In this fifth and latest installment of Deborah Harkness’ All Souls series, Diana Bishop, the academic witch, and Matthew de Clermont, her irresistibly debonair vampire spouse, live in Connecticut with their seven-year-old twins. As they prepare for their annual summer holiday in England, their plans are upended by an occurrence that will lead to the unveiling of family secrets. With her usual thrilling plotting and the exciting combination of the natural and supernatural, Harkness puts her beloved characters in a new and precarious position where the truths revealed may destroy everything they’ve grown together.

Four years after the events of TIME’S CONVERT, Diana and Matthew discover just how difficult life is when you have to confront the truths about yourself and where you come from. The Congregation tells Diana that her children must undergo tests to their magic --- and with this comes a series of painful memories of her assessment as a young witch and all that happened after that. Then she receives a message that she is expected to return home to Ravenswood. At the family farm, she will be asked to fulfill the prophecy that the Proctor generations refer to as The Blackbird Oracle. Gwyneth Proctor, a great-aunt Diana didn’t know existed from a side of her family she thought dead, is now her link to this adventure.

"THE BLACKBIRD ORACLE gives us the most heartfelt look into a difficult family line.... The story is so relatable that nothing in the world it builds will seem strange to its fan base. Deborah Harkness has delivered another slam dunk."

Diana and Matthew travel to the marshes of Ipswich, Massachusetts, to meet Gwyneth. After Gwyneth shows Diana the higher magic that runs through her veins, as well as through her children’s, Diana finds herself torn between the darker magic that has always been a fear of hers and the powers that she could have if she is willing to risk everything with which she has surrounded herself at this time.

What Diana uncovers is a collection of vintage bottles filled with family memories captured through higher magic, including those of her mother’s. But it’s not just these memories that are stored in Ravenswood; the Congregation holds some of the Proctor and Bishop memories, along with those of other powerful witches, as a means of control.

Diana finds out the truth about how higher magic operates and must decide whether or not to embrace the darkness within her to protect her family. Should she allow their children the opportunity to study higher magic, or not risk exposing them to the Congregation and the dark sides they will now have to confront on their own?

Harkness uses a richness of knowledge in the histories of science, medicine and publishing to continue the ever-tactile life of her fantastic witch. She regales her supernatural tales with so many real-life details that her characters, despite their remarkable abilities, feel like they could be your best friend. Through their romances, decisions and life lessons, Harkness develops a world that equally terrorizes and tempts the reader inside. The addition of such issues as parenthood, motherhood, longtime marriage, generational trauma, family expectations, and the risks and rewards of special talents brings the book a depth and breadth of story that makes it hard to put down.

Diana and Matthew, once resolute independent souls who give into a most disturbing romance, are now continuing their family lines, and the stakes could not be higher. Despite the gargantuan overarching otherworldliness, it is hard not to see this group as a regular family with a very dramatic life story.

THE BLACKBIRD ORACLE gives us the most heartfelt look into a difficult family line. Diana does not feel that she has changed much since the previous book, but there is something different and quite moving in how Matthew approaches the threats to his family. It brings a special level of empathy on the part of the reader to the point of worrying that a vampire’s life may be on dangerous ground in terms we regular humans could understand. The story is so relatable that nothing in the world it builds will seem strange to its fan base. Deborah Harkness has delivered another slam dunk.