Nine Notes: A Discovery of Undying Lessons

A richly inventive novel about a centuries-old vampire, a spellbound witch, and the mysterious manuscript that draws them together.
Deep in the stacks of Oxford's Bodleian Library, young scholar Diana Bishop unwittingly calls up a bewitched alchemical manuscript in the course of her research. Descended from an old and distinguished line of witches, Diana wants nothing to do with sorcery; so after a furtive glance and a few notes, she banishes the book to the stacks. But her discovery sets a fantastical underworld stirring, and a horde of daemons, witches, and vampires soon descends upon the library. Diana has stumbled upon a coveted treasure lost for centuries - and she is the only creature who can break its spell.

Johann Bode developed a so-called law of planetary distances best known as Bode’s Law. The story of the discovery of Juno in 1804 by Karl Harding tells how Juno fit into that scheme and is examined as it relates to the philosopher Georg Hegel’s 1801 thesis that there could be no planets between Mars and Jupiter. By 1804 that gap was not only filled but had three residents: Ceres, Pallas and Juno!