Warning: SPOILERS. And gifs. Lots of both, actually.I don't even know how to summarize what I've just finished. It's like trying to tell someone what happens in a George RR Martin novel. You might try to list item by item, but everything is woven with everything else & there's no way to distinguish in the grand scheme. "Oh, y'know. Stuff happens. People threaten each other. People fight. People die. People have sex. More stuff happens. More people fight. More people die. The end."(Sorry, Robb.)Anyway.Before I get to what cheesed me off, let me say that the middle third of this book was great. I absolutely loved the family history portion of this novel -- the compendium of sources & snippets relating to the Mayfair family through several hundred years. I would've happily read a complete novel about those people & their fucked-up family dynamic. Unfortunately, the long-running cycle of Mayfair Witches seemed almost secondary to the primary plot -- a strange thing to say, yes, given that the series is called "The Mayfair Chronicles." But there it is. Rather than spend more time with Charlotte, Deborah, Carlotta, Stella, Julien, & everyone else, it's painfully apparent that their lives & misadventures are leading to Rowan Mayfair & her boyfriend, Michael Curry, as their lives are woven into the Evul Plans of a very determined demon...spirit...thing named Lasher.Before I get to Rowan & Michael, let's talk about Lasher. What IS Lasher? After 1000 pages, he's still not clearly defined. He's an immortal being with intelligence that was called into Earthly existence by a simpleton witch & over the centuries he's learned to manipulate mortals & breed them together in his ultimate quest -- that is, he wants to give himself a body. One would think that makes him mortal, but apparently not. (Just one of several logic gaps. Ignore them as needed.) At any rate, Lasher has been interbreeding one family because he looks into the future & sees one specific witch (Rowan) as his door into the world of sensational experience. As powerful as other witches have been -- especially Charlotte, Julien, & Mary Beth -- they lack Rowan's conceptions of modernity & medicine, which are what make her so strong.Or something. It's a really long-term Cunning Plan(tm).Yeah, that's right. The demon...spirit...thing has a Cunning Plan(tm), & it's worthy of Gray Eagle himself. As for how Lasher's final transformation is to be accomplished...well, it was somewhat nonsensical. It involves Lasher fusing himself with the fetus in Rowan's body, which then emerges in a bloody scene of horrific birthing (though still vague in detail). This mutant spawn is born with a giant head & limbs that grow into full man-size within minutes, & Rowan has to lay her hands on his body & make sure his organs develop properly so he can actually live & breathe & have sex & walk around. The whole thing is beyond serious recount. Clearly the author was going for some kind of Frankenstein tribute, but it didn't work. By this point -- somewhere around page 1015 -- I just didn't give a fuck. And who's to blame for my not caring? Rowan & Michael. Michael is a classically-styled nice guy, but that's ALL he is. His niceness is boring as hell. He's built like a firefighter & uber-sensitive -- as in, he cries at the beauty of Christmas & finds poetry in restoring old houses & weeps inside at the ecstasy of making love with Rowan. (Yes, really.) But despite my personal feelings toward this sort of hero, Michael's woobie behavior might have been tolerable had the heroine made up for it. Nope. Didn't happen.Rowan has mysterious healing powers, but she can also kill people with her mind. That sounds great in theory -- except she's a moo of the first order. She judges constantly, looks down on people for having Feelz, & drives like a maniac because she's just that awesome. But she's so very, very lonely & deprived of emotional companionship & of course her powers scare her, but she's determined to use them for good & healing & compassion toward the little people of the universe who are human enough to need medical care, and...Excuse me for disparaging her self-righteous spews of whinge. *chortle* At the end of the book, after vowing repeatedly & at great length to destroy Lasher at her first opportunity, what does she do? She falls into the first mental trap Lasher sets, abandons the great love of her life that she's been banging on about for the entire novel, lets a demonic spirit seduce her, falls in love with said demonic spirit, heals his freaky fetus body because she can't bear to destroy life, & runs away with him to hide in Europe & do medical research on his cellular tissues. Seriously?So what happened to the Mayfair Witches storyline -- the one about a family of occultists that do witchy things to each other & have a ghost haunting their family? Looking back, I can only say the book's true focus wasn't on witchcraft. I wanted to read a 1000-page book about an inbred line of witches...but that's not what I got. Instead I found a 400-page family history & a 600-page metaphysical sci-fi adaptation of the The Omen. The result was a book that felt like two different concepts forced into one unwieldy whole -- not to mention the book was 300 pages too long. o_O3.5 stars. The family compendium was quite interesting, but the rest was a borderline snooze.To conclude, here's a picture of Robb holding an armload of puppies. ...I feel better already.
The Mayfair's are an extremely powerful and wealthy family, in each generation there is a chosen one, a witch, who inherits not only the family home and money, but supernatural powers and an evil entity, named Lasher, who only has one aim – to become human again. The Witching Hour is an extremely long novel, 1207 pages, but don't let that put you off reading as once you open the first page you soon find yourself completely absorbed in the chilling tale of the Mayfair Witches. This novel has a spellbinding, engrossing, well-written tale with complex and mysterious characters. There are plenty of compelling twists and turns in the plot to keep you interested and the suspense is drawn out to perfection. The novel is completely unpredictable, I found the ending to be quite a shock! The settings of each generation of the family, from the plantations on Haiti to the modern day gothic mansion in New Orleans, are so richly described that you can easily imagine yourself there in those places. In fact, I loved all Anne Rice's vivid descriptions of New Orleans and the house on First Street, I found this really added to the intensity of the story.There was a section in the middle, of about 300 pages or more, describing the history of the Mayfair family, the whole 12 generations of the family! I found this section quite tiresome and entirely too long, which is why I'm giving this novel four stars instead of five. I wished the author had shortened this section. The characters were all quite complex, fascinating and well-developed. Anne Rice spent a lot of time explaining the motives behind her characters and why they react the way they do to situations in the novel. It also made me feel that I knew each individual character very well. Throughout the novel, I felt myself feeling both sympathy and anger towards the character of Rowan.Beware, if you try to read this novel in paperback format, your eyes and wrists will be sore for about a week! Four stars!
What do You think about The Witching Hour (2004)?
I always hated vampire/witch stories but my honors English teacher in high school recommended this book to me for our final paper. Its about 1000 pages long so I used the first 500 hundred and literally fell in love. Since then I have read the book about five times. I LOVE IT. It centers around a wealthy family living in New Orleans, there is a spirit that follows one woman in every generation and the story follows the spirit from its conception. It is a really interesting, complex novel with many layers- it is not just a witch craft story but one about family and love and history.
—Abbey
Kristin wrote: "I really liked this one but my enjoyment waned with the next two in the series. it just kept getting stranger and stranger."LOL, my sentiments exactly. Have you seen my review of Taltos? bwahahaha
—J.
Be Warned. Thar be major SPOILERS ahead!All and all, I loved this tale of a family with generations of witches. The witches are so interesting and seductive. Their "spirit", Lasher, is an enigma who does both good and bad things to the Mayfair witches. Anne Rice gave just enough information to keep me unsure but I always felt as though he was calling the shots with the witches, as early as Deborah. The Mayfair witches are free spirits who rarely conform to the norms of the day. The current witch
—Geek Lee
