The Witching Hour

By: Anne Rice

Narrated by: Kate Reading

Length: 50 hrs and 1 min

Publisher's summary

"[A] huge and sprawling tale of horror." (The New York Times Book Review)

Demonstrating once again her gift for spellbinding storytelling, Anne Rice makes real for us a great dynasty of four centuries of witches - a family given to poetry and incest, murder and philosophy, a family that over the ages is itself haunted by a powerful, dangerous, and seductive being called Lasher who haunts the Mayfair women.

Moving in time from today's New Orleans and San Francisco to long-ago Amsterdam and the France of Louis XIV, from the coffee plantations of Port-au-Prince to Civil War New Orleans and back to today, Anne Rice has spun a mesmerizing tale that challenges everything we believe in.

©2010 Anne Rice (P)2015 Random House Audio

Critic reviews

"[A] huge and sprawling tale of horror." (The New York Times Book Review)

A Must For Anne Rice Fans - Finally in Unabridged!

Like many other fans, I have waited years to have the Mayfair Witches books in unabridged version, and I will keep these in my collection forever. For me, Anne Rice books either pull me in and I am an instant fan or I am left struggling to finish. The Witching Hour is one of her best, in my opinion.

As is typical with Anne Rice, these books are VERY descriptive. Sometimes painfully descriptive. In the end, I believe the elaborate descriptions are a big part of the magic of these books. They tell such a grand, lavish story, spanning so many generations, and enveloping the listener so deeply that it is easy to feel as if you are there with them. And they're so much more magical when listening to the stories being read rather than reading them. Especially with such a superb narrator as Kate Reading.

Not as I remembered it

I read this book many years ago and called it one of my favorites. I was so excited to see it in full unabridged format, I dropped my other book to tag it immediately.

The plot had a lot more rape and incest then I remembered, and the erotic stuff got old. Lasher was not the romantic guy I remembered either. I did enjoy the detailed character development and the descriptions of the cities.

The narrator did a good job with multiple voices and accents, but her Rowan was to deep and throaty and was distracting.

I'm not going right into the second and third books right now, maybe in the future.

Great Anne Rice classic.

If you could sum up The Witching Hour in three words, what would they be?

interesting, entertaining, powerful

What did you like best about this story?

The story and characters

Have you listened to any of Kate Reading’s other performances before? How does this one compare?

I've never listened to Kate Reading before, she did a excellent job. I hope she finishes this series.

If you were to make a film of this book, what would the tag line be?

not sure, I still have about 2 chapters to finish book 1

Narrator --ugh

The character Michael, a main character, has the voice of a teenage brat holding undertones of a slight NY accent.
He grew up in New Orleans then later resides in California where he does high end restoration of houses.
The distorted and mismatched voice for Michael's character was so distracting I could barely listen. Other characters
equally as poorly read with no southern accents. Kate Reading does ok with the British characters. This was not the correct reader for the setting and characters of this story.

narration was aggravating.

Was just okay, narration was lacking. Story was repetitive. Some parts read like stereo instructions. When the story picked up, it was too late in the book. I won't be reading the other books in the series.

Awesome

I read all the Mayfair books long ago, not long after they were published. Not a single syllable is any less vivid and evocative than they were 35 years ago. I might be tempted to go to the Vampire Chronicles when this is done. Excellent!

amazing and inspiring

as an old time Anne Rice fan, I may not be the best judge over the plot, that I loved as dearly as interview with vampire.

the narrator is one of the best I had the pleasure to hear out. I think this is one of my favorite audio books now. Thank you all for the amazing work.

Oh so long

such a long book. very hard to get started but once you started it's ok

One of my all time favorites!

Fantastic book, series, and author!! I have listed to this one over and over. You will definitely loose yourself in this tale.

witching hour

I bought this book and found it a difficult read. I was told this before buying it. I thought the audio would be better. The book is long and drags out useless text not pertaining to the story line.