Deborah Harkness at First Parish Church

Harvard Book Store welcomes DEBORAH HARKNESS—#1 New York Times bestselling author of A Discovery of Witches, Shadow of Night, The Book of Life, Time’s Convert, and The World of All Souls—for a discussion of her highly anticipated fifth novel in the All Souls series, The Black Bird Oracle.

Ticketing

There are two ticketing options for this event. Books will be pre-signed by the author. There will be a photo line following the presentation.

Book-Included Ticket: Includes admission for one and one hardcover copy of The Black Bird Oracle pre-signed by the author.

Admission-Only Ticket: Includes admission for one.

Photo Line Guidelines

• PRH has partnered with GH Prime Media to take photos for the photo line.
• Attendees will receive a link via email to access their photo after the event.
• Attendees will be released by row into the phono line. Please expect some wait time during the photo line.
• Those who purchase a book will have priority placement in the photo line.
• Books will be pre-signed by the author. There will be no personalization/signings in the photo line.
• We will have pre-signed copies of the author's backlist titles for sale at the event, along with her new title.

About The Black Bird Oracle

Deborah Harkness first introduced the world to Diana Bishop, Oxford scholar and witch, and vampire geneticist Matthew de Clairmont in A Discovery of Witches. Drawn to each other despite long-standing taboos, these two other-worldly beings found themselves at the center of a battle for a lost, enchanted manuscript known as Ashmole 782. Since then, they have fallen in love, traveled to Elizabethan England, dissolved the Covenant between the three species, and awoken the dark powers within Diana’s family line.

Now, Diana and Matthew receive a formal demand from the Congregation: They must test the magic of their seven-year-old twins, Pip and Rebecca. Concerned with their safety and desperate to avoid the same fate that led her parents to spellbind her, Diana decides to forge a different path for her family’s future and answers a message from a great-aunt she never knew existed, Gwyneth Proctor, whose invitation simply reads: It’s time you came home, Diana.

On the hallowed ground of Ravenswood, the Proctor family home, and under the tutelage of Gwyneth, a talented witch grounded in higher magic, a new era begins for Diana: a confrontation with her family’s dark past, and a reckoning for her own desire for even greater power—if she can let go, finally, of her fear of wielding it.

Event Venue & Nearby Stays

First Parish Church, 1446 Massachusetts Ave, Cambridge, United States