hb

My overall opinion of the Mayfair witch trilogy is that "Witching Hour" is the best, and it is a minor downhill ride from there. I did enjoy this book, particularly Julien's tale that fills in the missing links from the first novel.

I liked the character of Lasher better in the first novel, when he was just a ghost on steroids. I find the whole concept of the Taltos to be intriguing in "Lasher" but it wears thin by the end of "Taltos".

I know some people would be deeply disturbed by the incest and sexually active thirteen year old girl in this book, but I don't let that stuff bug me when I read a work of literature. ( )

Very Good ( )

Nope, nope, nope.

I ventured into LASHER because I was curious about Rowan's continuing story, but what I got here is lot of really sketchy non-consensual sex and tedious backstory and this book didn't pay out for me in all the worst ways. I didn't like the tone of the book or the way it was written or the direction of the plot and I didn't care about any of the characters.

While this series may entice some, I am beyond disappointed, personally. And I know what I read here is not atypical of Rice's writing, so honestly, I don't know what I was expecting. What I do know is that I'm longer curious in the least about the Mayfair witches and I'm done.

For a more detailed review of LASHER, as well as other reviews and bookish content, please visit The Literary Phoenix. ( )

In my ongoing effort to get back into Anne Rice, I sat down and read LASHER, the second book in her Mayfair Witches trilogy, and another tome which has sat on my shelf more than a few years. Rice might be an acquired taste – for very good reasons – but I greatly admire her abilities as a story teller and a creator of compelling characters, mainly on the strength of her VAMPIRE CHRONICLES. Having read the first book in the trilogy, THE WITCHING HOUR, and not liking it quite as much as her vampire epics, I picked up LASHER with lower expectations. And I can honestly say that I was not disappointed.

To start off, at just over 600 pages, LASHER, is shorter than the over long THE WITCHING HOUR by a third, and that is a plus. This book centers on the missing Rowan Mayfair, her new husband Michael Curry, and the creature named Lasher, a demon bound to the wealthy Mayfair family of New Orleans for generations, ever since Scotland in the time of Queen Mary. The major portions of this book elaborates upon what we learned in THE WITCHING HOUR, mostly through Rice’s patented set piece where one character sits and listens to another tell a long tale, filled with much detail in the first person POV. Through multiple chapters, the spirit of Uncle Julian, the one male witch in the Mayfair line, tells Michael a story that stretches from ante bellum New Orleans to the 20th Century, which illuminates the family’s dark relationship with Lasher, even as it travels over ground already covered. Then Lasher himself, now flesh and blood again, tells his story, and we learn something of his true origin and nature, that he is a member of an ancient race called the Taltos that inhabited Scotland before the arrival of Christianity. Among their attributes is that they are born fully formed, with an overwhelming desire to mate, but that can only successfully happen with those of a certain genetic type, hence the long history of incest in the Mayfair line. This is where Rice’s talent really shines in her ability to recreate history in absorbing detail, especially in Lasher’s account of a Scotland in the time of Elisabeth the 1st and Mary Queen of Scots, and a country and culture torn apart by a civil war between Protestants and Catholics. The novel’s plot revolves around three entities – the Mayfair family, the Talemasca, and Lasher himself – and what their true motives might be. The novel introduces some new characters, such as Mona Mayfair, a precocious 13 year old designated as the new “witch,” and Ancient Evelyn, another one of the endless elderly Mayfairs who have seen much and knows more.

But the thing about LASHER that most reviewers mention, and what most readers had a problem with, is its sexual content, more to the point, its casual use of rape and underage sex. The worst case of this is when Mona has sex with Michael, who is described as being in his 40’s. It does not matter that he is not in his right mind, and that the girl is attempting to seduce him; this pushes a button with many people, and I don’t begrudge anyone their outrage. Even if, like me, you are willing roll with it for the sake of the story, this passage stops the book cold. As some others have noted, only an author as successful as Rice could have gotten by with this in the 90’s, and I don’t know if it would fly today. She does like her erotica; the inhuman Lasher is often described in words one would use for a lover. I think Rice is deliberately trying to shock people, but more than that, to make the reader feel as if the they have entered a world where the forbidden is commonplace, where the bonds of conventional morality do not hold, especially behind closed doors and in the dark of night, and in this, I think she succeeds.

The climax of LASHER does bring more of a sense of resolution than most second books in a trilogy; a plot thread that I thought would be left dangling for the next book appears to have been neatly snipped off. Yet there is a third book in the trilogy of the Mayfair Witches, titled TALTOS, and I do look forward to reading it just to see how Anne Rice wraps her saga of incest, rape, and ancient super humans. I’m predicting two characters will sit around while one tells the other a long story. ( )