User:Minh3010/sandbox/Time's Convert
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| Author | Deborah Harkness |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Genre | Contemporary fantasy, romance, vampire, witchcraft, alchemy |
| Publisher | Penguin Random House |
Publication date | September 18, 2018 |
| Publication place | USA |
| Media type | Print (Hardcover, Paperback) |
| Pages | 436 |
| ISBN | 978-0-399-56451-2 |
| Preceded by | All Souls trilogy |
'Time's Convert is a historical - contemporary fantasy novel written by American history professor Deborah Harkness, first published in September 18, 2019 by the publisher Penguin Random House. Starting with an epigraph of Thomas Paine in his Common Sense: "A long habit of not thinking a thing wrong, gives it a superficial appearance of being right, and raises at first a formidable outcry in defense of custom. But the tumult soon subsides. Time makes more converts than reasons.", the story was not about epic adventures as its prequel All Souls trilogy but rather as a recall of the past of Marcus Whitmore - de Clermont before he became a vampire (referred to by the title of the book and Paine's quote) set in the period from March 1762 to September 1817, alongside with the transformation into a vampire of Phoebe Taylor took place in a summer of the 21st century before she could "mate" and get married with Marcus The story was told under three characters' views: Marcus Chauncey McNeil - de Clermont, Phoebe Taylor de Clermont and Diana Bishop. The story is mainly told under the view of Marcus, however, when it is told by Diana Bishop, the author still used the first personal pronoun. The story also referred to many historical document and characters relating to the American Revolution and French Revolution, notably such as George Washington, Jean-Paul Marat, Marie Antoinnette, John Adams, the Marquis de Lafayette and Thomas Paine.
Plot summary
[edit]Phoebe Tayor, oldest daughter of Edward Taylor and Padma Taylor, was having dinner with her whole family on a summer night as her last reunion with her family as a "warmblood" before she became a vampire so that she can "mate" and get married with Marcus Whitmore - de Clermont, son of Matthew de Clermont. After being "sired" (the process of being made into a vampire by another older vampire in the "All Souls trilogy" world) by Miriam, an old vampire and a close friend of the de Clermont family, she became her daughter and a "wearh" (new-born vampire). Phoebe was forbidden to see Marcus and had to stay with Miriam and Freyja de Clermont for 90 days so that she would be ready to live as a vampire among warmbloods and other kinds of creature. During the time being parted from Phoebe, Marcus came to Les Revenants, a castle-like house of the de Clermont family in France, to spend the summer with the family of Matthew de Clermont, his wife Diana Bishop and their two children: Phillip de Clermont and Rebecca de Clermont.
Marcus
[edit]As a "weaver", Diana was able to see the threads of time and emotions from Marcus and realized that he was struggled between terrible memories of the past and deep anxiety for Phoebe's transformation. Hence, she encouraged Marcus to tell her and his family his past. Before becoming a vampire, Marcus was born as Marcus McNeil, oldest child and only son of Obadiah McNeil and Catherine Chauncey in August 1757 - "the day after Ft. William Henry fell to the French"[1], and had a younger sister named Patience McNeil. He was born and raised in a small farm in Hadley, "a small town in western Massachusetts, along the banks of the Connecticut River"[1] Obadiah McNeil was a soldier for the British army in the French and Indian War, and fought and witnessed the massacre in Ft. William Henry, which made him struggled between the loyalty to King George II and his horror of the deaths of so many soldiers. As Marcus recalled, his birth father "ruled over our house and everybody in it".[2] His father's characteristic changed so much that he did nothing other than being drunk and away from home for months, beating Marcus, his mother and his sister. Marcus, otherwise, opposed to his father's loyalty as he grew up. In June 1775, motivated by equality ideas in Common Sense and enraged by his fight with his father two months earlier, Marcus fled from home and enlisted with the help of his neighbor gunsmith Seth Pomeroy in the Continental Army under the command of general John Stark, which resulted in his first battle fight was Battle of Bunker Hill. He took his friend Jimmy Hutchinson to a camp hospital in Havard Yard, where Jimmy later would be cured by Sarah Bishop - Diana Bishop's ancestor. Sarah advised Marcus to go back to Hadley and take care of his mother and sister. However, in 1776, idolizing Thomas Paine's ideas of equality in his Common Sense, Marcus planned to run away to the army again. After having inoculated against smallpox - a spreading epidemic at the time[3], he shot his father as Obadiah beat his mother and Patience. Then he fled from his home with disguising appearance and a fake name "Galen Chauncey". And since then began his life with multiple nicknames. After wandering from New England to New York, he joined the Associators of Pennsylvania, befriending Vanderslice, Adam Swift and Lieutenant Cuthbert, all of whom came from Philadelphia. However, he met Dr. Otto in the army, revealing to him Marcus's medical talent, Marcus, now known as Galen Chauncey and called as "Doc", followed Dr. Otto as a surgeon throughout the battlefield, worked in the medical corps in Morristown and then journeying to Trenton in order to inoculate soldiers against smallpox.
In 1777, when Marcus was working with Dr. Otto in Philadelphia hospital, the battle arrived in a town of Brandywine. While he was curing the soldiers during a battle, a Frenchman approached him and asked him to cure the Marquis de Lafayette. The Frenchman later turned out to be Matthew de Clermont. The medical group with the wounded soldiers then moved to the remote town of Bethlehem in the north of Philadelphia, a place of Moravian religious community in order to avoid the British army. After persuading John Adams not to displace the Bethlehem women, Matthew and Marcus descended from the town to check the wagons suddenly appearing at the foot of the mountain. It turned out that the soldiers, including Vanderslice had to bring the bells from Philadelphia so that their enemies would not melt them to make weapons. Later, when bringing medicine talking to Brother Andrew - a member of the Brethren of the town who had asthma, Marcus was confused with the idea that he had many names and which name he should share with his wife.
Then the army reached Yorktown in 1781, where they encountered with an attack. Marcus was nearly dead when Matthew found him and decided to "sire" him. They went hunting for blood before Matthew sent him on a ship with two vampires - Gallowglass and Davy Gams to sail to Paris. He came to live with Freyja de Clermont - Matthew's sister so she could prepare him to meet her father - Phillipe de Clermont and live as a vampire among other people. After meeting his grandfather - Phillipe, he became Marcus de Clermont. Eight years later, when the French Revolution occurred, he fell in love with Veronique - a female vampire who fought for the equality - and befriended with Jean - Paul Marat, who turned out to be a "daemon". During the French Revolution, Marat and Lafayette had conflicts which, in the end, turned out that Marat had a plan of killing all the aristocrats at the time. He wanted to take Veronique with him to England, but she refused. When Queen Marie Antoinette was executed, worried for a putrid fever spreading in Philadelphia, Marcus came back to the city with Gallowglass, only to find his old friend Vanderslice was nearly dead. He decided to "sire" him (make him a vampire), despite the advice from Gallowglass. He fled with Gallowglass to New York to avoid punishment from the de Clermont family for siring a warmblood without permission. However, because Marcus was too young to sire anyone and had no experience in teaching, Vanderslice and Marcus' relationship became more distant, and finally Vanderslice was dead after a fight. After that, Marcus met Thomas Paine again and witnessed his death.[4] Marcus then moved to New Orleans. Here, he became a famous doctor and met another warmblood called Ransome Fayreweather, being befriended by him and told him his secret. Ransome persuaded Marcus to "sire" him and made his own "house" like the de Clermonts. However, Matthew and Juliette came. Furious at what Marcus had done, they killed almost all Marcus's vampire family, left only eight of them live.
Back to the 21st century
[edit]During 90 days of transformation, Phoebe had to go through many experiences: lightstruck (as her eyes by the time were able to see through the light spectrum), sharp memories, loss of ability to sleep (as her skin became to sensitive to any kinds of cloth or silk), very much high quality hearing and smell compared to warmbloods and suddenly high desire for sexual activity with Marcus. Firstly, Phoebe had to feed from Miriam's blood (as she was her "maker" or vampire mother), then a cat (which she called Persephone and it was still alive after she fed from it), a warmblood woman who was one of those have voluntarily let vampires feed from them for many years. And finally, Phoebe had to set out for her first hunt.
Meanwhile, in Les Revenants, the family found out that Philip - Diana and Matthew's son - is a "weaver" and he even summoned his "familiar" - a griffin called "Apollo" - when he wove his first spell. Rebecca whereas showed signs of blood rage when she bit Matthew and his uncle Baldwin. Baldwin, who then was the head of the de Clermont family, demanded Matthew and Diana to do the blood - rage tests on both their children, which received protests from the rest of the family. In the end, Diana found out that she could fly and remembered that she was spellbound by her parents many times. She and Matthew decided not to hide or protect their children from magic or test the blood-rage on them. On the celebration of Fourth of July, Diana and Marcus performed a fireworks show, which persuaded Baldwin not to discriminate the magic blood in Matthew and Diana's children.[5]
Phoebe's father - Edward Taylor, had a heart attack and got to the hospital. The de Clermont - Bishop family persuaded Miriam to let Phoebe to meet him. In the hospital, Stella - Phoebe's younger sister, insisted on Phoebe changing their father into a vampire to save him, but she refused, so did the de Clermont family. However, Edward recovered and Phoebe came to Sept-Tours to live with her future grandmother - Ysabeau de Clermont - and Freyja and Miriam durng her last of the 90 - day period. Finally, Phoebe officially became a vampire, mated with and got married with Marcus de Clermont, became Phoebe de Clermont.
The final scene is that Marcus and Phoebe came back to Marcus old house in Hadley and decided to stay there.
List of Characters
[edit]| Name | Race | Status | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Marcus McNeil/Marcus Raphael Galen Thomas Chauncey de Clermont | Vampire | Alive | warmblood son of Obahdiah McNeil - vampire son of Matthew de Clermont |
| Phoebe Taylor/Phoebe Alice Najima Catherine Taylor de Clermont | Vampire | Alive | warmblood daughter of Edward and Padma Taylor - vampire daughter of Miriam - wife of Marcus de Clermont |
| Diana Bishop - de Clermont | Witch - Weaver | Alive | adopted daughter of Phillipe de Clermont - wife of Matthew de Clermont |
| Matthew de Clermont | Vampire | Alive | vampire son of Phillipe and Ysabeau de Clermont |
| Ysabeau de Clermont | Vampire | Alive | wife of Phillipe de Clermont |
| Phillipe de Clermont | Vampire | Dead | former chief of house de Clermonts, husband of Ysabeau |
| Baldwin de Clermont | Vampire | Alive | oldest vampire son of Phillipe and Ysabeau, chief of the de Clermont family |
| Freyja de Clermont | Vampire | Alive | vampire daughter of Phillipe and Ysabeau |
| Philip Michael Addison Sorley Bishop-Clairmont | Vampire - Witch - Weaver | Alive | son of Matthew and Diana |
| Rebecca Arielle Bishop - de Clermont | Vampire - Witch | Alive | daughter of Matthew and Diana |
| Edward Taylor | Warmblood | Alive | warmblood father of Phoebe |
| Padma Taylor | Warmblood | Alive | warmblood mother of Phoebe |
| Stella Taylor | Warmblood | Alive | warmblood sister of Phoebe |
| Marthe | Vampire | Alive | servant of the de Clermonts |
| Francoise | Vampire | Alive | servant of the de Clermonts |
| Charles | Vampire | Alive | servant of the de Clermonts |
| Jack de Clermont | Vampire | Alive | vampire son of Matthew and therefore son of Diana |
References
[edit]Category:2011 American novels Category:American fantasy novels Category:Contemporary fantasy novels Category:Debut novels Category:Historical fantasy novels Category:Novels adapted into television shows Category:American vampire novels Category:Witchcraft in written fiction Category:Novels set in Oxford Category:University of Oxford in fiction Category:Bodleian Library
- ^ a b Harkness, Deborah (2018). Time's Convert. New York: Penguin Random House. p. 42. ISBN 978-0-399-56451-2.
- ^ Harkness, Deborah (2018). Time's Convert. New York: Penguin Random House. p. 50. ISBN 978-0-399-56451-2.
- ^ "Smallpox". George Washington's Mount Vernon. Retrieved 2019-07-02.
- ^ Harkness, Deborah (2018). Time's Convert. New York: Penguin Random House. p. 377. ISBN 978-0-399-56451-2.
- ^ Harkness, Deborah (2018). Time's Convert. New York: Penguin Random House. pp. 363–372. ISBN 978-0-399-56451-2.