Blood Canticle

The Vampire Chronicles

By: Anne Rice

Narrated by: David Pittu

Length: 11 hrs and 32 mins

Publisher's summary

Anne Rice continues her astonishing Vampire Chronicles in a new novel that begins where Blackwood Farm left off—and tells the story of Lestat’s quest for redemption, goodness, and the love of Rowan Mayfair.

Welcome back to Blackwood Farm. Here are all of the brilliantly conceived characters that make up the two worlds of vampires and witches: Mona Mayfair, who’s come to the farm to die and is brought into the realm of the undead; her uncle, Julian Mayfair, guardian of the family, determined to forever torment Lestat for what he has done to Mona; Rowan Mayfair, brilliant neurosurgeon and witch, who finds herself dangerously drawn to the all-powerful Lestat; her husband, Michael Curry, hero of the Mayfair Chronicles, who seeks Lestat’s help with the temporary madness of his wife; Ash Templeton, a 5,000-year-old Taltos who has taken Mona’s child; and Patsy, the country-western singer, who returns to avenge her death at the hands of her son, Quinn Blackwood. Delightfully, at the book’s centre is the Vampire Lestat, once the epitome of evil, now pursuing the transformation set in motion with Memnoch the Devil. He struggles with his vampirism and yearns for goodness, purity and love, as he saves Patsy’s ghost from the dark realm of the Earthbound, uncovers the mystery of the Taltos and unselfishly decides the fate of his beloved Rowan Mayfair.

A story of love and loyalty, of the search for passion and promise, Blood Canticle is Anne Rice at her finest.

©2003 Anne O'Brien Rice (P)2003 Random House, Inc., Random House Audio, A Division of Random House, Inc.

Critic reviews

"Writing as if her blood-inked quill were afire, Rice seems truly possessed by her Brat Prince of darkness as she races through the story." -- Publishers Weekly

Pauses?

There's wierd 10 second pauses in the middle of some chapters; not just at the ends of each chapter in the book.
Interesting story though

Terrible reader

Story is good. But this is the worst performance I’ve ever heard. He doesn’t do any differences in characters, and even mispronounces character names! So. Bad. It was an effort to finish this book due to this guy’s voice.

the different voices were wonderful and the words beautiful

nothing at all, thank you very much to the reader!! i enjoyed this book beginning to end

so good

"If any one trait in her made me a slave it was her green eyes."
Blood Canticle by Anne Rice

"Only God knew the number of lives she’d saved. And only she knew the number of people she had murdered."
Blood Canticle by Anne Rice

"What threatened this mammoth individual who had found for herself through tragedy and heritage the perfect goal? Her sanity. From time to time she gave in to madness as if it were strong drink, and when in her cups she fled from her sublime designs, drowning in memories and guilt, all judgment and sense of proportion lost, murmuring confessions of unworthiness and half-explored plots of escape that would seal her off forever from all expectations.
At this precious moment she regarded sanity as her State of Grace, and she saw me as the Demon who had brought her back to it."
Blood Canticle by Anne Rice

"I came quite close to losing my mind. Did anyone have a clue as to the crash and thunder inside me? I locked the casket of my heart. I punished it. I endured."
Blood Canticle by Anne Rice

"I’m a witch who won’t be a witch, a Mad Scientist who won’t be Mad."
Blood Canticle by Anne Rice

"You’re a Power Slut, that’s what you are, using every edge your sex or youth can give you, a moral lilliputian in grown-up shoes, a career adolescent, a professional child! You don’t know the meaning of philosophical insight, or spiritual engagement, or true growth—."
Blood Canticle by Anne Rice

"I held her close, as if someone were going to steal her from me. As if the night was full of menace. As if the menace didn’t come from me."
Blood Canticle by Anne Rice

A let down

I thought this was a pretty disappointing way to tie up 3 great stories (The Vampire Chronicles, Taltos and the Mayfair Witches). The endings were hastily written and very contrived. Nothing like what I am used to from Anne Rice. I think it is a little sad that she did such a dis-service to what, in my opinion, were three of her best stories. You can tell that she is no longer interested in these characters.

Not my favorite

As our narrator, Lestat is almost a caricature of himself constantly referring to his own idiosyncratic style, too many one-liners and jargon phrases.
Interesting to read between the gaps of the mayfairs the taltos and the vampires though.

Yes! No, Yes.

Oftentimes, when I read Anne Rice's books, I fall in love with them because they transport me into a vibrant and historically accurate paradise. Personally, I did not like that this book and the one prior focused on the present. However, the usual magic in Anne Rice's storytelling is still in this book.The interesting thing about this story is her humor. The narrator does an excellent job portraying this. I laughed frequently. Especially during Chapter 8. I love how the characters grow and overlap stories. I appreciate Anne Rice's talent in weaving all of the details together like a spider in her web, capturing us readers. However, I was not fond of the campy style and strange lyrical way in which some of the story is written. This one book was difficult to follow for those reasons.

random pauses

anyone else notice random pauses throughout the story...? kept thinking I got disconnected or hit some

It leaves much to be desired

Honestly the best part was the introduction. There is too much Mayfair, and not enough of the Vampires. Overall not much actually happened from the beginning of the book to the end. Even the climax isn't worth it unless you've read the Mayfair Witches.

Should’ve stuck with the narrator of TALTOS

I am very disappointed in the narration of this book. Why not stay with the TALTOS narrator? That voice of Rowan was awful.

Didn’t enjoy it because of the narrator. Wish I can get a refund and just read the book on my own and imagine the Taltos narrator.