Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness (2010)

In the last of 20 CDs it dawned on me that this was only the first of most likely a trilogy, and I mentally groaned. I am hooked on this story, even if it is about vampires. It helped that the first third of the story was mostly in the Bodleian Library at Oxford and that the main character is a historian, researching alchemy in old manuscripts, and that a major focus is on an old manuscript - Ashmole 762, which had seemed to disappear from sight and now was rediscovered by Diana Bishop, a reluctant witch. The structure of the world in this book is that there are humans and three other types of beings - vampires (which are nearly immortal), witches with extra powers, and demons, which seem to be unpredictable, but not necessarily evil. Seems like a lot of important powerful figures were one of these, most often witches or demons, as vampires tended to lie low with their long lives. Now there is a council, which governs their interactions, and one rule is that they cannot have relations across types of beings. So of course, our witchy heroine falls in love with a vampire. He seems to be drawn to protect her, and others are intent on doing her harm. He's been around for centuries, which intrigues Diana - to hear about history from someone that was there. Then there are the two great aunts that raised Diana when her parents were killed. Lots of intriguing ideas and a fun read.