I received this book for free from my own shelves in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.
Source: my own shelves
The Black Bird Oracle
by
Deborah Harkness
in a Kindle edition that was published by Ballantine Books on July 16, 2024 and has 446 pages.
Explore it on Goodreads or Amazon
Other books by this author which I have reviewed include A Discovery of Witches, Shadow of Night, The Book of Life, Time's Convert
Fifth in the All Souls magical realism fantasy series and revolving around Dr Diana Bishop and her vampire husband, Dr Matthew de Clermont. The focus is on Diana’s family past.
My Take
The Black Bird Oracle is told in first person protagonist point-of-view from Diana’s perspective — ya can’t help but love Diana’s passion for research and history.
The inciting incident is that long-awaited and much-feared letter from the Congregation declaring their intention to test Becca and Pip. Neither Diana nor Matthew intend to allow their children to be used.
It is the scenario that leads to the more detailed back history on Diana’s parents. It’s a shocker to discover there are Proctors alive from Stephen’s side of the family. It’s one that will lead to an incredible historical background and a slew of information on why Stephen left his family. Harkness stretches the mystery of why out forever! And adds to that mystery that contrasts with what Rebecca wanted. It’s an arc that ticked me off with Stephen’s male insistence.
It’ll be an epiphany for Diana with those sentient places like Ravenswood and the towns surrounding Ipswich so much larger than the house in Madison where Diana grew up. Part of her character arc in The Black Bird Oracle is her growth in magic while Matthew must face his own guilts and fears. And learns through play!
While Diana is busy learning, Matthew delves into his passions for carpentry as well as DNA research through the Proctor genealogy. This other branch of magic is not the only learning Diana is absorbing, for she learns of her family’s betrayal and the hatred harbored for Rebecca. The betrayal of Rebecca and Steven’s own daughter.
Hee-hee, the Ravenswood wards don’t like Baldwin. Ooh, Ysabeau gets snarky about something that happened in Jerusalem (during the Crusades).
There’s another epiphany — for us! — when the insider devilry of the Congregation is revealed! Oy. It makes for a terrifying conflict, along with the bigotry Diana grew up with and the battle between Darkness and Light Diana will face.
Harkness makes an interesting contrast between how the Bishops utilize modern technology whereas the Proctors are very old school, although the Proctors do use their magic in everyday life. She also notes how the persecution of weavers caused a power decline. All because of bigotry by other witches. I wonder if, when the Hoares and Proctors married, their blending mixed weavers and Dark Path witches that horrified other witches?
It is a familiar refrain of bigotry that magic is either good or bad, but it actually depends on the witch and how he/she uses it. Like politicians, ahem. Okay, so good politicians seem to be in short supply . . . It seems that curiosity and wonder are key while greed and the desire for power are bad. A minor disagreement is how ghosts should be treated!
That Midsummer Festival sounds like a lot of fun! Those memory bottles are also fascinating as is Matthew’s exploration of Proctor DNA — and a great way to throw in info dumps! We learn so much back history!
All these names! Using the same ones through the generations is so confusing. Harkness doesn’t help matters with how she words some of this. Another confusion is the references to mother, father, brother when used for vampires. It generally refers to their relationship per the vampire who made them. I’m still not sure if I’ve got Diana’s Proctor side worked out correctly!
It’s action, history, a huge, huge range of characters from good to evil with plenty of drama, tension, and excitement.
And it’s critical that the Bishop-de Clermonts have independence and free choice, for there appears to be a prophecy about two children, bright as Moon and Sun.
The Story
About to start their anticipated family vacation in England, an unkindness of blackbirds — ravens — descend upon Diana and Becca. The exchange between Becca and the ravens changes the family plans and finds them heading north to a family Diana had thought extinct.
It seems that Bishops are not allowed in Ipswich. Nor are the Bishop-de Clermont family able to escape the tests.
The Characters
Professor Diana Bishop teaches at Yale. She now wears the Book of Life. Dr Matthew de Clermont is a vampire who has recently become the scion of his own family, the Bishop -Clairmonts, a sub-clan of the de Clermonts. Their children, twins, are Becca (she talks to feathers, birds, and trees) and Pip. Tamsy is Becca’s historical doll with some odd talents. Apollo is Pip’s griffin familiar. Ardwinna is Diana’s deerhound. Jack is Matthew’s great-grandson who inherited Matthew’s blood rage. Benjamin Fuchs is one of Matthew’s sons with the blood rage and Janet is one of Fuchs’ Bright Born descendants through Matthew (his great-granddaughter). Cailleach is a two-foot-tall owl. Fiachra is the raven friendly with Becca as well as an old friend of Gwyneth and Tally.
They’re living in Marcus’ house in New Haven. They usually spend the summer at their house in Woodstock, just outside Oxford where Diana can haunt the Bodleian Library. Corra had been Diana’s firedrake familiar.
Dr Chris Roberts is a chemist at Yale and working with Matthew on the Bishop family genetics. Chris knows Ike Mather from Yale. His great-aunt Hortense is a ghost. Dr Miriam Shepherd is another scientist and Matthew’s lab partner.
Rebecca Bishop had been Diana’s mother who had dabbled in dark magic; Stephen Proctor had been her father and had been a weaver with Bennu as his heron familiar. Aunt Sarah Bishop, Rebecca’s sister, and Emily Mather, a direct descendant of the enslaved Tituba, had raised Phoebe when her parents were murdered. Be Blessed is Sarah’s shop in Madison. Joanna Bishop had been Diana’s maternal grandmother who had married Joe Green, the Madison chief of police (she’d had an affair for seven years with Thomas Floyd when they were reunited after the war, and Thomas is Rebecca’s father). Mary Beth had been Diana’s imaginary childhood friend. Vivian Harrison is the head of the Madison coven.
Phoebe and Marcus de Clermont were married in Time’s Convert, 4. They have Marcus’ childhood home in Hadley, Massachusetts.
Ipswich, Massachusetts, is . . .
. . . the home of Ravenswood where Professor GE Proctor, Great-aunt Gwyneth, lives. She has a degree in geology with a doctorate from Johns Hopkins and practices alchemy in the barn. A relative Diana never knew existed. The Old Place is the original house. Orchard Farm and the Ravens’ Wood, a source of power, are part of the estate, whew!
Stephen and his troubled twin Naomi’s father was Lieutenant Taliesin Proctor, a.k.a. the Specter with the OSS and SOE in WWII and then the editor of The Ipswich Chronicle.
Lt. Taliesen, Gwyneth, and Morgana‘s parents had been Taliesin “Tally” Proctor and Ruby Addison — and Diana’s great-grandparents. Somehow, Damaris “DeeDee” Proctor had also been Gwyneth’s mother and Diana’s great-grandmother. Aunt Gladys Proctor is obsessed with her dermatological distress. Elizabeth Proctor had been Gwyneth’s granny and the head of magical education in Ipswich.
Granny Alice, another ghost and great-grandmother from the 19th century, has a unique filing system; she’d been the Congregations’s librarian. Constance Proctor had had a little owl named Minerva. Julius Proctor had been lost at sea.
The Thirsty Goat is a café hangout for witches. Talk about hostile! Ann Downing, high priestess of the Ipswich coven, and the jealous Margaret “Meg” Skelling work at the café. Other Ipswich witches include Goody Katrina Wu, a.k.a. Siyu, is the chair of divination and prophecy; Julie Eastey is the mistress of coven ceremonies and Diana’s cousin (she talks to feathers, the wind and casts spells to keep fishermen safe) while Richard is her husband and Susie “Zee” is her sister, an accountant who had studied English lit; Hitty Braybrooke is the coven parliamentarian; Betty Prince is a coven elder and spellmaster, historian, and secretary, and she’s married to Harold; Grace; Tracy Eastey is Julie’s niece and Zee’s daughter (I think Rose, Jake, and Abigail are Tracy’s kids); DeMarco; James Perkins is the coven historian; the petty Hannah Varnum and Phoebe Wildes; Putnam Mather is in a wheelchair and highly respected — he’d been known as Put-Put and had been a soldier in the Navy (he was the son of Johnathan Mather and his wife, Constance Proctor Mather); Lucy Nguyen is Ike’s mother; Junior, a.k.a. Isaac “Ike” Mather is Putnam’s grandson and a lawyer who had been a Marine; Tike and Courtney Mather are Ike’s grown children; William has a too-small backyard; and, Suzie “Essie” is an Eastey cousin.
The Perleys are not pro-Proctor. The Greens and Vinsons used their own course of training. The Redds and Toothakers let their ghosts roam willy-nilly. Jacksons, Varnums, Greens, and Princes are more witch families. The Seagull sounds like a pub. The Squid and Anchor is an inn. The Nestling provides clams.
Sept-Tours, France, is . . .
. . . home base for the vampiric de Clermonts. Ysabeau, a.k.a. La Serenissima, is the matriarch of the family. Nemesis is the goddess Ysabeau served. Philippe de Clermont had been her husband. Baldwin (Philippe was his father) is the current annoying head of the family. Helmut is his assistant. Hugh had been his brother. Gallowglass, a.k.a. William Sorley, is the legendary summer wanderer. Davy Hancock (with his gammy leg) will be of help. Alain Le Merle, another vampire, had been Philippe’s squire and still serves the family. Marthe and Victoire are Ysabeau’s trusted companions.
Janet Gowdie is Matthew’s granddaughter born in 1841, a weaver, and still alive. Griselda “Grissel” Gowdie had been Janet’s mother at Salem, born by Granny Janet Gowdie, the banshee of Auldearn, in the Covesea caves. Granny Isobel was Granny Janet’s mother who had witch and vampire blood.
The Congregation is . . .
. . . a council of nine supernaturals that includes Agatha Wilson, who is a daemon partnered with Sarah and a de Clermont friend; Fernando Gonçalves, a vampire who had been Hugh de Clermont’s mate is the de Clermont representative; Sidonie Von Borcke and Satu Järvinen (a weaver) are witches and enemies, although Satu has been replaced with Tinima Toussaint.
Isola della Stella is the Congregation’s headquarters on an island in Venice where the Labyrinth is located. Roberto Rio, a daemon, a.k.a. Robert Fludd, drew up the plans. The original buildings were designed by Lombardo and Philippe. Isola Piccolo holds the memory palace. The Celestina complex is one of the buildings there. Jacopo is a porter.
The now-dead (yay) Peter Knox had been a representative and a fearsome enemy. Blood rage is an inherited genetic condition. Mary Lyon had been an assistant principal at the Ipswich Female Seminary and decided to found Miss Lyon’s seminary, a.k.a. Mount Holyoke. Elihu Yale and Increase Mather had been magic-using faculty. Wilder Hall has an interesting attic where Emily Dickinson left treasures. Bobby Williams had been Morgana’s date.
Elizabethan England, 1590 . . .
. . . was in Shadow of Night, 2 where Goody Alsop had been a weaver who taught Diana. Tom Harriot had been the friend with a love for mechanical gizmos. Mary Sidney had been a human scientist.
Salem, late 1600s
John Proctor, a weaver and many-times great-grandfather was an ancestor back in 1692 and a victim of the Salem witch trials with his own bigotry. Granny Dorcas Hoare is a ghost from 1692, killed on paper. Bridget Bishop is considered a traitor; I think Bridget had been married to Edward Bishop and Rebecca was their child, who then gave birth to Joanna, Diana’s grandmother. Giles Corey had been pressed to death. Goody Dorothy Nurse. Others who died in gaol included Ann Foster, Sarah Osborne, Lydia Dustin, Roger Toothaker, and Mercy Good. Agnes Gray of Elgin.
Tituba had been bought by Rev. Parris. Governor Phips shut down the Salem trials; his wife, Lady Mary, paid the fees for Tituba’s imprisonment. The Reverend Cotton Mather’s son, the lascivious Creasy, had been one of Emily’s ancestors. Granny Dorcas with her kids and William Proctor, when he was released from gaol, also fled to Maine. Tamsin “Tamsy” Proctor is Dorcas’ granddaughter. William Proctor and his wife, Tabitha, who tried to mend Will’s broken heart, had had twins, Margaret and Mary and raised Grace Mather, TItuba’s daughter. Grace’s eldest daughter was named Tituba Mather. The Proctor genealogy also includes William Hoare, Elizabeth Bassett, and Creasy. Thorndike Proctor opened up the wood and promised to keep it a sacred place. Sparks Ordinary had been a pub in Dorcas’ time.
Venice, 1797
Domenico Michele was the doge at the time. Santoro is still the de Clermont majordomo.
An apotropaic mark is a symbol intended to ward of evil. There are three magics: Lightness, Darkness, and Shadow, which encompasses the darker magics, which are thought to be too addictive to be handled safely. The Dark Path uses the darker magic. In the higher magics, the techne, there are three levels of mastery: Novitiates, Initiates, and Adepts. The craft of memory is a branch that preserves history for future generations. Memory bottles preserve memories. Sometimes the memory evaporates, sometimes it can be re-bottled.
A weaver, a.k.a. knotter, is a powerful witch with daemon blood who can timewalk. Diana had been searching for the elusive Ashmole 782, a manuscript (A Discovery of Witches, 1).
It’s interesting that Diana sees alchemy as an early form of modern chemistry. A spell-loom is a traditional way to preserve the power of magic. Goody is a title of respect for women. The Crossroads is a test that takes place in Ravens’ Wood. Captain Thomas Lloyd had been a British soldier in WWII. Elsewhere is a real place between worlds. The Oak King and the Holly King are part of the Litha rituals. The Good Juju is Julie’s boat while the Bad Juju is the dinghy. Giordano Bruno had been a sixteenth-century mystic who wrote The Heroic Frenzies. Francis Galton was a proponent of eugenics. Brenda is the Bishop-de Clermont’s regular mail carrier in New Haven.
The Cover and Title
The cover is a radial gradient of deep blue to royal blue with the profile of a raven, his head turned to look over his shoulder, in the center. Around him are stars and a golden compass. All the text is in white with the author’s name at the top with an info blurb beneath it. The title is centered over most of the cover with the information about it being a novel beneath this.
The title refers to a pack of oracle cards, The Black Bird Oracle, that is a point of envy.
