Lestat is back, saviour and demon, presiding over a gothic story of family greed and hatred through generations, a terrifying drama of blood lust and betrayal, possession and matricide. Blackwood Farm with its grand Southern mansion, set among dark cypress swamps in Louisiana, harbours terrible blood-stained secrets and family ghosts. Heir to them all is Quinn Blackwood, young, rash and beautiful, himself a tyro 'bloodhunter' whom Lestat takes under his wing. But Quinn is in thrall not only to the past and his own appetites but, even more dangerously, to a companion spirit, a 'goblin' succubus who could destroy him and others. Only the unearthly power of Lestat combined with the earthly powers of the ubiquitous Mayfair clan could hope to save Quinn from himself and his ghosts, or to rescue the doomed girl Quinn loves from her own mortality... Shocking, savage and richly erotic, this novel with the deceptively gentle title bring us Anne Rice at her most powerfully disturbing. Here are vampires and witches, men and women, demons and doppelgänger, caught up in a maelstrom of death and destruction, blood and fire, cruelty and fate.
Industry Reviews
Quaintly written, garnished lavishly with opulent descriptions and vivid, eccentric characters, Anne Rice's latest vampire chronicle has a distinctly Dickensian ambience, although heavily laced with erotic undertones and dark sensuality. Set in the beautiful but treacherous Louisiana swamplands, it introduces a new and engaging character, Quinn Blackwood, a gorgeous, impulsive young man with terrible secrets and a family history drenched in melodrama and blood. Seeking the help of the vampire Lestat (already familiar to Anne Rice fans), he reveals that he is plagued by a terrible spirit parasite that is growing dangerously out of control. The future of the Blackwood family and their magnificent mansion is at grave risk. To complicate matters, the haunted hero falls irretrievably in love with an unfeasibly beautiful young heiress, whose equally colourful family background makes it impossible for them to marry. His adventures have him conversing with ancestral ghosts, solving an shadowy family mystery, and being tutored by Lestat in the mysteries of 'blood hunting'. For Quinn's most terrible secret is that he himself has become a vampire, a curse that he must never reveal to his family or his beloved Aunt Queen. This novel is so richly written that by the final page the reader is almost surfeiting on the luscious prose. Emotions swing from dizzying heights of ecstasy to the pits of utter despair. Anne Rice furnishes her novels with an almost reckless lavishness; her characters are blessed with immense fortunes, good looks, charm and wit. Interiors are sumptuously scattered with velvets and silks, marble and antique woods, providing the perfect settings for the extravagant erotic escapades that inevitably pop up at every opportunity. This theatrical opulence is emphasised with a quaint, almost Victorian style of narrative and speech, which new readers may find tiresome, but is the hallmark of this much-loved modern Gothic author. Once you have got past the first chapter, you will find it hard to wrench yourself away from this luxuriously intense story of love, lust and blood feasting. (Kirkus UK)
