Pandora

By: Anne Rice

Narrated by: Kate Reading

Anne Rice, creator of the Vampire Lestat, the Mayfair witches and the amazing worlds they inhabit, now gives us the first in a new series of novels linked together by the fledgling vampire David Talbot, who has set out to become a chronicler of his fellow Undead.

The novel opens in present-day Paris in a crowded café, where David meets Pandora. She is two thousand years old, a Child of the Millennia, the first vampire ever made by the great Marius. David persuades her to tell the story of her life.

Pandora begins, reluctantly at first and then with increasing passion, to recount her mesmerizing tale, which takes us through the ages, from Imperial Rome to eighteenth-century France to twentieth-century Paris and New Orleans. She carries us back to her mortal girlhood in the world of Caesar Augustus, a world chronicled by Ovid and Petronius. This is where Pandora meets and falls in love with the handsome, charismatic, lighthearted, still-mortal Marius. This is the Rome she is forced to flee in fear of assassination by conspirators plotting to take over the city. And we follow her to the exotic port of Antioch, where she is destined to be reunited with Marius, now immortal and haunted by his vampire nature, who will bestow on her the Dark Gift as they set out on the fraught and fantastic adventure of their two turbulent centuries together.

Look for Anne Rice’s new book, Prince Lestat and the Realms of Atlantis, coming November 29, 2016.©1998 by Anne O'Brien Rice; (P)1998 by Random House, Inc.

Critic reviews

"This is Rice in top romantic form."
--Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

"SEDUCTIVE . . . [RICE] HAS RETURNED TO THE SOURCE OF HER BEST WORK, her sexy and invincible vampires. . . . Pandora is a superheroine: beautiful, of course, but also smart, fearless, independent, lusty, resourceful, and so pumped up at the end of her breathless narrative, she takes off for New Orleans, hot on the trail of Lestat and Marius."
--Booklist

"EERILY VIBRANT . . . The title character is a highborn woman of Augustan Rome who later names herself after the Pandora of mythology, opening her own box of surprises. Sitting in a modern-day Paris café in the aftermath of a fresh kill, the vampire Pandora accepts the challenge of recounting her history and immediately sets to work, filling the blank pages of an elegant leatherbound notebook. . . . A wealth of narrative twists and period detail."
--The New York Times Book Review

"RICE'S MOST BEAUTIFULLY WRITTEN WORK . . . A BOOK THAT CELEBRATES THE WONDER OF THE WORLD ON EVERY PAGE."
--Raleigh News & Observer

"TANTALIZING."
--Library Journal

70% history of Rome, 20% vampires, 10% husband wif

70% history of Rome, 20% vampire chronicles, 10% what wives see wrong in their husbands.
Interesting if you would like a history of Rome interpreted by an outside observer.

excellent

wonderful. the eloquence of her writing and research she must do for her novels to make them what they are. must be vast. I did not like the beginning but as it continued it got better and better.

Ok, but short

It was cool, but a little short. I thought her backstory would be a little more compelling since she was such an old character and connected to Marius

Still my favorite

I read this 20 years ago and it is still my favorite. I adore Pandora. I enjoyed cominh back all these years later and listening to it very much.

Pandora

A good chronicle of Pandora's life but probably one of the worst in the series I have read. Killed the time while commuting but not a book I rushed back to the car for to continue.