He might be the more experienced ghost, but it was Emily who understood the metaphysics of their situation. Perhaps it will be easier when they don’t need us anymore, Philippe said in a gentler tone. What was he thinking, barking at her as if she were a servant? Since she’d died, the witch had been his constant companion, cutting his loneliness in two. It was a constant reminder of how inconsequential he had become.Įmily’s face fell, and Philippe silently cursed himself. Of all the things Philippe disliked about being dead-the inability to touch his wife, Ysabeau his lack of smell or taste the fact that he had no muscles for a good sparring match-invisibility topped the list. He was perched nearby, studying his own transparent fingers. Not that I’ve noticed, Philippe de Clermont replied shortly. Atop one of Sept-Tours’ round towers, Emily Mather pressed a diaphanous hand against the spot in the center of her chest that even now was heavy with dread.ĭoes it ever get easier? Her voice, like the rest of her, was almost imperceptible. All they were composed of was memories and heart. She has received Fulbright, Guggenheim, and National Humanities Center fellowships, and her most recent scholarly work is The Jewel House: Elizabethan London and the Scientific Revolution.Ghosts didn’t have much substance. Harkness has published scholarly articles on topics such as the influence of theatrical conventions on the occult sciences, scientific households, female medical practice in early modern London, medical curiosity, and the influence of accounting practices on scientific record keeping. She is currently a professor at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, where she teaches European history and the history of science. Having spent more than a quarter of a century as a student and scholar of history, Harkness holds degrees from Mount Holyoke College, Northwestern University, and the University of California at Davis. The popular television adaptation of A Discovery of Witches, starring Theresa Palmer and Matthew Goode, was released in 2019 by Sky/Sundance Now, and also broadcast on AMC. The All Souls series has been translated in thirty-eight languages. The first book in Harkness’s beloved All Souls series, A Discovery of Witches, was an instant New York Times bestseller and the series has since expanded with the addition of subsequent NYT bestsellers, Shadow of Night (2012), The Book of Life (2014), and Time’s Convert (2018), as well as the companion reader, The World of All Souls. Deborah Harkness is a #1 New York Times bestselling author who draws on her expertise as an historian of science, medicine, and the history of the book to create rich narratives steeped in magical realism, historical curiosity, and deeply human questions about what it is that makes us who we are.

The book of life by deborah harkness