Deborah Harkness

Deborah Harkness is an American historian and novelist best known for the All Souls trilogy, beginning with A Discovery of Witches in 2011, which follows historian and reluctant witch Diana Bishop as she uncovers a hidden magical manuscript and falls into a relationship with a centuries-old vampire geneticist, blending paranormal romance with the kind of dense historical and scientific detail few genre novelists could bring to the page.

Harkness is a working academic historian specializing in the history of science and magic in early modern Europe, and that scholarly background is woven directly into the All Souls books -- alchemy, genetics, and archival research all function as real plot mechanics rather than set dressing. She has continued the world with further trilogies and prequels, including the Discovery of Witches prequel series set generations before Diana's story.

A new reader should start with A Discovery of Witches, which sets up the world's rules and the Bishop-Clairmont relationship that anchors the trilogy. The novel was adapted into a television series of the same name that ran across three seasons on Sky One in the UK and AMC/Sundance Now in the US, concluding in 2022.