# A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness

### A Discovery of Witches

**Deborah Harkness** · All Souls, book 1 of 3 (complete) · [https://houseofareader.com/books/a-discovery-of-witches](https://houseofareader.com/books/a-discovery-of-witches)

A historian who refuses to use her magic calls up a manuscript in the Bodleian that every creature in Europe has been looking for, and a fifteen-hundred-year-old vampire geneticist arrives to see it. Academic, unhurried, and very interested in wine.

- Spice: 2/5 — Warm. Restrained for most of the first book, with a slow escalation across the trilogy.
- Romance prominence: 4/5
- Plot: 3/5
- Worldbuilding: 4/5
- Darkness: 2/5
- Writing craft: 4/5
- Burn: slow
- Tropes: forbidden-romance, slow-burn, touch-her-and-die, academy, fated-mates
- Creatures: vampires, witches, demons
- Setting: Oxford, and a French château with a long memory
- POV: first person
- Ending: happy ever after, ends on a cliffhanger
- Audience: adult
- Content warnings: violence, abduction, torture, miscarriage
- Best for: Readers who want a possessive vampire and a completed trilogy at a low spice level.
- Last verified: 2026-08-28

## Sources

- https://openlibrary.org/search?q=A+Discovery+of+Witches+Deborah+Harkness

## What to read next

- [Ninth House](https://houseofareader.com/books/ninth-house) by Leigh Bardugo — spice 2/5. Readers who want dark academia where the darkness is the point, not the aesthetic.
- [A Dowry of Blood](https://houseofareader.com/books/a-dowry-of-blood) by S.T. Gibson — spice 3/5. Readers who want dark romantasy with prose that would survive being read aloud.
- [The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue](https://houseofareader.com/books/the-invisible-life-of-addie-larue) by V.E. Schwab — spice 2/5. Readers who want a devil love interest and a standalone they can finish tonight.
- [Emily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Faeries](https://houseofareader.com/books/emily-wildes-encyclopaedia-of-faeries) by Heather Fawcett — spice 1/5. ACOTAR readers who want the fae bargains with wit instead of spice.

---

Ratings are editorial judgements applied against a published scale at
https://houseofareader.com/lessons/spice, not aggregated reader scores. Editorial policy:
https://houseofareader.com/lessons/how-we-choose. No affiliate links, no sponsored placements.