Product Description

On the verandah of a great New Orleans house, now faded, a mute and fragile woman sits rocking. And the witching hour begins...Demonstrating once again her gift for spellbinding storytelling and the creation of legend, Anne Rice makes real for us a great dynasty of witches - a family give4n to poetry and incest, to murder and philosophy, a family that over the ages is itself haunted by a powerful, dangerous, and seductive being. A hypnotic novel of witchcraft and the occult across four centuries, The Witching Hour could only have been written by the spellbinding bestselling author of The Vampire Chronicles.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #13944 in Books
• Published on: 2004-11-04
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 400 pages

Review
"'Compelling... Sensuous... Engrossing... Rich' - The Wall Street Journal"

About the Author
Anne Rice was born in New Orleans in 1941, the second daughter in an Irish Catholic family. Her first novel, Interview with the Vampire, became a cult best-seller, as did her two subsequent books in the Vampire Chronicles, The Vampire Lestat and The Queen of the Damned. She also writes erotica under two pseudonyms. Anne Rice lives in New Orleans with her husband, the poet and university professor Stan Rice, and their son.

Customer Reviews

Rice at her best!
I loved the Vampires (at least up to Body Thief) and adored the Mummy, but I think Witching Hour is her best. The HUGE book is absolutely compelling from beginning to end. The Book moves from Modern day story of a young woman, the end product of centuries of witches that are under control of "the Man" called Lasher( because he could make the trees lash when he was angry) into the past of her ancestors. Each generation of the "Mayfair Witches" there was a chosen female that 'inherited' the man, and he brought power, he brought madness.

The book leisurely details the woman's modern day life, returning to New Orleans for the funeral of her mother, the base of the family of witches male and female, and comes to terms with her heritage, Lasher and a destiny plotted for her leading to a horrific coming: bring Lasher into this world. We see a lot of the tale through the eyes of the people around this family, as the agent for the Talamasca (seen in the Vampire Cycle), the watchers and recorders of witches and vampires, collect the tales on the family.

It is a leisurely paced book, that brings one into mind of New Orleans' slower pace, but it's spellbinding, haunting, deceptively mesmerising. When she moves the tale of the Mayfair witches into the past and traces each generation of witch from early Scotland on, she is breathtaking. Rice uses ancient Scots lore and gives it a new life in her evocative, provoking tale that will keep you hypnotised as few works do.

Don't think she was better before or since. It's simply a master piece. Followed up with Lasher, Taltos and Merrick.

Witch and Magia lovers! Anne Rice at her best!
This is the first book that begins Anne Rice's acclaimed Mayfair Witches' chronichles. Written beautifully and set in magical New Orleans this book tell the begining of the Mayfair family witches and all that lies beneath their powers. These chronichles are enchanting, intersting and great for all that love Rice and or any witch and magia lovers! ENJOY!

A Must Read
This is a wonderful book. The depth and richness that Anne Rice places into the narrative are amazing. You can almost see, touch and smell New Orleans.

The book within a book concept that is used within the novel to detail the lure of the Mayfair family with the spirit that gives them their witchcraft is wonderful showing with great care the advantages and disasters this brings to each generation of the family.

In my honest opinion this and the follow up books in the trilogy are better then the vampire books that I am also a fan of.