He is to stay on the island for a month and write reports for Extremely Upper Management, which warns him to be especially meticulous in his observations. When Extremely Upper Management sends for Linus, he learns that his next assignment is a mission to an island orphanage for especially dangerous kids. Linus clings to the notion that his job is about saving children from cruel or dangerous homes, but really he’s a cog in a government machine that treats magical children as second-class citizens. Linus Baker loves rules, which makes him perfectly suited for his job as a midlevel bureaucrat working for the Department in Charge of Magical Youth, where he investigates orphanages for children who can do things like make objects float, who have tails or feathers, and even those who are young witches. But, that said, there’s good fun to be had here, even for those who might wish for a moratorium on books about vampires, zombies, witches and other things that go bump in the night.Ī tightly wound caseworker is pushed out of his comfort zone when he’s sent to observe a remote orphanage for magical children. Sure, the premise is altogether improbable. Clearly Harkness has great fun with all this, and her background as a literature professor gives her plenty of room to work with, and without, an ounce of pedantry. Will Shakespeare comes onto the scene late, but there’s good reason for that-and maybe a little fodder for the Edward de Vere conspiratorial crowd, too. Meanwhile, Kit Marlowe gets to do some petticoat lifting of his own, even if his adventures lead him to a Bedlam populated by all kinds of unfortunate souls, from a few ordinary wackaloons of yore to a small army of daemons, witches, vampires and other exemplars of the damned and doomed. You promised to accept me as I am-light and dark, woman and witch, my own person as well as your wife.’ ” But then they get to have extremely hot-indeed, unnaturally hot, given the cold blood of the undead-makeup sex, involving armoires and oak paneling and lifted petticoats and gripped buttocks. It’s who you are,’ I said flatly, approaching him in spite of his anger. They argue a lot, too, quibbling about the strangest things: “ ‘You are a vampire.
Asked why the odd couple should attract attention, he remarks matter-of-factly, “Because witches and wearhs are forbidden to marry,” an exchange that affords Diana, and the reader, the chance to learn a new word. There, by happenstance, they meet Christopher Marlowe, who commands an uncommonly rich amount of data about the ways of the otherworld. But, thanks to the magic of time travel, Harkness’ ( A Discovery of Witches, 2011) latest finds witch and Oxford professor Diana Bishop and her lover, scientist and vampire Matthew Clairmont, at the tail end of Elizabethan England, when Shakespeare’s career is about to take off.
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