The Witching Hour

Rating:
Summary: Where are these five star reviews coming from?
Review: This is the worst book I have ever read. Reading it from one end to the other becomes a quest. The whole time, you will repeat to yourself, "she's leading up to something, she's leading up to something..." but she's not. There is no point to this book! Look at the majority of five star reviews, even they complain about the ending of this book. Watching paint flake or metal rust is more compelling.

Rating:
Summary: THAT'S IT?!?!?!?!
Review: After reading the Vampire Chronicles I couldn't wait to read another of Anne Rice's series. After reading this book I doubt I will pick up rest of the Mayfair series. This is mostly due to the ending. The storyline is well written (as always with Rice) and though slow near the middle you won't put it down. An excellent build up to the ending and then a huge let down. Not so much for the end result, though that also was very disapointing, but for the way she gets there. The strong characters do not go kicking and screaming or with even one confrontation, no turning point. Instead they slide right to the end with no real explanation or reason. I'm not sure I can say more without giving away the storyline. Suffice it to say the writing is exceptional. The development of the characters great. There is no climax though. There is a build up of "good v. evil", and then no confrontation, no payoff. That for me was the most disapointing. Rice gets you to believe in Rowan, and then the character just folds. Rowan goes from this incredibly powerful strong, confident figure to a naive, easily manipulated weak figure, and the worst part is she just slides from one to the other. I could live with the ending if it was arrived at in a different way.

Rating:
Summary: THE MOST INCREDIBLE BOOK I'VE EVER READ
Review: First of all, do not read this book if you have Attention Deficit Disorder. It's long, but if you're capable of paying attention, READ IT. The enormous magnitude of this book staggers me. It is so sensual, surreal, dark, intriguing and mesmerizing it blows my mind. The detail is so GREAT, it almost brings you to another dimension. You will live in the time of the witches and feel every emotion. Anne Rice is a genius and I am awestruck.

Rating:
Summary: Spell-binding! A must-read, can't-put-it-down book!
Review: Rice is a master of capturing the local color of New Orleans...she puts you right there! I shiver when I drive through the Garden District!

Rating:
Summary: A #1 Book on my list
Review: I have always enjoyed reading different novels, but Anne Rice has recently become my favorite author. The Witching Hour was the first book of hers that I read. Once you start to read her books, the characters worlds become so real and wonderful that you don't want to put the book down. Most of the time I didn't. I believe that I read that book in 3 months time. What makes her books so wonderful, is that she starts the novel with something that will grab your attention. Towards the middle of the book she gets into detail so much about the family that it feels like you've been there watching all this happen. She tells the tradgedy and the joys that the family faced and how they overcame them that you feel happy when they were happy and sad while they were. Anne Rice can take a simple supernatural idea and weave it into a beatifully written story that you'll want to read again(regardless of the lenghth!). I also recommend The Vampire Chronicles and The Mummy or Ramses the Damned. They were also both great books.

Rating:
Summary: A slow start and a dissapointing ending.
Review: This book would have been great if Anne Rice had cut out 500 pages from this 1,000 page book. She tells the reader the same information over and over again. The Vampire Chronicles were great and I was looking for the same kind of action and romance. What I got was a fictional book that read like non-fiction. If you like that sort of thing you will love this book. Just don't read it with the attitude: I'm just trying to get to the good stuff. It will never come.

Rating:
Summary: Great book, but horrible ending
Review: The Witching Hour is a brilliant account of the Mayfair witches going back hundreds of years. Just trying to keep track of who is who will be exhausting enough. It was very long winded and detailed, but not uninteresting. However, the ending is so depressing and disturbing, I threw the book across the room after I finished it. I refuse to read the sequal, Lasher.

Rating:
Summary: Loved nine tenths of this book
Review: I thoroughly enjoyed the bulk of this book, the in-depth descriptions of the main characters and the history of the Mayfair family. But the ending totally disappointed me and I felt like I had read 1000 pages for nothing. It's almost silly how Rice resolves this story. But the writing itself is always beautiful and insightful. I give the ending of this book one star, the rest of it five.

Rating:
Summary: First taste of the occult is gourmet
Review: I must confess that I planned to avoid reading Anne Rice at all costs, but after I was dragged to her October signing of VIOLIN at Garden Books, I picked up a copy of THE WITCHING HOUR. Even so, it took me nearly ten months to get around to reading it, and what a waste those ten months were! Anne, I dealt you a literary slight! This book is perhaps the richest, most intriguing work I have read, and I cannot remember being so captivated by a story in quite a long time.... There is such an aura of mystery and romance surrounding the generations of Mayfairs... from the captivating Charlotte and her intense affair with Petyr to the proud (although poorly developed) Marie Claudette and her empire at Riverbend, each Mayfair witch and woman brings new meaning to the word "power." The lives presented by Rice are intensely controlled by the surreal force of Lasher, and the true genius lies in Rice's presentation: each witch believes him or herself to be the domina! te ruler, to be in control of the spirits, to be king of the family. It is not so. I must say, New Orleans will hold a new haunted appeal for me when I return to college this fall, armed with LASHER, TALTOS, and any other Rice I can get my hands on. I just hope that the remaining books in the Mayfair saga will not disappoint.

Rating:
Summary: INTRIGUING SUSPENSE AND SEXY!
Review: This was my indoctrination to Anne Rice, and it won't be the last! Her work was thoroughly entertaining and full of mystery. Her description of both San Francisco and New Orleans was detailed and so realistic, I felt like I was really there. Her characters are rich with wit and wisdom; and yet one cannot predict the book's outcome. Am looking forward to "Lasher", the next in this trilogy.