Rating: 
Summary: She's Back!
Review: I was sorely disappointed with Rice's last half dozen books and I almost passed this one by. Luckly, I didn't. She's back and in great form! Engrossing story and well defined characters. I loved Aunt Queen and enjoyed seeing some of the characters from previous books. A really, really good read.
Rating: 
Summary: Lestat's Little Brother!
Review: ...I was one of the first people to read this book. I bought it on Oct. 29th and I was not disappointed!!! I could not put this book down. I finished it in two days, even to the wee hours of the morning! Finally, Anne Rice brought Lestat back! Although I enjoyed Merrick, I really was only interested in the last 2 chapters because of Lestat, his love for Louis and bringing him back from the dead. Also, the last chapter of Merrick was great with dialogue from Louis, Lestat, David and Merrick. First of all, Quinn is adorable, handsome and quite a nice guy! I also thoroughly enjoyed the first few chapters where Quinn meets Lestat. Quinn is observing Lestat's confrontation with Stirling Oliver of the Talamasca, whom Lestat finds lurking around his flat in the Rue Royale, New Orleans. What a chapter!!! Lestat is just wonderful and I laughed and laughed! I don't want to spoil it for you. Read this book. I enjoyed all the chapters dealing with Lestat as well as the main story of the book. Quinn tells his life story to Lestat and I found it very gripping, exciting, entertaining, compassionate, scarry, and just a magnificently written story that will make you laugh and cry and it certainly is a page turner. The scene where Quinn becomes a bloodhunter, and the scene before, dealing with the conversation with someone and is then kidnapped, just gave me shivers and your heart goes out to Quinn!!! I fell in love with his character almost as much as I love Lestat! I thought that it was very sweet when Lestat called Quinn his "little brother". I really feel that Lestat was sincere when Lestat said that he was in love with Quinn. Quinn sincerely adores Lestat and he is obviously Quinn's hero. Quinn's love scenes with ghosts are fun to read. His scenes with Mona, very sexy, compassionate and touching! I also have to mention that I was thrilled that Lestat was almost going to open up to Quinn about what happened to him when he was in the coma at St. Elizabeth's after the Memnoch story. He gives him a little hint that will keep you guessing and hoping that Anne Rice will write a story about that spiritual adventure! I will be very eager to read that book! I also loved her description of Sugar Devil Manor, Sugar Devil Island and the beautiful areas of that part of Louisianna. Just breathtaking. I thoroughly enjoyed Aunt Queen! She was wonderful, as well as all the other characters in Quinn's story. The way that Quinn describes Lestat's beauty is breathtaking! He is even more beautiful that I imagined him from his desciptions of himself in his books. I could go on and on, but I don't want to spoil it for you. Just read this book and you will see what I am talking about!!!
I just loved it.
Rating: 
Summary: A little disappointed
Review: Anxiously awaited this book. I'm about half way thru the book. My favorite Anne Rice book was the Witching Hour. This is written in the same style but all I can say is I am not captivated with this story as I was with the Witching Hour. The spirit Goblin seems silly and not at all mysterious. Maybe the second half will be better.
Rating: 
Summary: "The Vampire Chronicles" have been sucked dry.
Review: Was there ever a more talented, visceral writer than Anne Rice? And was there ever an author with a spottier record of tomes, from the sublime ("Interview With the Vampire", "The Vampire Lestat", "The Witching Hour", "Merrick") to the ridiculous ("Memnoch the Devil", "Servant of the Bones") to the banal AND the ridiculous ("Violin", and now "Blackwood Farm")? "The Vampire Chronicles" began to develop anemia after "The Queen of the Damned", but Anne has kept plugging them out, almost annually, with all-too-brief segues into other topics as in "Cry To Heaven", "The Feast of All Saints" and the awesome Mayfair Witches series. Occasionally, despite her refusal to close the casket on her dead vampires once and for all, she manages to forge some original ideas, as in "The Tale of the Body Thief". Not so with "Blackwood Farm". How this formulized, tawdry claptrap has garnered the positive editorial and reader reviews it has is beyond me. Once again, we have vampires who over the years have degenerated from metaphorical, conflicted immortals to whining, over-sensitive fools. Once again, they blather on and on about everything from ancient history to the color of the draperies. This, in the current world of Anne Rice, is what is known as "the plot". There are some new developments in "Blackwood Farm". The formerly nefarious, uncompromised Vampire Lestat has been distilled to having the personality of a "funny" uncle, helping a sexually ambiguous young vampire, Quinn Blackwood, rid himself of a ludicrous doppleganger, appropriately named (of all things!) Goblin. Anne has also generously seasoned this novel with what can only be termed "vampirespeak", so that when her characters aren't submerged in endless details about the past or the decor, they can pontificate grandeously about the Dark Gift, the Cloud Gift, the Mind Gift, etcetera, all Notated Importantly with Capital Letters. If you've gathered from my review that I don't care for Anne Rice as an author, you're absolutely wrong. When she's been good, she's supplied me with more delectable reading pleasure than any other author I can think of. There was a time when I was sure Rice would go down in literary history with Poe, James and Dickens. I'm afraid with "Blackwood Farm" she's sealed her fate as being remembered as the Jacqueline Susann of Halloween stories.
Rating:
Summary: An outstanding addition to the Vampire Chronicles
Review: I loved this book. I bought it on Saturday November 2nd, and here Monday November 4th I'm done with it. There's no way you can put this book down.
The vivid imagery that Rice so wonderfully describes draws you into her world of vampire and witches. From her description of the luscious Tarquin (Quinn) Blackwood (our hero), the fatal beauty of Lestat, to the wonderous landscapes of New Orleans and Pompeii, Rice brings life to her story.
Rating:
Summary: Not her Greatest
Review: I waited anxiously for the book to come out, and although I love Anne Rice in all her many forms, Blackwood Farm is a bit of a letdown. Quinn seems too childish, and he irritates me to no end. The only reason that I'm even bothering to finish the book is because Lestat is my god, and Anne Rice my goddess. What happened to the mesmerizing writing of The Vampire Lestat or Interview with the Vampire?
Rating:
Summary: Anne is Back!!!!!
Review: I spent all of yesterday devouring this book, and literally did not put it down until I had finished all 500+ pages. Anne Rice seems to have conquered her slump, and has created a tale encompassing a great ghost story, vampires from the Vampire Chronicles and the Mayfair witches. I have been waiting for something like this since I read the The Witching Hour, which I still say is her finest book ever, and I was not disappointed. I took a big chance buying this book and it paid off. As the book opens, young Quinn Blackwood is a newcomer on the vampire scene, and it is through him that this ghostly tale unfolds. It is a chronicle of Quinn's life, involving all of those connected with Blackwood Farm, both past and present. I will not dive into the plot, but suffice it say, it is positively haunting and eerie. As with all good books, I was very sorry to see this one come to an end. One caveat: it would help if the reader was familiar with the story of the Mayfair witches from The Witching Hour before reading this book.
Rating:
Summary: Vintage Rice
Review: This book is definately what Merrick should have been. Although only Lestat and Merrick make an appearance in this book, the vampires are well represented, as are the Mayfair's. It is good to finally know what happens to Mona after the end of Taltos. I definately recommend this book to those that were disapointed with Merrick.
Rating: 
Summary: A wonderful opportunity totally wasted!!!
Review: "Blackwood Farm" could have been a great novel. It has much promise and the idea of the novel seemed actually intriguing. Of course that was until I actually read the book. Flat, lifeless, boring, predictable... the adjectives could go on and on. The skilled hand of a good editor would have been the saving grace for "Blackwood Farm". By the same token, if it were edited what was actually interesting in the novel, there would be about 250 pages left out of the entire novel. Again, we are subjected to another vampire sitting down and recounting their life story. We've seen this in too many of Mrs. Rice's novels and the each time the device that she uses to get her overblown and longwinded vampires to lull us into stupor gets more strained (even in the year 2002, her newly created vampires speak in the most ridiculously overwrought purple prose). Most of the Blackwood Family history has little to do with the "Goblin" storyline, but it takes up most of the novel. Nothing ever really amounts to anything and when we do find out all of the "secrets", we are left rolling our eyes and wishing we hadn't even bothered. Combining the Mayfair witches with the vampires is an excellent idea, but, unfortunately, everyone seems to have forgotten who they were in the previous novels. But, character assassination seems to be Mrs. Rice's goal lately in all of her novels (especially with Mona Mayfair! When did she become so stupid?) Two new and very interesting vampires are introduced but they get the least amount of attention, and even their reasoning and objectives don't make a bit of sense. Instead, we are subjected to endless descriptions of the swamp and the family lineage, and cameos and hermaphroditic creatures ... the list goes on and on. If you are a fan of the Vampire Chronicles or the Lives of the Mayfair Witches, do yourself a favor and follow the lead of one of the vampires in the novel -- jump into a fire, and put an end to it before you subject yourself to "Blackwood Farm".
Rating:
Summary: So far so brilliant
Review: I bought this as soon as I could get to the store on its release day. I love the sensual, warm, elegant world of Anne Rice, and getting sucked into her prose and books is spending a nice evening in an elegant mansion with wine and velvet curtains and fine art. Her books are like a fine wine. From Vampires to Witches. I've read all of the Vampire Chronicles except Blood and Gold, which I have and will read after Blackwood Farm.
So far - I'm on page 77 - this book moves with breathless speed. Quinn is a newly-made vampire who must battle his doppelganger who he's lived with almost his whole life, since he was a toddler. And now that he's made into a vampire this "twin", who he calls "Goblin" attacks him after every blood feast and sucks the new blood out of him. The violent union of his "twin" is both pleasurable and painful for him, and here lies his conflict. He seeks the help of the indestructible Vampire Lestat, and from here it keeps going unrelenting, in true evocative Anne Rice style. It's so perfect this has come out right before Halloween. Her books go right along with the fall season. Pick this one up. So far it's brilliant, and I know I'm in for a great read!
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