The Witching Hour

Hardcover, 966 pages

English language

Published Nov. 12, 1990 by Alfred A. Knopf.

ISBN:
9780394587868
OCLC Number:
1023817796

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2 stars (2 reviews)

The author of the extraordinary Vampire Chronicles—Interview with the Vampire, The Vampire Lestat, and The Queen of the Damned—gives us now a huge, hypnotic novel of witchcraft and the occult through four centuries.

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 given to poetry and to incest, to murder and to philosophy; a family that, over the ages, is itself haunted by a powerful, dangerous, and seductive being.

On the veranda of a great New Orleans house, now faded, a mute and fragile woman sits rocking... and The Witching Hour begins.

It begins in our time with a rescue at sea. Rowan Mayfair, a beautiful woman, a brilliant practitioner of neurosurgery—aware that she has special powers but unaware that she comes from an ancient line of witches—finds the drowned body of a man …

27 editions

Review of 'The Witching Hour' on 'Goodreads'

1 star

A story that could have been told in a quarter the length. Well written enough that when I picked up the book I felt like I was entering another world. But it’s one I skim read through, nothing to be gained from circular flowery writing, pages and pages of characters explaining stuff to eachother.
Necrophilia and rape isn’t really my jam either.

Review of 'The Witching Hour (Anne Rice)' on 'Goodreads'

3 stars

The book endorsement on the back cover of my paperback edition claims that Anne Rice surpasses Stephen King. I do not believe that to be true!
This is quite a long-winded tedious story that could have been much fewer pages. It might make for great movie/series or whatever, but took a long time to get rolling.
This is my first experience with a book by Anne Rice so I will accept that I might have had a better experience starting with some other story. There is a good chance I will not try another book by this author, however I am interested to sample the Mayfair Witches tv series. Lots of space to for the experiences of a hapless husband married to a witch; "Bewitched" anyone? (... I don't think so)

Subjects

  • Witches -- Fiction
  • New Orleans (La.) -- Fiction