All Souls Witchy Women Podcast

There are book purists and TV show purists and sometimes, let’s face it, the twain never shall meet...and that may just be a good thing. But as A Discovery of Witches fans who love Deborah Harkness’ books for some reasons and the TV adaptation of A Discovery of Witches for others, as a trio we generally do a dance in and around both. Nikki saw a sticker in a car window recently that got us thinking. The sticker read, “The Book was Better,” which basically implied that no screen adaptation ever in the history of the world could possibly be better than the book it was based on. We don’t agree with that sentiment generally but do understand where it comes from. Anyway with this in mind, here is our first podcast on the A Discovery of Witches Season 2 adaptation. In this one we talk about alllllll the things we loved (or at least a lot of them). In our next podcast, we’ll tackle some choices that had us less enthralled. It is not a perfect world after all. We hope you enjoy this and do let us know what yo

The Discovery of Witches Season 2 trailer is out and we are so excited we decided to do a podcast breaking down what we think it shows us about the upcoming season. We suspect you, too, heard it. We're referring to the squeals around the world when the A Discovery of Witches Season 2 trailer was released last week at New York ComicCon. Yes, we had to do the con virtually this year. But it was still amazing to listen to the panel of cast members — Teresa Palmer, Matthew Goode, Edward Bluemel, and Adelle Leonce — talk about making the second season and then see the TRAILER!!! We hope you’ll join us as we squeal through a podcast discussing what we saw. We also hope you’ll take a listen to the podcast we did a while ago talking about scenes from Shadow of Night that we hope make it to the screen. In case you wondered what our squealing faces look like, we recorded this episode on video. You can watch it on our newly launched YouTube channel. Spoiler alert: our resident cat, whose name is not Tabitha bu

No doubt about it: These are challenging times. We turned to our favorite book series, the All Souls Trilogy, for the best survival strategies. We hope it helps. #WeAreAllSouls When we recorded our last podcast episode we certainly didn’t think that our next one would be recorded in the midst of a pandemic and, yet, here we are. In a shockingly small period of time, we’ve been thrown into a world that is barely recognizable. People are working on the front lines, people aren’t working at all, or they’re trying to work from home, which brings its own set of challenges. Despite all the chaos, we have this notion that we can keep all the balls in the air. And as the lockdowns, stay-at-home orders, and self-isolation continue, the veneer of our calm is starting to crack. In light of all the life changes we’re experiencing right now, we thought we would take a look at the survival strategies of our favorite characters in Deb Harkness’ All Souls Trilogy. With any luck a few of these will help all of us co

Is it ever good to keep a secret? Are secrets really lies in disguise? We discuss this and more in our Secrets in the All Souls Trilogy podcast. Come join us! You can’t go more than about 25 pages in Deborah Harkness’ All Souls Trilogy without someone tripping over a secret—either one they kept or one they discovered or one they are being forced to maintain. The whole damn looking for Ashmole 782 is about trying to uncover the secret(s) that it holds for daemons, witches, and vampires. Keeping secrets never goes well, or at least almost never….so in this podcast, Secrets in the All Souls Trilogy, we’re taking a look at secrets and the trouble they cause, both in A Discovery of Witches and in real life.  Other Stuff You Should Know: The All Souls Discussion Group on Facebook is currently doing a Shadow of Night real-time read-along, and we are partnering with them to do giveaways during that multi-month event. We’ll be doing our giveaways during some of the full moons that occur during the read-along bec

As we eagerly await the arrival of A Discovery of Witches Season 2, we decided to talk about the scenes we hope make it from the book to the show. Listen in to see if you agree. This podcast episode was especially fun for us because we actually recorded it in the same room rather than from three different states in the U.S. Not only that, but we were joined by our honorary witchy friend, Denise, who is also a fan of Deb Harkness' amazing All Souls Trilogy. Yup, four witchy women in one room, libations and lots of thoughts and feelings about A Discovery of Witches Season 2. Life just doesn’t get much better than that. Other Stuff You Should Know: As we mention in the podcast, the All Souls Discussion Group on Facebook is currently doing a Shadow of Night real-time read-along, and we are partnering with them to do giveaways during that multi-month event. We’ll be doing our giveaways during some of the full moons that occur during the read-along because, well, we’re witches and fans of the moon goddess in

Weren't able to get to All Souls Con 2019 in Wales? No worries. We've got you covered in this Look Back at All Souls Con 2019 podcast. One of us — okay, it was Nikki, and our trusty intern, Kaitlyn — took the trek over the pond and made it to All Souls Con 2019 in Cardiff, Wales. Amid the tornado doodles (explanation in podcast), Nikki took notes, lots of them, and she shares all her details about the Con and what happened. It's a virtual trip to the Con, with Janet and Ashley sharing their reactions. So grab a glass of wine (of course) and join us as we chat up all things All Souls Con 2019. We reference Nikki's post on Deborah Harkness and her talk about how We Are All Souls at the con. If you haven't read it, here’s the link. Housekeeping details: We’ve read the entire All Souls Trilogy and will try to stay on topic, but we may forget or digress or whatever so consider yourself warned if you’ve only read one of the books. For the record, this particular podcast is entirely focused on the TV versi

Welcome to All Souls Witchy Women and our podcast on Adapting A Discovery of Witches for TV. The material from any book takes on a different feel once it is adapted for the screen and the first season of A Discovery of Witches is no exception. In this podcast episode we’re going to dig into all those differences. We don’t want to frame this conversation in a way where we pit the book against the show because that kind of comparison isn’t fair to either medium or our favorite author, Deborah Harkness. Instead we’ll talk about some of the differences and how we feel about them.Before you jump in with us, we’ve got a few notes. Spoiler Alert: We’re talking about all eight episodes. We'll be discussing major changes, additions from the book or things that needed a visual medium to showcase, things that didn’t change much, and things that we were worried about but shouldn’t have been because #debsgotthis. Housekeeping details: We’ve read the entire All Souls Trilogy and will try to stay on topic, but we may

Welcome to All Souls Witchy Women Podcast Episode 10: The Use of Music in A Discovery of Witches, Season 1. Music plays a critical role in setting the scene for a TV show or movie and nowhere is that more obvious than in A Discovery of Witches. Gifted composer Rob Lane wrote the score and you’ll hear his music woven through nearly every scene. We could devote an entire podcast just to that. For this episode though, we’re talking about the creative use of other music in the season, the music that is not official soundtrack music but rather songs chosen to help make a particular emotional point. We’ll listen to snippets of these amazing songs and artists and then break down why we think this particular song and this particular artist was the exact right choice to build the emotional tension and move along the storyline. Let’s get listening! Housekeeping details: We’ve read the whole All Souls Trilogy and will try to stay on topic if we say a particular show is going to only cover A Discovery of W

Welcome to All Souls Witchy Women Podcast Episode 9: The Deborah Harkness Interview. Really do we need to say anything more? Recently we had the opportunity to spend 30 minutes with Deborah Harkness talking about A Discovery of Witches — the best-selling books and the already-super popular TV adaptation by Bad Wolf TV. (The show was the most successful show to date for both Sundance Now and Shudder, the streaming channels that made the show available to American and Canadian audiences.) One of the awesome things about this interview is that it happened to take place on a day when we were all at Janet’s house, a house that we renamed the Bishop House because it expanded to make room for us all. But you don't want to hear about that. You want to hear what Deb had to say in this interview that she said was the first she had done about the TV show with anyone outside of her family. We feel honored.

Welcome to All Souls Witchy Women Episode 8: The A Word, our episode about our hopes and dreams for the TV adaptation of Deborah Harkness' A Discovery of Witches. With the TV adaptation of A Discovery of Witches about to become available on Sundance Now and Shudder for U.S. and Canadian fans (and fans-to-be), we decided we needed to go a step beyond our blog post about the eight scenes we hope to see adapted from the book and talk more fully about our hopes for the show. Among the things we discuss is how we hope the characters develop, Matthew and Diana to Sarah and Emily and Ysabeau. We also talk about the scenery — the Bishop house!! — and, of course the magic and our favorite quotes we hope get cut and pasted into the script. W Did we mention the giveaway? Here's how to win!To celebrate this momentous occasion, we're doing an international giveaway too. We'll be giving away a signed copy of Deb Harkness' The World of All Souls AND a signed copy of her newest book, Time’s Convert. To enter, all you h

Welcome to All Souls Witchy Women Episode 7: The T Word, our Time’s Convert review. We discuss what we loved, our favorite quotes, and what made us go hmmmm. We veered a bit off course from our usual podcast thematic format to do a review of Deborah Harkness’ new bestseller, Time’s Convert. The short version is WE LOVED THIS BOOK! But that would be a rather short podcast wouldn’t it? So here’s breakdown of what we discuss: our favorite quotes, what we liked about the three interwoven storylines (with some delicious background information from Deb’s book tour stop at the Georgia Center for the Book in Decatur, Georgia, which Ashley and Nikki were lucky enough to attend), and then we end the podcast with some bits from the book that made us go hmmmm. We hope you enjoy the podcast and would love to hear your comments too. What were your favorite parts of Time’s Convert? Housekeeping details: We’ve read the whole All Souls Trilogy and will try to stay on topic if we say a particular show is going to only cov

Welcome to the All Souls Witchy Women Podcast Episode 6: The S Word, in which we discuss the power of scent. Scent plays a powerful role in our perception of the world around us. Scent transports us to different times and places. It stimulates our salivary glands and make our mouths water. Scent warns us that danger is near. None of this is surprising when you consider that smell is the most sensitive of our senses and the first to develop. Whether it’s Matthew’s cloves and cinnamon or Diana’s honeysuckle and more, scent abounds in the All Souls Trilogy. Join us as we break down this odiferous theme and the role it plays in the books we all love to talk about. Housekeeping details: We’ve read the whole All Souls Trilogy and will try to stay on topic if we say a particular show is going to only cover A Discovery of Witches, but we may forget or digress or whatever so consider yourself warned if you’ve only read one of the books. For the record, this particular podcast seems to be fairly safe for those who’

Welcome to the All Souls Witchy Women Podcast Episode 5: The F Word, Part Deux, in which we discuss fathers —the good, the bad, and everything in between. In May, we did a special Mother’s Day episode and we had so much fun that it only felt fair to show the fathers some love. So in this episode we discuss the fathers of the All Souls Trilogy and the  special brand of love that they bring to their children.   If you’ve been keeping track (and faithfully subscribing — you ARE faithfully subscribing, right?) you'll know  that we’ve already recorded a podcast with the F word — “fear” — so we’re calling this F Word Part Deux. Housekeeping details: We’ve read the whole All Souls Trilogy and will try to stay on topic if we say a particular show is going to only cover A Discovery of Witches, but we may forget or digress or whatever so consider yourself warned if you’ve only read one of the books. Also this podcast is labeled explicit because we sometimes swear and we’re going to talk about sex because, well, the

Welcome to All Souls Witchy Women Podcast Episode 4: The D Word. In this episode we discuss desire and how it impacts just about everything in the All Souls Trilogy. Deborah Harkness gave us a lot to talk about in this episode. We discuss how desire impacts characters differently, how Diana learns to harness her desire (and in the process comes to a better understanding of herself), and how desire serves to motivate us in ways that we might not think about. As usual, we sneak in some personal observations and this time around we sneak in a little sex talk for good measure because, really, how can you talk about desire and not talk about sex! Come hang out with us for awhile! Housekeeping details: We’ve read the whole All Souls Trilogy and will try to stay on topic if we say a particular show is going to only cover A Discovery of Witches, but we may forget or digress or whatever so consider yourself warned if you’ve only read one of the books. Also this podcast is labeled explicit because we sometimes swear

Welcome to this week’s All Souls Witchy Women Podcast Episode 3: The M Word. This episode is dedicated to all the strong mothers, surrogate mothers, and adoptive mothers in the All Souls Trilogy. Deborah Harkness’ All Souls Trilogy is about many things but it is above all else an ode to strong women — and the mothers who raised them. Since we’ve  benefited from the love of our own mothers, our friends’ mothers, and women who weren’t our mothers but still made big impressions on our lives, we decided to dedicate an episode to all of the mothers out there — because if our mommas taught us one thing, it was to say thank you. Housekeeping details: We’ve read the whole All Souls Trilogy and will try to stay on topic if we say a particular show is going to only cover A Discovery of Witches, but we may forget or digress or whatever so consider yourself warned if you’ve only read one of the books. Also this podcast is labeled explicit because we sometimes swear and we’re going to talk about sex because, well, the

Welcome to this week’s All Souls Witchy Women Podcast Episode 2: The F Word. In this episode we discuss why fear is perhaps THE emotion that Diana (and others) need to face in order to move forward and discover their true selves . No one likes to be afraid and we all would prefer to avoid fear at all costs. In that sense, fear is the great equalizing emotion. But what if facing our fears was the best — the only — way forward? Our best option for getting unstuck? For large parts of her life Diana (and others) let fear control them. In this episode we look at how fear can hold you back and how facing fear is sometimes the only way to truly discover yourself. Housekeeping details: We’ve read the whole All Souls Trilogy and will try to stay on topic if we say a particular show is going to only cover A Discovery of Witches, but we may forget or digress or whatever so consider yourself warned if you’ve only read one of the books. Also this podcast is labeled explicit because we sometimes swear and we’re going to ta

Welcome to this week’s All Souls Witchy Women Podcast Episode 1: The O Word. In this episode we discuss why Outlander fans should run, not walk, to read the All Souls Trilogy by Deborah Harkness.  We met over Outlander and now we’re adding to our obsession list with the All Souls Trilogy. In this, our FIRST!!!!, podcast, we discuss how the book series are similar, how they're different, and, most importantly, why we almost guarantee that if you like Diana Gabaldon’s Outlander, you’ll fall for A Discovery of Witches, Shadow of Night, and The Book of Life. An epic love story, historical fiction, time travel — seriously, why aren’t you reading already? — the books are deliciously similar and yet so wonderfully different at the same time. And of course, we welcome people like us — people who already love them both — to this podcast. Let us know what you think of our thoughts about the two series. Housekeeping details: We’ve read the whole All Souls Trilogy and will try to stay on topic if we say a particular sh