*This is more like 2.5 stars, I rounded up.

After finishing Blackwood Farm, I immediately picked this up and was relatively excited about continuing Quinn and Mona's story. However, it would have been much better if it had still been in Quinn's voice. I realized that the reason it took me so long to get through the first 6 books was that I don't like Lestat's voice. From the very beginning of this novel, I was annoyed at Lestat with his meandering storytelling, self-centeredness, and talk of philosophy and religion. I didn't care about the Pope or Saint Juan Diego, I just wanted to know about Quinn and his story. It took me roughly 20 years to pick up books 7-9 because I didn't like the way Lestat just rambles on and on. I ate up Blackwood Farm and Quinn's storytelling though, and would have loved this story in his words. My other main complaint is that the dust jacket said that Patsy came back for vengeance on Quinn, and there was no vengeance, there was barely anything. That entire part could have been taken out, it didn't really have any bearing on anything. It did wrap up the story of Quinn, Mona, Blackwood Farm, and Rowan relatively nicely so that the rest of the series could focus more on Lestat and his quest for sainthood.

All in all, this was an okay addition to the series. It was nice to get closure on Quinn's story. If you enjoyed the first, I don't know, five books of the series where Lestat is the main character, then you will probably like this one. It's much shorter than some of the other novels in the series, so it's pretty quick to get through. ( )

En Cántico de sangre, Lestat, quien fuera una vez epítome de la maldad, lucha ahora contra su propia condición de vampiro anhelando alcanzar la pureza, a la vez que se enfrenta a fantasmas, leyendas, secretos y el misterio de Taltos, mientras trata de reconducir el destino de su amada, Rowan Mayfair.

I first got into Anne Rice’s Vampire Chronicles many years ago now, reading everything up to QUEEN OF THE DAMNED and THE MUMMY before putting her works aside. But being a diehard horror fan, and someone who in the years since has tried their own hand at writing stories of the supernatural, I found my way back to Rice a few years ago and started making up for lost time, plowing through both The Vampire Chronicles and The Mayfair Witches series. And now I have come to the end of the line, so to speak, with BLOOD CANTICLE, a book I must conclude was written solely for the fans. First of all, if the reader hasn’t read most of her previous vampire epics, and the tales of the witches, then they will be completely lost. And any fan who hasn’t read her last book, BLACKWOOD FARM, won’t know what is going on, as that story introduces some new characters and locations in Louisiana, and because BLOOD CANTICLE, picks up right where the previous book left off.

My paperback copy come in at just over 400 pages, a pretty quick read compared to some of Rice’s other epics, and that might be the book’s weakness. To me, the whole project felt like Rice trying to tie up a bunch of loose ends leftover from earlier works by jamming Lestat, Rowan Mayfair, and the Taltos, into one quick story before bidding farewell for now to this world. The book opens at Blackwood Farm where the Vampire Lestat saves Mona Mayfair from a wasting death by making her a vampire, thus allowing Mona to join her beloved Quinn Blackwood (the main character of BLACKWOOD FARM) in the ranks of the Undead. This leads to a lot of interaction with Rowan Mayfair, the witch who heads the powerful and rich Mayfair family, and ultimately a search for the Taltos, an ancient race of non-human creatures who are the spawn of the incestuous Mayfair bloodline. Both Rowan and Mona have given birth to a Taltos, who come into the world with full knowledge of their species history, and grow to maturity in a matter of hours, in previous books. This being a crossover, there comes a point where the vampires and witches sit down and relate all the history we’ve previously read in other books, but it wouldn’t be an Anne Rice novel if it didn’t have characters going on and on to one another. But for a book filled with some of Rice’s more larger than life characters, the action always felt small time compared to the epic possibilities raised in her other books.

BLOOD CANTICLE got a lot of negative reviews from many of Rice’s ardent fans. Many complained that the characterizations in this book were not consistent with earlier books. Lestat seems obsessed with being heroic, of being a saint whom the Pope in Rome would turn to, while Mona, once a tough, determined and precocious young girl (she was only 13 when she seduced Michael Curry, Rowan’s husband) is now given to emotional outbursts and dressing like a slut as a vampire. Rowan is tough in one scene, an emotional wreck in another. Some have implied that BLOOD CANTICLE was ghost written, but I think Rice had just grown tired of these characters, even if she still loved them dearly, and just didn’t have the heart or drive at that point in her career to write a large enough story to do them justice. Lestat and Rowan fall madly in love, surely that plot alone could have powered its own book. The Taltos, specifically Ashler and Morrigan, were characters to content with in the Mayfair books, but their story is merely dispensed with in the final third of BLOOD CANTICLE. Quinn (who is reduced to the background here) and Mona could have carried their own book as newly made, and newlywed, Blood Hunters finding their way in the world. Even Lestat versus Oncle Julian Mayfair (a great sinister character) should have been more than a subplot. But I have no doubt that Rice wrote this book. It’s filled with the kind of minute detail, especially descriptions of clothing that was her hallmark, not to mention her obsession with Creoles. I have no doubt that some of her depictions of non-Caucasians would make those with certain sensibilities wince.

In the end, I didn’t dislike BLOOD CANTICLE, but I understand the feelings of fans who really expected more from their beloved author. I have no doubt that Rice felt she owed us this book and what we got is what we got. I remember seeing an interview on TV where she said Lestat had bidden her farewell, and simply rode off out her imagination, and that the Vampire Chronicles were done with BLOOD CANTICLE. Looking back, I think that was just burnout talking, for as we know, it was not the end of the road for Rice and her most famous creation. A decade later, PRINCE LESTAT returned. There’s a copy on my shelf waiting to be read. ( )

I keep swearing off Rice's books. They inevitably disappoint. But I keep winding up with a copy of some novel I haven't read and searching for some glimmer of the talent that showed up in her earlier books. You won't find it here. ( )

it felt like Anne Rice enjoyed writing this and it was an easy read. It's supposed to be the last in the series, but Lestat mentions that he is uneasy about those parts of an island that he didn't explore. Still, Lestat seems to have matured. ( )