Prince Lestat

by Anne Rice
458 pgs (Vampire Chronicles #13)

When I found out that Anne Rice was "resurrecting" her Vampire Chronicles series, and bringing the central character in the series back out of his self-induced exile, I was intrigued. I loved Interview with a Vampire when I read it twenty or so years ago. I really enjoyed the next three books in the series as well. But the series lost much of its appeal for me with book five, Memnoch the Devil, which I thought was terrible, I continued reading the books as they came out though, but none of them were as good as those first few. Most of them seemed like appendages, or afterthoughts to the series, some of them simply told the backstories of the other vampires, but without advancing the story of the blood drinkers in modern times. From what I understand, Prince Lestat is the first book in a trilogy Rice plans to write that hopefully will reinvigorate the series and get it back to what it used to be. After reading this one, I'm optimistic.

The world of the vampires was once a small world, consisting of order and discipline. Blood drinkers were very selective of whom they fed on and brought over to the order. But things have changed. Since the events of Queen of the Damned, vampires have multiplied and are now all over the world and social media. These newer, fledgling vampires, have no regard for the old ways. and as the book begins, Louis, Marius, Armand, Pandora, David, and a host of characters readers of the series will enjoy seeing again try to convince Lestat to come out of exile and return order to their society.

While Prince Lestat is not as good as those first books in the series, it's definitely a huge step back in the right direction. It's not a book for people who haven't read any of the others in the series, but if you've read those first few, you should enjoy this one.

★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆