Rating:  -
Another great book in the vampire series. Rice doesn't disappoint you. The story flows, the descriptions of the places and people are vivid in your imagination. No boring parts. What more could you want from a book? Very entertaining and highly recommended.
Rating: -
This is my favorite book from the Mayfair series. I loved this book.
Rating:  -
I loved The Witching Hour, the first book in the trilogy, so I had high expectations for this one. For the most part, they were met, but there were a few problems, the first and foremost being Lasher's story. He spends almost 100 pages promoting Catholocism, and defaming Protestants. I'm neither, but it still offended me that the author used her character as a mouthpiece for her own religious beliefs. Mona, the new character on the scene, was quite interesting (for the first half, I thought she was a sociopath). All in all, three stars.
Rating:  -
This book reads like a first draft in need of EXTENSIVE editing. I finally threw in the towel after 150 pages.
Rating: -
The novel begins shortly after the mysterious disappearance of Dr. Rowan Mayfair, who only recently was married to architect Michael Curry. Michael, feeling betrayed by Rowan, has sunk into a depression helped along by the useless drugs prescribed to him after his close-encounter with death.
Along comes the sexually adventurous Mona Mayfair, a thirteen-year-old witch more powerful than Rowan with more lines of descent from Suzanne than anyone else in the family. She seduces Michael, causing him to snap out of his stupor and renew his vow to find his wife at all costs. He is now convinced that where ever she has gone, she hasn't gone willingly.
And though it was she who dragged Lasher away from the house, she is now a prisoner of the monster she has created. He impregnates her twice, both times ending in miscarriage, and is successful the third time. As he drags her throughout Europe, she manages to send off DNA samples to colleagues in San Francisco, who discover that Lasher is a completely different species, and that Rowan herself has a genetic abnormality, a double helix, or 92 chromosomes, which may have assisted in Lasher's supernatural birth.
The duo returns to the states, where Lasher sets out to impregnate other female members of the Mayfair family. All attempts are unsuccessful as the women immediately miscarry and hemorrhage to death. Rowan manages to escape Lasher, and after hitchhiking to Louisiana, collapses in a field and gives birth to Emaleth, a female Taltos. Rowan's last words to Emaleth are to find Michael, which she sets out to do, thinking that Rowan has died.
Rowan is found, and is rushed to a hospital, where she is diagnosed as being in toxic shock. An emergency hysterectomy is performed to save her life, eliminating all chances of her ever giving birth again. She is taken home to Michael, where she remains in a coma, though, unbeknownst to all, she is still aware of her surroundings.
Lasher returns to the house to tell Michael and Aaron his story of his past life. Born to Queen Anne of England, the second wife of Henry VIII, and a man from Donnelaith, Lasher is believed to be a saint known as Ashlar, and is quickly taken away by his father to Donnelaith. His father is the son of the Earl of Donnelaith, and from there he is sent to Italy to become a priest. He returns to Scotland after Elizabeth I takes the throne, and is killed there while performing Christmas Mass by followers of the Protestant reformer John Knox. He knows nothing again until Suzanne calls him back into existence.
Michael patiently hears Lasher out, and when his story is complete, Michael wastes no time in killing him and burying under the great oak in the yard. Soon after, he discovers Emaleth in Rowan's room, feeding her the highly nutritious milk from her breasts. This resuscitates Rowan, but upon seeing Emaleth before, she panics and screams at Michael to kill her. Michael refuses to, so Rowan grabs a gun and shoots her daughter in the head. Rowan immediately realizes what she's done, and crying for her daughter, insists that she be the one to bury her. She buries Emaleth next to Lasher under the oak.
[...]
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