Taltos by Anne Rice

First off, please ignore any formatting weirdness. Thanks to some crappy Mediacom service, our Internet is down so this is a phone post making it easier to be short and sweet.

This is the third book in the Witching Hour series, and it was probably my least favorite. It seems like Rice has one crapper in her series and this one may be it. I will admit I read this one quickly because I didn't like it as much.

This book gives the history of the Taltos race while intertwining it with the story of Mona's pregnancy, which ultimately carries on the Taltos race.

By about halfway through, I didn't care anymore what was going to happen. It does bring closure to the series but I was rather meh about it.

Lasher by Anne Rice

This is a re-read. I read the entire Mayfair witches series in high school when I may have been overly obsessed with Anne Rice (what can I say, she went well with my late 90s grunge, alterna-girl, angry at the world persona).  However, now that I've been rereading it, I'm getting a lot that I didn't get earlier in life. Thank you life experiences and background knowledge.

The thing that really helped was having gone to New Orleans. The traditions, the landscape, the knowledge of the town's geography has made the book make even more sense. This series is much more attached to the town than the Vampire Chronicles ever were. It may be the reason I like this series a little more now.

I will admit the rest of it deals with some odd topics: incest and pedophilia, to name a few. But, it's still an amazing story. Rice has always done a great job in creating her own lore when it comes to supernatural creatures. She takes what we know and turns it on its head without being too disruptive to our "natural" beliefs.

So, even though some of the subjects are touchy, I'd still recommend this series (this is the 2nd one; start with The Witching Hour.)