The Black Bird Oracle: A Novel (All Souls Series Book 5)

4.5 | 10,277 ratings

Price: 13.99

Last update: 01-09-2025

About this item

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • Diana Bishop journeys to the darkest places within herself—and her family history—in the highly anticipated fifth novel of the beloved All Souls series, hailed as “your next favorite fantasy read” (Harper’s Bazaar).

“The Black Bird Oracle deftly explores the nexus of memory, history, and parenthood—the magic, pain, and promises mothers pass onto their children.”—Jodi Picoult

Deborah Harkness first introduced the world to Diana Bishop, an Oxford scholar and witch, and vampire geneticist Matthew de Clermont in A Discovery of Witches. Drawn to each other despite long-standing taboos, these two otherworldly 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.

In this stunning new novel, grand in scope, Deborah Harkness deepens the beloved world of All Souls with powerful new magic and long-hidden secrets, and the path Diana finds at Ravenswood leads to the most consequential moments yet in this cherished series.

Old Secrets. Powerful magic. A new era begins.

Bardugo says a story thick with deep magic. You will be enchanted.

Picoult says a fantastical world real enough to touch.

Top reviews from the United States

Paula Chavez Talley

Growing Pians for Diana and Matthew

Reviewed in the United States on August 31, 2024

One of the pitfalls of book series is that the main characters grow stale. I think Deborah Harkness wanted to avoid this, and so instead of merely setting Diana and Matthew on another adventure, she gave them the choice to continue on as before, or actually evolve to the next level. And she gives them that choice right on the pages of the story, so that we can watch them wrestle with the decision.

Actually, the decision is Diana’s, which is one of the main questions the book explores: does a woman have the right to chart her own course, even when a husband and children will be affected. The same question, we learn, was one that was integral to the marriage of Diana’s parents, Rebecca and Stephen. And the course Rebecca chose, to sublimate her talents and interests in deference to her husband’s wishes and her own desire to be a wife and mother, is one that has deep repercussions for Diana.

Matthew does have a role here. Will he make room in his heart for the Diana his wife wants to grow into, and support her efforts to step into the realm of higher magic, or will his fear of the “Dark” and its perceived risks frighten him enough to block her path?

So both Diana and Matthew are challenged to grow as people and creatures of power.

Other things happen, of course, and we meet a whole new cast of characters, some delightful and some not. And we meet Diana and Matthew’s children, Pip and Becca, who are as powerful and quirky and delightful as we might expect of children of a vampire and witch.

But the main story is concerned with personal growth, and how one navigates fear and danger.

Now I want a deck of Black Bird Oracle cards! I think Ms. Harkness should merchandise them, I would certainly buy a pack. :-)

P.S. I should add that we meet the other half of Diana’s family—her father’s clan, the Proctors. Stephen avoided them his entire life, so they are not only new to Diana, but a revelation in terms of what they bring to her (and her children’s) magical heritage. I think my favorite parts of the book are the scenes where Diana is simply sitting with them and learning new magic, and discovering how much they enrich her life.

Christie M.

excellent news n going series!

Reviewed in the United States on December 14, 2024

Packed with action and twists and turns. Beautifully drawn characters Enright this story. I will look forward to book number six.

Melissa

Exciting story, love the Ipswich setting

Reviewed in the United States on July 21, 2024

Book spoilers below!!

The All Souls world is home to me. I love the overall stories, characters, eras, locations - Deb brings everything to life so beautifully and the original trilogy are my "comfort books".

I loved getting to know Diana's Proctor family members, and Ravenswood felt like "home" to me. I love coastal New England, and reading Deb's description of the farm and the layout of the land made it easy to bring it to life in my mind because I am so familiar with the landscape of the MA coast. (I love even more that it's based on an actual farm near Ipswich that you can visit, and I do plan to do so next time I am up that way).

I love ravens, they are magical and mysterious creatures and I was excited to find that they feature so heavily in this book. I loved that Diana is (finally) exploring the higher/darker side of her magic, as it's been hinted at since Book 1 that she has those traits in her.

The reason I am giving this 4 stars is that some things just didn't make sense to me. The book started off on an ominous note with the ravens visiting New Haven, and it felt like it was setting the tone for the rest of the book, which indicated it would be heavy, dark, with a lot of tangled webs. Which it had all of those qualities, which I love. I found myself getting annoyed with Diana in the book, as she was no longer the confident(ish) witch we last saw and she was back to being full of anxiety and unsure of herself. It was like her character development reverted and she was back to square one. Also, in the beginning of the book she promised that the twins would know their heritage and not keep them from their legacy, but she also wanted to keep them from their future once the Congregation examined them. If she truly wants them to inherit their legacy and live up to it, then that means accepting all of it wherever it may lead. One day they would be old enough to decide on their own what path they want to forge, and nothing she does will keep them from it.

Matthew's behavior was weird, and I knew that as soon as he arrived at Ravenswood he would try to control everything. I found it kind of appalling that he arranged for Chris and Miriam to travel there without telling anyone (and if he did, I must have missed that part) and just assumed that all the Proctors would blindly consent to having their DNA analyzed by complete strangers. There was literally no resistance or questioning on their part for that, and I found that to be surprising.

I know that a thread in this book was "shadow", and how our beloved characters confronted their shadow sides. Sarah's behavior was the most surprising to me, and I just didn't understand how the dynamic shifted so much between her and Diana. Again, a lot must have happened in the time between TC and TBBO. I also did not understand how Diana did a 180 when it came to her Bishop relatives. I know they kept a lot of secrets where she is concerned, all for her "safety" from the congregation. They made choices they felt were best, at that time. There just seemed to be so much resentment between Sarah and Diana in this book, and Sarah felt like an outsider to me. Sarah is one of my favorite characters and I just didn't understand why she was portrayed the way she was in this story. She seemed to relish the fact (and revelation) that her and Diana's mother weren't 100% siblings, and that they did not share the same father. Like that made Sarah better than Rebecca, and that just seemed so out of character. Was she maybe jealous of Rebecca and her talents instead? I don't know... but I didn't enjoy seeing Sarah as a bitter and jealous person. And Diana's loyalty to her Bishop heritage seemed tattered once she was in Ipswich. Hopefully this will be explored more in future books.

Then there's Satu. I was surprised to see her return, but not mad. I want to know more about her. We got a glimpse of that in the TV series, and I feel that there is so much to learn about Satu. I hate what she did to Diana in the first book, but I have always felt that she has quite a story to tell and I would like to understand her better.

Some of the other reviews lamented that Marcus, Phoebe, Jack, and Gallowglass weren't present in this book. That's ok that they weren't, it wasn't their time to be.

I liked the cliffhanger, and I am looking forward to Diana's upcoming class and training with the Congregation to be an adept . I am not sure where this story will lead, but I hope that Diana will have the courage to face her heritage and destiny without fear and fully embrace who she is, and that Matthew will not hinder that. Same goes for the twins.

Meg

Was like opening the door to a magical secret garden

Reviewed in the United States on August 1, 2024

Harkness has achieved the unlikely in this fifth book in the discovery of witches series: a book as good as the first one that opens up a whole new world of character development. Many series start to pall after the third or fourth installment, but this was a tour de force that leaves us begging for more. The story was visceral, magical and evocative. I know I will reread and eagerly await the next installment. Brava Professor Harkness. I haven't felt like this since Harry went to Hogwarts. The depth of the Proctor home at Ravenwood was profound and practically tangible. I can smell it.

Spoilers
My only complaint is the dubious right the congregation has to reign over creatures who never agreed to it. It's so egregious it feels like a plot hole. There's no voting, no seeming rhyme or reason of who gets on the witches congregation. Why wasn't Satu permanently expelled from the congregation after an attack on Diana? What laws are the witches required to follow? Each coven appears to be a self governing body but it makes no sense that a single body in a different country could have any authority over creatures around the world, especially when governing without the consent of the governed. 3 representatives also seems like an arbitrarily small number given the complexity of the witches rooms on the island. Where are the staff? I hope some of this is solved in the next book. It's the only thing that really marred my enjoyment. loved the ghosts!

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