Book Review: Blood Canticle

Reviewed By: Harriet Klausner

Blood Canticle     Amazon US HC Amazon Canada HC
Anne Rice
Class/Genre:   Fantasy   Vampire   Occult
Series: Vampire Chronicles # 9
Knopf, Nov 2003, $25.95, 320 pp.

Like most of his kind, the vampire Lestat is more a sinner than a saint but since his meeting and metamorphous after dealing with Memnoch, he wants to be on the side of the angels. He proves it again and again when he and Merrick Mayfair help destroy Quinn’s evil doppelganger Goblin. He shows his kind nature again when he turns Mona Mayfair, the love of Quinn’s immortal life, into a vampire after being at death’s door for two years.

At Blackwood Farm, he helps a trapped spirit move into the light instead of being trapped between worlds. When Mona begs Lestat to find her Taltos daughter, he moves Heaven and earth and calls upon the mother of all vampires to help him locate the land of the Taltos. When they reach the Caribbean Island where they are held prisoners by drug lords, he liberates them and brings them back to Rowan Mayfair the woman he truly loves but will not touch.

Lestat is one of the most fascinating characters in fiction today. He is living (pardon the pun) proof that one who chooses evil can also turn to the light and hope for redemption from some higher power. The meeting of the vampires with the Mayfair witches is a peaceful one and readers will be very pleased that these are two different forces of nature that can not only co-exist but thrive in proximity to each other. Anne Rice has written another special novel brimming with creativity, action and challenges the readers to question their ideas of good, evil, redemption and honor.

Harriet Klausner

Reprinted with permission. Do Not repost without permission from the author, Harriet Klausner