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Critics' Opinion:
Readers' Opinion:
First Published:
Oct 2000, 320 pages
Paperback:
Oct 2001, 384 pages
Weaves a story of two worlds: the witches' world and the vampires' world, where magical powers and otherworldly fascinations are locked together in a dance of seduction, death, and rebirth.
In her mesmerizing new novel, the author of The Vampire Chronicles and the saga of the Mayfair Witches demonstrates once again her gift for spellbinding storytelling and the creation of myth and magic. Here, in a magnificent tale of sorcery and the occult, she makes real for us a hitherto unexplored world of witchcraft.
At the center is the beautiful, unconquerable witch Merrick. She is a descendant of the gens de couleur libres, a society of New Orleans octoroons and quadroons steeped in the lore and ceremony of voodoo, who reign in the shadowy world where African and French--the dark and the white--intermingle. Her ancestors are the great Mayfair witches, of whom she knows nothing--and from whom she inherits the power and the magical knowledge of a Circe.
Into this exotic realm comes David Talbot--hero, storyteller, adventurer, almost-mortal vampire, visitor from another dark realm. It is he who recounts Merrick's haunting tale--a tale that takes us from the New Orleans of past and present to the jungles of Guatemala, from the Maya ruins of a century ago to ancient civilizations not yet explored.
Anne Rice's richly told novel weaves an irresistible story of two worlds: the witches' world and the vampires' world, where magical powers and otherworldly fascinations are locked together in a dance of seduction, death, and rebirth.
Proem
My name is David Talbot.
Do any of you remember me as the Superior General of the Talamasca, the Order of psychic detectives whose motto was "We watch and we are always here"?
It has a charm, doesn't it, that motto?
The Talamasca has existed for over a thousand years.
I don't know how the Order began. I don't really know all the secrets of the Order. I do know however that I served it most of my mortal life.
It was in the Talamasca Motherhouse in England that the Vampire Lestat first made himself known to me. He came into my study one winter night and caught me quite unawares.
I learnt very quickly that it was one thing to read and write about the supernatural and quite another to see it with your own eyes.
But that was a long time ago.
I'm in another physical body now.
And that physical body has been transformed by Lestat's powerful vampiric blood.
I'm among the most dangerous of the vampires, and one of the most trusted. Even the wary ...
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