Product Description

"SEDUCTIVE MAGIC...SPELLBINDING...Rice stages her scenes in a wide variety of times and locales, tapping deeply into the richest veins of mythology and history."
--San Francisco Chronicle
"STEAMY...FAST-PACED AND HUGELY ENGROSSING...Rice's title character--a seductive, evil, highly sexual and ultimately tragic creature--is fascinating."
--The Miami Herald
"BEHIND ALL THE VELVET DRAPES AND GOSSAMER WINDING SHEETS, THIS IS AN OLD-FASHIONED FAMILY SAGA....Rice's descriptive writing is so opulent it almost begs to be read by candlelight."
--The Washington Post Book World
"RICE SEES THINGS ON A GRAND SCALE...There is a wide-screen historical sweep to the tale as it moves from one generation of witches to the other."
--The Boston Globe
"EROTIC...EERIE...HORRIFYING...A tight tale of the occult in present-day New Orleans...Anne Rice is a spellbinding novelist.... LASHER quenches."
--Denver Post
A MAIN SELECTION OF THE LITERARY GUILD(c)

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #16146 in Books
• Published on: 1995-08-01
• Released on: 1995-08-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback
• 640 pages

Amazon.com Review
At the center of this dark and compelling tale is Rowan Mayfair, queen of the coven, who must flee from the darkly brutal, yet irresistable demon known as Lasher. With a dreamlike power, this wickedly seductive entity draws us through twilight paths, telling a chilling and hypnotic story of spiritual aspiration and passion.

From Publishers Weekly
Returning to the Mayfair clan she introduced in The Witching Hour , Rice offers another vast, transcontinental saga of witchcraft and demonism in the tradition of Gothic melodrama. The eponymous Lasher is a demon spirit who preys on female Mayfairs in his attempt to procreate. Rowan Mayfair, queen of the coven who has borne Lasher's child, has now disappeared. At times this main narrative is lost as the story moves from the Louisiana Mayfairs to the Scottish Donnelaiths and the clandestine London Telamasca society, with copious personal histories and myriad characters. Long sections ramble without a compelling point of view, and are dampened by stock elements: cliched wind storms, sexy witches, the endless supply of money the Telemasca has at its disposal. At times, Lasher is too much in evidence (rattling the china, gnashing his teeth) to be frightening. But embedded in this antique demonism is a contemporary tale of incest and family abuse that achieves resonance. It is maintained through the character of Lasher, both child and man at the same time, who manipulates his victims with his own pain. At their best, Rice's characters rise above the more wooden plot machinations with an ironic and modern complexity: Mona, the young feminist witch with sharklike business instincts; Julien, the dead patriarch, who movingly recalls his male lovers; Yuri, the clever Serbian orphan. Despite lapses into uninspired language, ultimately the novel is compelling through its exhaustive monumentality. 700,000 first printing; Literary Guild main selection.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Kirkus Reviews
The sequel and conclusion to Rice's The Witching Hour (1990) shows Rice both at her best and at her hackiest. Volume One brought forth the Mayfair Witches, an incestuous family in New Orleans' steamy Garden District, headed by supersurgeon Rowan Mayfair, who is putting some of the family's seven-and-a-half billion into the Mayfair Medical Institute. At that novel's end, Rowan had given birth to an ``entity'' on the living-room rug that, assuming human shape, had nearly killed husband Michael in the swimming pool, then abducted Rowan. Now the evil being--which looks like Drer's Christ and has been using witches in the Mayfair line to have itself reborn after dying time and again since the earliest days of the Reformation in Scotland-- is skipping about Europe while trying to breed with Rowan and give birth to a female demon. But these porny pages don't arrive until we wade through 200 tediously undramatic sheets of dialogue filler quite lacking in storytelling oomph--though we are treated to teenygenius Mona Mayfair's seduction of the recovering Michael. All this is a case of background detail turning story into tapestry. Once Rice plunges us into Rowan's long rape, two miscarriages, and at last the birth of Emaleth, sister/wife for Rowan's demonic son Lasher, the novel lights up with rocket blast. How will Rowan escape her tyrant son, whose endless suckling and inseminating keeps her constantly orgasmic and horrified? But pigging out on Rowan's plight takes up only about 200 pages all told, and then more background filler--well, the novel's huge mythic underpinning- -dims our spirits, although the story of Uncle Julien, as told by Julien's ghost to Michael, dances nicely. Too much Rice-A-Roni, but addicts will lick the pot. (Literary Guild Dual Selection for November; First printing of 700,000) -- Copyright ©1993, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Customer Reviews

A Haunting, Erotic, Incestuous Old-Fashioned Family Saga!
I loved every minute I spent reading Anne Rice's "The Witching Hour," and therefore looked forward to reading the book's sequel, "Lasher." I am certainly not disappointed now that I have finished the novel. I do want to mention here that although "Lasher" is part of a trilogy, it stands very well on its own as an independent work. I was almost as spellbound by this second book in "The Lives Of The Mayfair Witches Trilogy" as I was by the first. The author continues spinning this seductive story in a manner that captures the reader's interest and imagination until the very last page. The characters introduced to us in "The Witching Hour," geneticist Rowan Mayfair, her husband, Michael Curry, their friend Aaron Lightner, along with a huge cast of ghosts, witches and Mayfair clan members, return to delight and chill, depending on your perspective. And some new folks, (not all human), come on board also. As the novel begins, the author summarizes the storyline and takes up the narrative at almost the same spot where the prior novel left us.

Lasher, the former otherworldly spirit who haunted the Mayfairs, is now a flesh and blood supernatural being. He chose to leave the world of specters to join us humans in three-dimensional space on earth - New Orleans' steamy Garden District to be precise. He made this transfer through Rowan's birth canal. You have to read it to believe it. So Rowan and Michael, along with their many other roles, are also Lasher's parents. And you thought Rosemary and her baby had problems! Lasher, a very sensual, mesmerizing, manipulative entity, longs for love, yet doesn't really understand the human concept of the word. Therefore his motives are constantly misconstrued. And why not? He hasn't the faintest idea of how his actions impact others - a psychopathic supernatural entity? Or just your everyday misunderstood demon? You decide.

Lasher is one of Ms. Rice's more complex characters. He has had a love affair with every Mayfair witch, down through history. Interfamily relations, as a consequence, are not what they could be. Talk about dysfunctional families! Also, Lasher's affection is all consuming - he tends to drain those whom he loves - an emotional vampire, in other words. And he is draining in the more literal sense too. Baby Lasher almost sucks the life out of Rowan as she breast feeds him. Rowan, as the reigning Mayfair Witch, and his Mom, is now center screen on Lasher's radar. He grows to maturity within days of his birth, (Taltos - what Lasher is - mature very quickly), and then he kidnaps Rowan. Obsessed with having a child by her so that his race, the Taltos line, will continue, Lasher rapes her. The only females capable of carrying Lasher's child are witches, who have the required double length strand of DNA. If this strand of DNA is absent, the pregnant woman has a spontaneous miscarriage and usually dies. Yep! Rowan has the special strand. Lasher and Rowan have a daughter together, Emaleth. And this is not the first time Lasher has attempted to impregnate Mayfair women - with disastrous consequences. As Rowan lies in a coma, as a result of Lasher's attentions, he moves on to search for other Mayfair lovelies to impregnate. He really wants a son bad!! Much of this saga centers on Rowan's attempt to escape Lasher, and his pursuit of her and their child.

The author delves more deeply into the Mayfair family members' characters and their histories here, especially Julian's, the only Mayfair Warlock. This tremendous Mayfair dynasty, made up of so many individuals over so many centuries, is the crux of what makes this novel tick. Ms. Rice gives them depth, fleshes them out more in "Lasher," and their voices, as well as those of ghosts, angels, demons, witches, warlocks and ordinary men and women, contribute their points of view to the narrative. The plot is complex but not confusing. Much more family history is revealed than in the first book, and history is interwoven with fiction so that subplots become quite realistic. For example, it is discovered that Rowan is descended from a long line of witches who were exterminated by Protestants during the reign of King Henry VIII. They managed to keep some power in the family by moving to North America and intermarrying with their brothers and male cousin.

The Mayfair family, with the help of the Talamasca, a group of scholars who have studied and chronicled occult happenings for centuries, eventually track down Lasher. They are then faced with a dilemma. Do they kill this entity whom they do not understand? He is otherworldly, but not necessarily evil. What would you decide?

This is a magnetic, riveting read! I have read some negative reviews, and, as with everything else, people have different and definite tastes in fiction. As far as I am concerned, however, this is a real winner!!
JANA

gimme a break!
Anne Rice is comparable in style to Stephen King. What they have in common is their talent of starting with a brilliant idea and turning it into something absurd. The Mayfair trilogy is yet another example of this. I really liked the initial premise - a mysterious spirit following and protecting a family of witches through generation after generation.
I found The Witching Hour difficult to put down for most of the way through, until the end, which was so idiotic I am still shaking my head in disbelief. The books 'Lasher' and 'Taltos' just became increasingly ridiculous. This concept of Lasher being some 5000 year old super being from Atlantis or whatever was so far fetched I was laughing out loud! And why, in all of AR's books, is the main character always about 5000 years old?
It would've been nice if she'd stuck with the original theme, instead of this far fetched piece of drivel. If I could give this zero stars I would.

Dark, erotic, and full of image ridden storytelling!
When I first read The Witching Hour, I was thrown into the dark and mysterious world of The Mayfair Witches. Rice has the ability to draw you into her characters, with her lore, and history. More of The Mayfair past comes out in this book, filling in holes and questions we had since the first book coupled with the just the mere thought of the entity known as Lasher has finally become human again - made this book worth reading. All Rice fans should know by now that the story is never fully over with one book and Lasher continues this thought. Lasher starts off as all Rice books begin, giving the reader a brief synopsis and an after math story before she plunges into the core of the book. Lasher as we all know is a very sensual entity with only the thought of love by his side. However, his ideas of love become misconstrued by his actions throughout his life, which makes for a very deep and constructed character. Rice has proven she has a flair for the not so obvious. She goes deep within her characters and expands them. They somehow jump off the pages and makes you wonder if that noise you heard, or that feeling you felt could have been your personal Lasher. Lasher is erotic, mesmorizing, sensual, and deep, and you can drown in his love if not careful. Rice has shown us this through his love affair with every witch in the family. She has also done a marvelous job with telling us more of Julien Mayfair, the only male witch to inhabit the family. Julien is such an integral part of the Mayfair history, that I often wondered if she would make a book dedicated to him. I recommend this book to all of Rice's fans. However, as Lasher comes to a close, she takes on a quick journey to tell the origins of Lasher after he kidnapps his mother Rowan, and his timid return to the Mayfair house he's loved so much to confront his "father" Michael. Lasher's history was too quick. We waited so long to find out where he came from, but is somewhat let down in the end. You decide for yourself though. All in all I loved this book. I devoured it and can't wait to read Taltos. Ms. Rice, if you read this, please - think Julien Mayfair. A book about him would make your fans so happy! Me espcially.