Anne Rice

#1 New York Times Bestselling author - Surrender to fiction's greatest creature of the night - Book II of the Vampire Chronicles The vampire hero of Anne Rice’s enthralling novel is a creature of the darkest and richest imagination. Once an aristocrat in the heady days of pre-revolutionary France, now a rock star in the demonic, shimmering 1980s, he rushes through the centuries in search of others like him, seeking answers to the mystery of his eternal, terrifying exsitence. His is a mesmerizing story—passionate, complex, and thrilling. Praise for The Vampire Lestat “Frightening, sensual . . . Anne Rice will live on through the ages of literature. . . . To read her is to become giddy as if spinning through the mind of time, to become lightheaded as if our blood is slowly being drained away.”—San Francisco Chronicle “Fiercely ambitious, nothing less than a complete unnatural history of vampires.”—The Village Voice “Brilliant . . . its undead characters are utterly alive.”—The New York Times Book Review “Luxuriantly created and richly told.”—The Cleveland Plain Dealer

The Vampire Lestat

Returning to the hypnotic world she so brilliantly created in Interview with the Vampire, Anne Rice demonstrates once again her power to enthrall.  With the same richness of drama, atmosphere and incident, she tells the fantastic story of the vampire Lestat, whom we first perceived as the seductive devil-vampire of Interview with the Vampire and whom we now follow through the ages as he searches for the origin and meaning of his own dark immortality.  And who, more and more, engages our sympathy until he stands revealed as a questing romantic, a vampire-hero with his own strange and passionate courage and morality.

As the novel opens, Lestat, having risen from the earth after a fifty-five years' sleep,  and infatuated with the modern world, presents himself in all his vampire brilliance as a rock star, a superstar, a seducer of millions.  And, in this blaze of adulation, daring to break the vampire oath of silence, he determines to tell his story, to rouse the generations of the living dead from their slumbers and to penetrate the riddle of his own existence.

As he speaks we are plunged back into eighteenth-century France, into the castle where we meet the young Lestat: child of impoverished aristocrats, heroic hunter of wolves, at odds with his tyrannical father, running away to join a traveling troupe of actors.  We see him in the licentious Paris of the day, first apprentice at a boulevard theater, then its most celebrated actor, idolized, adored by many and--night after night--watched by one . . . until, in a sleep filled with dreams of the wolves he killed as a boy, he is shocked awake by a dark figure and suddenly, horribly, eternally joined to the unholy brotherhood.

We follow Lestat as he searches for others like him--in churches and brothels, in gambling houses, huts and palaces--sometimes joined by the vampire-angel Gabrielle, who is bound to him both by blood and by passion; sometimes traveling with his adored Nicolas, the violinist whose music and beauty are equally transcendent.  We follow Lestat as he travels from the snowcapped mountains of the Auvergne and the primeval forest of ancient Gaul to Sicily, Istanbul, Venice and Cairo, searching for his origins, sometimes finding clues to the birth of the vampire race, knowing always that the central truth eludes him.

But all the while, throughout his travels, through many lands and many times, Lestat has made enemies among his brethren--vampires who are in terror of his questions, who fear he will disturb the uneasy balance in which they exist with the mortal world, and who suspect in him a desire to rule.  And when, in the caves below a craggy Greek island, in a sanctuary whose walls are covered with gold-flecked murals, the very first of the living dead awake, the truth at the heart of his quest is at last revealed.  Ancient forces held immobile through the ages are irreversibly set in motion, and as the novel rushes to its stunning climax, Lestat's vampire foes converge in pursuit of him on the demonic freeways of the twentieth century.

bella <3

when I was corrected, which wasn't often, I knew an intense happiness because someone for the first time in my life was trying to make me into a good person, one who could learn things.

andrea valentina 

You sense my loneliness, (...) my bitterness at being shut out of life. My bitterness that I'm evil, that I don't deserve to be loved and yet I need love hungrily. My horror that I can never reveal myself to mortals. But these things don't stop me, Mother. I'm too strong for them to stop me. As you said yourself once, I am very good at being what I am. These things merely now and then make me suffer, that's all. 

We breathe the light, we breathe the music, we breathe the moment as it passes through us.

but nothing natural seemed beautiful to me now! the very sight of a great tree standing alone in a field could make me tremble and cry out. 

i saw the universe, a vision of the sun, the planets, the stars, the black night going on forever. and i began to laugh. 

i realized aloud in the midst of saying it that even when we die we probably don’t find out the answer as to why we were ever alive. 

but the sky was never quite the same shade of blue again. i mean the world looked different forever after, and even in moments of exquisite happiness there was the darkness lurking, the sense of our frailty and our hopelessness. 

To follow, to accept, or to do what we feel is our right. To hide, or to reveal ourselves. 

Omar

"No. You were the slave of Marius and then of the Children of Darkness. You fell under the spell of one and then the other. What you suffer now is the absence of a spell. I think I shudder that you caused me so to understand it for a little while, to know it as if I were a different being than I am."

"Doesn't matter," he said, eyes still on the fire. "You think too much in terms of decision and action. This tale is no expla- nation. And I am not a being who requires a respectful acknowl- edgment in your thoughts or in words. And we all know the answer you have given is too immense to be voiced and we all three of us know that it is final. What I don't know is why. So I am a creature very different from you, and so you cannot understand me. Why can't I go with you? I will do whatever you wish if you take me with you. I will be under your spell." I thought of Marius with his brush and the pots of egg

tempera. "How could you have ever believed anything that they told you after they burned those paintings?" I asked. "How could you have given yourself over to them?"

Caution in Gabrielle's face, but not fear. "And you, when you stood on the stage and you saw the audience screaming to get out of the theater-how my follow- ers described this to me, the vampire terrifying the crowd and the crowd streaming into the boulevard du Temple-what did you believe? That you did not belong among mortals, that's what you believed. You knew you did not. And there was no band of fiends in hooded robes to tell you. You knew. So Marius did not belong among mortals. So I did not."

"Ah, but it's different." "No, it is not. That's why you scorn the Theater of the Vampires which is now at this very moment working out its little dramas to bring in the gold from the boulevard crowds. You do not wish to deceive as Marius deceived. It divides you ever more from mankind. You want to pretend to be mortal, but to deceive makes you angry and it makes you kill."

"In that moment on the stage," I said, "I revealed myself. I did the very opposite of deceiving. I wanted somehow in making manifest the monstrosity of myself to be joined with my fellow humans again. Better they should run from me than not see me. Better they should know I was something monstrous than for me to glide through the world unrecognized by those upon whom I preyed.

I read by candle or oil lamp all the books I could procure. I might as well have been Gabrielle trapped in her castle bedroom, save there was no furniture here. And the stacks of books reached to the ceiling in one room after another as I went to the next. Now and then I mustered enough stamina to break into a library or an old bookstore for new volumes, but less and less I went out. I wrote off for periodicals. I hoarded candles and bottles and tin cans of oil.

Only the impossible can do the impossible.

this is a good book, better than interview, but I think it would have benefited from less Marius exposition and more action; the beginnings with human Lestat and the epilogue with the concert were the best parts because they moved quickly and were engaging. I think this book suffers from too much philosophical waxing, just like the first one. that said, I like lestat, Armand is still my precious angel gremlin, and I am excited to read QOTD, also can I just say FUCK MARIUS!!!

fris🐝

Anne Rice put my mans through everything but the kitchen sink. 

Book II of The Vampire Chronicles

i don’t know what to say other than I love Lestat and he can do whatever he wants 

Florence

Did I go into this excited? Yes, of course. Did I finish it excited? Why yes. However. I cried over this vampire more than I've cried over any other vampire. He was relatable (hello anxiety, existential thoughts of death, and the illogical confidence that everything is going to work out in the end, even when it doesn't). He was funny. He was a perfect idiot. And the writing was great. Perfect blend of wit and a touch of horror every now and then to humble Lestat's rising ego. Your Honour, I love him. 

Kiersten

venus

** spoiler alert **
           probably my favorite in the series so far if you ignore the mom kissing. but it did solidify lestat as my favorite character in tvc. also the fact that he is a theatre kid explains a lot…

Love everything about this book. Lestat's life is so amazing and he is definitely an amazing character. I love the connections with mythology and history in the book with the vampire's origin. 

3.5 but i didnt feel like rating it 4 stars

This book delivers. There is just so much in this book. It has several interesting and enigmatic characters. It dives into complex topics around the meaning of life and death, worship, love, community, isolation, knowledge. It covers a dizzying timeline spanning millenia. And the beauty of some scenes will stick with me forever. 

Cat Josephson

this was LIGHTYEARS ahead of the first book lolol

4.5 * 

I can't lie,I'm kinda obsessed with this,,,it wasn't what I expected but I loved every second. I'm not usually one for slow paced books but this was just really interesting to read and almost calming? (i cant explain). This one was far far superior to book 1, I think I'm just not a fan of Louis' narration but Lestat's? Obsessed, completely obsessed. 

Idk what to say except I loved the whole story, everything we learnt, the general premise of why we are being told things, idk it's just really great! The whole book just felt so lyrical and emotional, it felt like I was reading for so long to get through it but at the same time I didn't want it to come to an end. Honestly if you didn't much like book 1, please try this one the narration just feels much more interesting, it's clear it's a different perspective and I just love it a lot. I listened to the audiobook for a bit too which was just so good, it gave it even more emotion and life !

I don;t even really know what to do after THAT ending my god...

Interesting to read about Lestat + his life. The first half of the book felt slow for me and pretty boring, it’s overly descriptive and there are plot threads that I didn’t care for. Second half reeled me back in and I loved every bit of it. Egyptian mythology, a little bit of mystery and the creation of vampires! 

Roxanne Ramirez

It would seem that for Lestat, growing up was definitely rough on him. Chastised and punished for wanting to do what he enjoyed, made to always return home to fit some mold his father expected of him. 

 I find it interesting to see him have such a fear of death, given what he becomes. I am curious whether he still has that fear deep inside him at all. The 'malady of mortality' as he puts it. He has a sort of fear of the exact thing he becomes.

 Anne Rice has a way of writing the vampiric feeding/turning scenes that are very quite enthralling to read.

 Really vastly different from the Lestat I read about in the first.

 Some good action sequence when the other vampires decide to confront Lestat.

 The vampires that Lestat and Gabrielle are being held before are another good example of your almost stereotypical vampires. Dark and dirty, believing themselves to be truly evil. I wonder what Louis would have thought had he met them?

 Very interesting to learn that Lestat knew Armand as the leader of the vampires, the one who had been stalking him. He knew Armand before Louis.

 It is crazy how much Lestat is wrapped up in this and it lends new things to the novel before it.

 We get some "legendary "vampires mentioned, ones I hope we read about later in the series. Such as Marius. To even know such vampires exist is shocking. How old they must be.

 I really like getting other characters backstory in this novel. It adds so much more to her vampires and their doings.

 So much of what we learn of Lestat in this novel lends new insights to his character in Interview .

 A lot happens right at the end, totally crazy, and also epic in a way. It also leaves on a bit of a cliff hanger

Sasha Mann

It would seem that for Lestat, growing up was definitely rough on him. Chastised and punished for wanting to do what he enjoyed, made to always return home to fit some mold his father expected of him. 
 I find it interesting to see him have such a fear of death, given what he becomes. I am curious whether he still has that fear deep inside him at all. The 'malady of mortality' as he puts it. He has a sort of fear of the exact thing he becomes.
 Anne Rice has a way of writing the vampiric feeding/turning scenes that are very quite enthralling to read.
 Really vastly different from the Lestat I read about in the first.
 Some good action sequence when the other vampires decide to confront Lestat.
 The vampires that Lestat and Gabrielle are being held before are another good example of your almost stereotypical vampires. Dark and dirty, believing themselves to be truly evil. I wonder what Louis would have thought had he met them?
 Very interesting to learn that Lestat knew Armand as the leader of the vampires, the one who had been stalking him. He knew Armand before Louis.
 It is crazy how much Lestat is wrapped up in this and it lends new things to the novel before it.
 We get some "legendary "vampires mentioned, ones I hope we read about later in the series. Such as Marius. To even know such vampires exist is shocking. How old they must be.
 I really like getting other characters backstory in this novel. It adds so much more to her vampires and their doings.
 So much of what we learn of Lestat in this novel lends new insights to his character in Interview .
 A lot happens right at the end, totally crazy, and also epic in a way. It also leaves on a bit of a cliff hanger

shellybn

This is my favorite of Anne Rice's Vampire books. I love Lestat's shamelessness and how he rebuts all of Louis' blaming and whiging. I wouldn't exactly call it horror, but I don't know how else to categorize it.

Ratri Adityarani

i finaly got this book!!! *screams madly excited*
LMAO. well i only have read about 10 pages last nite, and obviously will be more the next days... so... 
hmm.
anyway. lestat is toadally awesome. *dies*

Kerri McDonald

I've started and stopped this book so many times. I finally pushed through it and it wasn't terrible. I don't know what took my so long to get through this book. I think it just seemed slow and kind of dull to me. Definitely not as good as Interview with the Vampire, which I really enjoyed. I'm curious to see how I'll like the next book in this series...

Returning to the hypnotic world she so brilliantly created in Interview with the Vampire, Anne Rice demonstrates once again her power to enthrall.  With the same richness of drama, atmosphere and incident, she tells the fantastic story of the vampire Lestat, whom we first perceived as the seductive devil-vampire of Interview with the Vampire and whom we now follow through the ages as he searches for the origin and meaning of his own dark immortality.  And who, more and more, engages our sympathy until he stands revealed as a questing romantic, a vampire-hero with his own strange and passionate courage and morality.

As the novel opens, Lestat, having risen from the earth after a fifty-five years' sleep,  and infatuated with the modern world, presents himself in all his vampire brilliance as a rock star, a superstar, a seducer of millions.  And, in this blaze of adulation, daring to break the vampire oath of silence, he determines to tell his story, to rouse the generations of the living dead from their slumbers and to penetrate the riddle of his own existence.

As he speaks we are plunged back into eighteenth-century France, into the castle where we meet the young Lestat: child of impoverished aristocrats, heroic hunter of wolves, at odds with his tyrannical father, running away to join a traveling troupe of actors.  We see him in the licentious Paris of the day, first apprentice at a boulevard theater, then its most celebrated actor, idolized, adored by many and--night after night--watched by one . . . until, in a sleep filled with dreams of the wolves he killed as a boy, he is shocked awake by a dark figure and suddenly, horribly, eternally joined to the unholy brotherhood.

We follow Lestat as he searches for others like him--in churches and brothels, in gambling houses, huts and palaces--sometimes joined by the vampire-angel Gabrielle, who is bound to him both by blood and by passion; sometimes traveling with his adored Nicolas, the violinist whose music and beauty are equally transcendent.  We follow Lestat as he travels from the snowcapped mountains of the Auvergne and the primeval forest of ancient Gaul to Sicily, Istanbul, Venice and Cairo, searching for his origins, sometimes finding clues to the birth of the vampire race, knowing always that the central truth eludes him.

But all the while, throughout his travels, through many lands and many times, Lestat has made enemies among his brethren--vampires who are in terror of his questions, who fear he will disturb the uneasy balance in which they exist with the mortal world, and who suspect in him a desire to rule.  And when, in the caves below a craggy Greek island, in a sanctuary whose walls are covered with gold-flecked murals, the very first of the living dead awake, the truth at the heart of his quest is at last revealed.  Ancient forces held immobile through the ages are irreversibly set in motion, and as the novel rushes to its stunning climax, Lestat's vampire foes converge in pursuit of him on the demonic freeways of the twentieth century.

The Second Book in the Vampire Chronicles

Rob Brogan

Really great narrator (Audible version)! I liked this book even better than the first in the series, mainly because of all the backstory and Vampire history. I'm already digging into the third book now.

blake

rippy

nanna

Tuva

Lestat has risen from his long sleep as a modern day rock star, and makes public his story of boyhood in eighteenth-century France and initiation into vampiredom in order to solve the mystery of his existence

Edith Quijano

Faye Perozich

Daerick Gross

Lestat recounts the story of how he became a vampire in eighteenth-century France

The Vampire Lestat

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