Cathedral of Vampires (Marquis de Sade) [Mass Market Paperback]

Mary Ann Mitchell (Author)

Book Description

Series: Marquis de Sade | Publication Date: November 2004

Book Three
An old enemy returns from the ashes to seek revenge on Sade. But it is not just Sade who will feel the sting of her perverted wrath.

--This text refers to the Kindle Edition edition.

Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 355 pages
• Publisher: Leisure Books (November 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0843950234
• ISBN-13: 978-0843950236
• Product Dimensions: 6.5 x 4.2 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #962,572 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Biography

Mary Ann Mitchell has published 11 books. Her first book, Drawn to the Grave, was a final nomination for the Bram Stoker Award and won the International Horror Guild Award. She held officer positions with the Horror Writers Association and with the Northern California Sisters in Crime organization. She is now making her books available as e-books.

As a child, Mary Ann Mitchell wrote short stories, essays, and poetry. When she was twelve she sent her short stories to the night editor of The Journal American, who encouraged her to send more. Her mother intercepted the letters and forbade her from writing. Seems some of the family's dark secrets were oozing onto Mary Ann's written pages. Her writing became secret and sporadic. Once she completed graduate school, she became a civil servant. Years later her husband asked her what her dream career would be. She quickly answered that she always wanted to be a novelist.

She began her writing career by taking writing classes at The University of California, Los Angeles and writing several short stories, which her husband encouraged her to submit for publication. Mary Ann Mitchell's short stories have been published in a number of magazines. The short story The Hyacinth Girl appeared in the anthology The Year's Best Horror Stories: XXI, edited by Karl Edward Wagner.

Before writing the Marquis de Sade series Mary Ann read many of Sade's works and a number of Sade biographies. She also read Marquis de Sade, Letters from Prison translated by Richard Seaver. This helped to form in her mind an image of the historical Sade.

She has always enjoyed crime novels and thrillers, especially the noir writers such as Jim Thompson and the brutal street novels of David Goines. Mary Ann has written a crime fiction novel of female vengeance titled Siren's Call.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Mitchell outdoes Rice and then some..., August 21, 2002

By 

Darren Jacks (North Hollywood, Ca) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Cathedral of Vampires (Marquis de Sade) (Mass Market Paperback)

Mitchell gets better and better with every novel and she is way ahead of the queen, Rice. She sets the story up, paces it, and makes us identify with her characters. Honestly, I never have been a big vampire fan because most of it is too flowery and wordy. But Mitchell breaks it down and writes in a straight-forward way as not to "over-write."

She can write with any of the other splatter-punk's, too; she writes in an orgy of blood and gore. She writes with just a hint of sexuality and sensuality, keeping us wanting more and more.

Her ideas are fresh and very well-thought out and planned. She writes like a bat out of hell and composes her fiction in a literary manner, but not too wordy.

Mitchell is one of the few female writers in the genre that is truly gifted and can deliver chills and shivers down your spine.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Once Bitten, Twice Shy, August 1, 2002

By 

Marc Ruby™ "The Noh Hare™" (Warren, MI USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)   

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This review is from: Cathedral of Vampires (Marquis de Sade) (Mass Market Paperback)

Generally, I expect Vampire stories to have a strong element of horror in them. Their nature is one that should inspire fear, not pity, and they are endowed with a set of powers that makes them efficient killers. The successful exceptions to this are those vampires that combine humor, sex appeal, intelligence, or unexpected ethics with their grimmer nature. Because a vampire that breaks from its essential nature really isn't a vampire any longer. This is the major flaw of 'Cathedral of Vampire.'

Cecilia, a vampire, has conceived a need for vengeance for Sade's complicity in the death of her child's death. Allied with her are Justin, a half vampire, and Marie, who has reincarnated in the dead body of Justin's mother. Marie is actually Sade's mother-in-law, killed by him, and shares the old master's lust for pain and cruelty. Justin has dedicated his life to helping vampire 'find peace,' a politically correct euphemism for killing them.

Standing against this trio of misfits is the count himself, ensconced in his French chateau, debauching and eating the nymphets of the village when he is not throwing gala bondage parties for people he generally seems to dislike. Sade has adapted the local cathedral so that he can lock up vampires behind its walls, hence the title of the novel, and most of the story is about Cecilia's incarceration there and the efforts of Justin to free her and her fellow victims.

Marquis Donatian Aldonse Louis de Sade, was very much a thinker, as well as one of Frances's most famous perverts. Rather than a man of intelligence and wit, we, we are presented with a very petty old man who takes senseless risks to sate his lust, and who spends even more time plotting petit vengeance than he does torturing the innocent. Indeed, both he and Marie who are well over two hundred years old behave with a surprising and unconvincing lack of maturity.

There is something farcical about Mary Ann Mitchell's characters and her humans fare little better. This would be acceptable if the farce was intended, but it was not. Anne Rice, who is hardly much kinder to her casts, still treats them with a basic level of respect and dignity that is lacking here. I have not read any of Mitchell's previous stories in this series, which are apparently better, but this one is ill conceived. Hopefully that will be remedied in the future.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Fast moving!, August 12, 2002

By 

Deinemuse (Sarasota, FL United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Cathedral of Vampires (Marquis de Sade) (Mass Market Paperback)

This book is for people who hate the twenty pages of description that go along with such authors like Anne Rice. Yes, the candle stick is nice, but do I need to hear about it for half the darn book. This book flows quickly and has tons of dialog. The only downfall was that I would've liked to see my description on some of the more coupled scenes. They seem to light a fire and then go no where. Also, the end is very abrupt... maybe this book continues, but it just seemed to end with no conclusion. Great beach reading though!