthew Clairmont, also stars of the popular A Discovery of Witches (2011) book and streaming TV fantasy series. Taking place years after their meeting at Oxford in the twenty-first century and their adventures traveling in the sixteenth century, the happily married couple are making their home in New Haven with their six-year-old twins, Becca and Pip. Plans for the summer are postponed after a raven plummets to the ground bearing a ring for Becca along with an oracle card and a message to ""return home,"" and Diana receives a note from a hitherto unknown great-aunt summoning her home to Ipswich. Magical tests and intrigue abound along with family lore, ghosts, and memories stored in bottles. Readers familiar with Diana's story will especially enjoy this journey through labyrinths and family trees, all with the help of oracle cards leading her to a different path.

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July 15, 2024
Bestseller Harkness carries the contemporary fantasy world of her All Souls series (after 2018’s Time’s Convert) into a new generation with this messy adventure. Pip and Becca, the seven-year-old hybrid vampire-witch twins of New England witch Diana Bishop and French vampire geneticist Matthew de Clermont, are due to be examined for their own eerie talents by the shadowy Congregation. Diana, fearful for them and anxious yet eager to expand her own higher-magic powers, is summoned by ravens to meet her father’s relatives in Ravenswood, near Ipswich, Mass., where she and her children endure occult meetings with assorted family ghosts. She also receives magical tarot coaching from Great-Aunt Gwyneth and battles inimical local witch Meg. Matthew, previously the series’ wolfish romantic lead, here subsides into a supportive househusband so that Diana, fueled by rabid curiosity and sluiced with endless tea, can pursue her supernatural vocation. There’s little heat for romantasy fans to latch onto, and the payoff of the twins’ testing is made to wait for future installments. Readers will wish they had an annotated family tree to understand the tangled web of Diana’s relations. The result is ambitious, long-winded, and a bit of a muddle.

September 1, 2024
Two professors who happen to be a witch and a vampire face new challenges in the fifth volume of what was originally a romantasytrilogy. Despite the conclusive-seeming confrontation that the witch Diana Bishop and the vampire Matthew de Clermont had with the Congregation--the governing body of witches, vampires, and demons--over their taboo relationship at the end of Book 3, The Book of Life (2014), it seems the group will not let this couple and their gifted twin children alone. An ominous visit from ravens, an invitation from a previously unknown great-aunt, and a summons from the Congregation to examine 6-year-old Pip and Becca for the often-feared potential for higher magic lead Diana to travel to Ravenswood, home of her late father's family. As Diana connects with these new relatives, uncovers fresh secrets about her heritage, and begins to travel the first steps of the Dark Path to higher magic, enemies both new and old attempt to block her from proceeding. Like Diana, Harkness treads a tricky path that many others have attempted before her: in this case, trying to extend the magic of her epic trilogy into future volumes without it seeming contrived. The author is not entirely successful in this endeavor, alas. Book 4, Time's Convert (2018), was a reasonably diverting but entirely unnecessary coda that mainly focused on secondary characters from the previous works. This novel returns to the original two protagonists, filling in some gaps from the original trilogy while opening the storyline to multiple future installments. Diana and Matthew have an entertainingly angsty relationship and it's always fun to spend time with them. However, the book's plot retravels a great deal of territory. Harkness has demonstrated enough creativity in her previous books that she could take her tale in a fresh direction; whether she will remains to be seen. Not without its charms and rewards; read on, if you must.

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