Anne Rice, creator of the Vampire Lestat, the Mayfair witches and the amazing worlds they inhabit, now gives us the first in a new series of novels linked together by the fledgling vampire David Talbot, who has set out to become a chronicler of his fellow Undead.
The novel opens in present-day Paris in a crowded café, where David meets Pandora. She is two thousand years old, a Child of the Millennia, the first vampire ever made by the great Marius. David persuades her to tell the story of her life.
Pandora begins, reluctantly at first and then with increasing passion, to recount her mesmerizing tale, which takes us through the ages, from Imperial Rome to eighteenth-century France to twentieth-century Paris and New Orleans. She carries us back to her mortal girlhood in the world of Caesar Augustus, a world chronicled by Ovid and Petronius. This is where Pandora meets and falls in love with the handsome, charismatic, lighthearted, still-mortal Marius. This is the Rome she is forced to flee in fear of assassination by conspirators plotting to take over the city. And we follow her to the exotic port of Antioch, where she is destined to be reunited with Marius, now immortal and haunted by his vampire nature, who will bestow on her the Dark Gift as they set out on the fraught and fantastic adventure of their two turbulent centuries together.
Editorial Reviews
"Eerily vibrant...the title character is a highborn woman of Augustan Rome who later names herself after the Pandora of mythology, opening her own box of surprises. Sitting in a modern-day Paris café in the aftermath of a fresh kill, the vampire Pandora accepts the challenge of recounting her history and immediately sets to work, filling the blank pages of an elegant leatherbound notebook...A wealth of narrative twists and period detail." --The New York Times Book Review
"In Queen of the Damned, the third volume of Rice's "Vampire Chronicles," readers were introduced to the psychologically wounded immortal Pandora, who roused herself long enough to rescue her lover, Marius. In this first novel of a new series, Pandora tells fledgling vampire David Talbot the story of her mortal life as a woman of privilege in the Rome of Augustus Caesar. When Tiberius ascends the throne, most of Pandora's family is murdered, but she manages to escape to the city of Antioch. There her interest in the cult of the ancient Egyptian goddess Isis is reawakend. At the same time, Pandora suffers from nightmares of blood drinking and torture. Also in Antioch is Marius, a recent initiate into the world of the vampire. He knows that Pandora is being led to this same terrible fate, which he desperately wants to prevent. Throughout, Rice interjects tantalizing bits of the vampiric history and horrors that pervade her earlier books. Although Pandora's story has enough substance to be read and enjoyed on its own, those already familiar with the Chronicles will find added insight to the characters of Pandora and Marius." --Library Journal
"Rice's most beautifully written work...A book that celebrates the wonder of the world on every page." --The News & Observer
About the Author
Anne Rice is the author of twenty books. She lives in New Orleans with her husband, the poet and painter Stan Rice.
Website: www.annerice.com