The Vampire Lestat

The Vampire Lestat by Anne Rice

Summary
'Ah, the taste and feel of blood when all passion and greed is sharpened in that one desire!' Lestat: a vampire - but very much not the conventional undead, for Lestat is the truly alive. Lestat is vivid, ecstatic, stagestruck, and in his extravagant story he plunges from the lasciviousness of eighteenth-century Paris to the demonic Egypt of prehistory; from fin-de-siecle New Orleans to the frenetic twentieth-century world of rock superstardom - as, pursued by the living and the dead, he searches across time for the secret of his own dark immortality.

Expectations
I had read The Interview With The Vampire and had been quite disappointed. It hadn't been as exciting as I had hoped. However the story and the characters had captivated me and I was looking forward to reading more about them.

Writing Style
Rice has the most fantastic way of providing rich detail. Detail of feelings, setting, character... this book is one of the richest I have read in terms of description. I loved the style! It was darkly gothic and more captivating than the first book.

Plot
Lestat tells his colourful history, revealing how he was made, his relationships with the people he loved, and ultimately the origins of the vampire. The plot moves more quickly than the previous novel, and the varying, contrasting settings provide the perfect background for the grim, dark tale.

Characters
Lestat's character is explored in greater detail here, and the reader understands fully his actions in the first novel. He is delightful in that he needs to know what will happen if he breaks a rule. He is not necessarily a good person but he is a likeable narrator and that is very important. The characters surrounding him are fantastically written, my favourites being his mother, the cold and distant vampire, and his lover, Nicki, who descends into madness after being made into a vampire by Lestat.

Overall
A fantastic book, much better than the first. I wondered about the relationship between Louis and Lestat seeming unlikely at the end, but apart from that it was perfect.

4 Stars