The Vampire Chronicles

From 18^th century New Orleans to modern New York, from angels to demons, (with a dash of French nobility) The Vampire Chronicles are a collection of haunting and often beautiful stories from ‘Gothic Romance’ horror writer Anne Rice.

The 12 book series begins with ‘Interview With The Vampire’ in which we are introduced to Anne Rice’s most famous character the vampire Lestat de Lioncourt. Lestat features in most of the novels, and though he isn’t an especially likeable character (he is a vain French aristocrat from the 18^th century, self styled rock god and often referred to as the ‘Brat Prince’) you can’t help but take his side against humanity.

The character development in this series is intense and a great many of the novels are simply the main characters telling their life stories, but these stories overlap and interweave to create an overall effect of one complete story spanning thousands of years. Having said that though they are excellent stand alone novels and its certainly not necessary to read all of them or to read them in sequential order.

I will say don’t think of these books as ‘just another vampire series’, they actually come from a time when vampires didn’t sparkle in the sun – they burned (as it should be, in my opinion). The Vampire Chronicles are at times rather dark but overall quite intelligent, romantic and spiritual.

Emma J. James