The Witching Hour

By: Anne Rice

Narrated by: Kate Reading

"[A] huge and sprawling tale of horror." (The New York Times Book Review)

Demonstrating once again her gift for spellbinding storytelling, Anne Rice makes real for us a great dynasty of four centuries of witches - a family given to poetry and incest, murder and philosophy, a family that over the ages is itself haunted by a powerful, dangerous, and seductive being called Lasher who haunts the Mayfair women.

Moving in time from today's New Orleans and San Francisco to long-ago Amsterdam and the France of Louis XIV, from the coffee plantations of Port-au-Prince to Civil War New Orleans and back to today, Anne Rice has spun a mesmerizing tale that challenges everything we believe in.

©2010 Anne Rice (P)2015 Random House Audio

Critic reviews

"[A] huge and sprawling tale of horror." (The New York Times Book Review)

Well worth the time for Anne Rice fans...

I love Anne Rice and this didn't disappoint. It's a very long book and I never felt impatient for it to end. I've listened to other books about the Mayfair Witches on Audible, but since they only had the abridged versions of The Witching Hour, Lasher, and Taltos I skipped them. Now that the unabridged versions of those books are on Audible I'm gobbling them up. This book is about the history of, and the stories of, all of the Mayfair Witches up to Rowan Mayfair, and that's a lot of material to cover, hence the length of the book. This is a little bit outside of my Epic Fantasy genre, but if you liked the vampire diaries you'll probably like this too, like me.

The additional bonus for me is that it's narrated by Kate Reading. She's one of my favorite narrators.

slow start

overall good, but took the first 5 hours to get to a real place of interest & involvement.

Finally!

I always wondered why Anne Rice would allow abridged versions of her books to be put on audible. It's high time they were offered in full. I read this back when it first came out and now that I listen to fiction more than reading, it was a nice treat to have this series to listen to after all this time. Kate Reading does a good job as always. It was a good listen and went on to finish the 3 book series. Not for everyone but Anne Rice fans know who they are.

Great! But maybe not for everyone.

Where does The Witching Hour rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

I loved it! Kate Reading was great and the story compelled me. It is very long and very descriptive. Some people may find it too monotonous if they aren't into long descriptions of setting.

What was one of the most memorable moments of The Witching Hour?

I thought the end was quite good and I love all the mysticism and mystery wrapped around the characters and the city.

Which scene was your favorite?

I really can't decide. Something great in too many of them.

Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?

There was a lot of shock. More than a couple of ah-ha moments that made me excited.

Great until the end!!!

This book for me had a 4 or even 5 star rating right up until the very end. I could've overlooked the sometimes endless droning on with excessively detailed descriptions at certain parts and even with the (what seemed) never ending Mayfair ancestry chronologies but throw in the complete and utter reverse personality change of Rowan and anticlimactic ending and I just couldn't rate it any higher. The creation of that bizarre creature at the expense of her own baby and turning her back on Michael just ruined it. I really loved the book until then, barring the few boring and yet necessary histories and/or descriptions as stated above. Why Anne, why??!!

By the way, Kate Reading who narrated this book was OUTSTANDING! She gets 5 stars for her performance!

Anne Rice is a genius.

on to the next installment!! the perfect combo of horror and inspiration. Great narration as well.

It’s all about what you enjoy in a book.

I myself did not enjoy this book and I’ll give you the main reason why the over explanations of buying and selling houses ,the over explanations of cousins and fourth cousins family ties .they will spend literal hours on explaining why a cousin has a limp that has nothing pertaining to the story whatsoever I do understand that people do like back stories. Also explains how a character goes through buying a house. It makes the story more real for them. I for one do not.

Amazing Story!

This book is so compelling and a roller coaster ride through time and detail. The narrator sometimes does not pronounce Deborah’s name correctly which drove me nuts. De. Bor ah three syllables. Because it’s my name.

excellent book

The descriptions brought you right into the story. Excellent story and performance. I highly recommend it.

It is worth it.

Ok this is a long book, and it took me AWHILE to get into it. It was tedious at first. I didn't quit bc I had used my ONE credit on it and I refused to waste a credit. It did indeed get better. The way this book is written is incredibly smart. You almost have to read it like a history book. I love getting the different sides to the story. In the background you can see how the time periods change and how people treated the women changed during each time period. The way people acted in the 1950s was atrocious. That time period is reflected in that portion of the story. The way that person acted and what happened to her was influenced by how she was treated by the people during that period. It is like that through the whole book with each witch. Their stories and what happens to them is influenced by the period they were born in. There is so much thought put in to each character and how they will affect characters in waaay later chapters. It really is a great book with alot of details.

The narrator however is absolutely terrible for this story. Probably not as bad for other books, but a terrible choice for this book. Nobody in New Orleans talks like someone in Brooklyn. Listening to a deep south husband and wife talk sounded like watching a sitcom set in New York City or something. None of the accents were correct. Literally not one single person spoke the way they were intended to. I live in Arkansas just a few miles from Louisiana, and I can promise you not a single Cajun speaks that way. I almost quit reading for that reason. It was so hard to push through the story listening to that woman murder the accents. The author obviously knows New Orleans, but that narrator...just make it stop.

That is my only advice. If you can find a different recorded version of this book with a different narrator, go with that one. It wouldn't be such a big deal if the location wasn't such a huge part of the story. New Orleans is almost like another character in the book, and it was almost like nails on a chalk board listening to the people there talk.