Blackwood Farm (The Vampire Chronicles, No. 8)
by Anne Rice
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Book Summary Information
Author: Anne RiceEdition: Mass Market Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2003-09-30
ISBN: 0345443683
Number of pages: 640
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Product features:
- ISBN13: 9780345443687
- Condition: New
- Notes: BRAND NEW FROM PUBLISHER! 100% Satisfaction Guarantee. Tracking provided on most orders. Buy with Confidence! Millions of books sold!
Book Reviews of Blackwood Farm (The Vampire Chronicles, No. 8)
Book Review: Divine return to form, one of Rice's best
Summary: 5 Stars
'Blackwood Farm' tells the grim and gothic tale of Quinn Blackwood, heir to the Blackwood estate and Sugar Devil Swamp, and his trials as his malevolent doppelganger Goblin gains power and tries to take control. Introducing a host of new characters, and, as always, with an understasnding of plot and pacing and tension that few authors can equal (Dan Brown tries; a shame, then, that his 'novels' lack even the most basic characterisation), Rice creates for us a garden of melancholic and sensual delight, in this true return-to-form.
What strikes me the most about this book is the sense of the grandiose that I haven't had from a Rice novel since 'Queen of the Damned'. 'Merrick' and 'Memnoch' notwithstanding, after the lacklustre (and, dare I say it, downright boring) 'Blood and Gold' and 'Pandora', Rice has managed here to recapture that
sense of bourgeoisie decay and seeping, creeping tragedy that made her first books such an absolute joy to behold.
Quinn Blackwood is like a cross between Lestat and Louis, and is by turns sensual and introspective, bawdy and shy, courageous and cowardly - and bears further examination. The supporting cast of Demons, Vampires and Witches turns up a few surprises, too - Aunt Queen and Petronia the Vampire being two of the most interesting creatures Rice has conjured up to date - and it's wonderful to see Merrick Mayfair again, even though her (excellent) ending is short and sweet.
Rice's narrative has become galvanised with this book - set at a suspiciously slow pace, she never allows the story to become dull or maudlin - and her prose is as overflowing with heady imagery and gothic tone as ever.
In short, this is a magnificent beast of a novel, and one which should be at the top of your To-Read list. Provocative, absorbing and some of Rice's best work ever, 'Blackwood Farm' is a novel that you'll enjoy coming back to over and over again.
Highly recommended.
Summary of Blackwood Farm (The Vampire Chronicles, No. 8)
In her new novel, perennial bestseller Anne Rice fuses her two uniquely seductive strains of narrative -- her Vampire legend and her lore of the Mayfair witches -- to give us a world of classic deep-south luxury and ancestral secrets.Welcome to Blackwood Farm: soaring white columns, spacious drawing rooms, bright, sun-drenched gardens, and a dark strip of the dense Sugar Devil Swamp. This is the world of Quinn Blackwood, a brilliant young man haunted since birth by a mysterious doppelgänger, ?Goblin,? a spirit from a dream world that Quinn can?t escape and that prevents him from belonging anywhere. When Quinn is made a Vampire, losing all that is rightfully his and gaining an unwanted immortality, his doppelgänger becomes even more vampiric and terrifying than Quinn himself.
As the novel moves backwards and forwards in time, from Quinn?s boyhood on Blackwood Farm to present day New Orleans, from ancient Athens to 19th-century Naples, Quinn seeks out the legendary Vampire Lestat in the hope of freeing himself from the spectre that draws him inexorably back to Sugar Devil Swamp and the explosive secrets it holds.
A story of youth and promise, of loss and the search for love, of secrets and destiny, Blackwood Farm is Anne Rice at her mesmerizing best.
From the Hardcover edition.
In the past few years, many fans have sworn off Anne Rice, flinging her later novels against the wall with cries of "First draft!" and "Never again!" But these same fans may want to take a chance on her Southern gothic Blackwood Farm, a fast-paced and erotically charged, though uneven, novel of the Vampire Chronicles. Blackwood Farm has an unusual flaw: it isn't long enough. Many of its triumphs and tragedies demand more development than they receive. Motivations are sometimes unlikely or unexplained, and the ending is far too rushed.
Blackwood Farm introduces Quinn Blackwood, the sexy, eccentric young gentleman who becomes both a vampire and the heir to the Blackwood estate. All his life, Quinn has been haunted by Goblin, a doppelgänger no one else can see--or believe in. But Goblin is real, and he is becoming maliciously tangible, strengthened by the blood that Quinn unwillingly drinks. Quinn's only hope of liberation from his increasingly dangerous doppelgänger is to find the legendary vampire Lestat. But Lestat has vowed to destroy any vampire who sets foot in New Orleans....
Blackwood Farm features characters from both the Vampire Chronicles and the Mayfair Witches series, but this self-contained novel makes a good entry point for newcomers to Anne Rice's fictional world (however, Vampire Chronicle virgins really should start with Interview With the Vampire, the first in the series and arguably the finest vampire novel of the 20th century). --Cynthia Ward
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