Customer Reviews

Lasher

5 star:		(59)
4 star:		(21)
3 star:		(27)
2 star:		(17)
1 star:		(13)

 

 

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

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.

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.

Let me start off by saying this: I HATE the character of Mona Mayfair.

Rice really messed up with "Lasher,"and I wish "no stars" was an option for a rating of this book. Rowan has no spine and Michael is raped by a 13 year-old and that's just in the first two chapters. The story slipped through her fingers as she tried to make me identify with Lasher. Impossible. Her crass treatment of history and her corruption of Michael and Rowan made me wish I could set fire to my copy of this book and watch it go up in flames.

In TWH, Rowan was strong and brilliant. If she had killed Lasher like she should have in TWH, this book would never have had a chance to have been written. Rowan ends up being held prisoner by Lasher while they're on the run, trying to find out what he is. During this time he rapes her repeated and she miscarries again and again. Not the fate she imagined, and while humbling Rowan is necessary, treating her like this was not.

Meanwhile, back at the Mayfair house in New Orleans, 13 year-old Mona Mayfair, Rowan's flower girl, sneaks into the mansion and takes advantage of Rowan's absence by helping herself to Michael. The child, for that is what she is, is hell-bent on "shagging" (the real word I want to use cannot be printed here) every Mayfair man she can get her hands on. The self-styled wunderkind also lives in a run-down house in the neighborhood, yet she manages to afford a state-of-the-art computer and fancies herself quite the corporate stockbroker. As if.

Several jarring anachronisms annoyed me about this novel. The first: Rowan was identified as being 5'11" tall in the File of the Mayfair Witches, compiled carefully by the Talamasca. In "Lasher," the medical report quotes her as being 5'7". The second: Julien Mayfair and Evelyn Mayfair copulated in 1913, producing Laura Lee. Gifford Mayfair was born to Laura Lee in 1944. Gifford's full sister, Alicia, was born in 1964, because she was thirteen when Mona was born in 1977 and Mona was thirteen in 1991. Laura Lee would have had to have been 31 when she gave birth to Gifford, and 53 when she gave birth to Alicia. It doesn't quite compute, being that menopause would most likely have set in. Third, we're not even going to go where Rice went with Henry VIII's wife, Anne Boleyn.

Take my advice and write your own sequel. It's bound to be better than this plodding, trashy, exploitative drivel.

The novel begins shortly after the mysterious disappearance of Dr. Rowan Mayfair, who only recently was married to architect Michael Curry. Michael, feeling betrayed by Rowan, has sunk into a depression helped along by the useless drugs prescribed to him after his close-encounter with death.

Along comes the sexually adventurous Mona Mayfair, a thirteen-year-old witch more powerful than Rowan with more lines of descent from Suzanne than anyone else in the family. She seduces Michael, causing him to snap out of his stupor and renew his vow to find his wife at all costs. He is now convinced that where ever she has gone, she hasn't gone willingly.

And though it was she who dragged Lasher away from the house, she is now a prisoner of the monster she has created. He impregnates her twice, both times ending in miscarriage, and is successful the third time. As he drags her throughout Europe, she manages to send off DNA samples to colleagues in San Francisco, who discover that Lasher is a completely different species, and that Rowan herself has a genetic abnormality, a double helix, or 92 chromosomes, which may have assisted in Lasher's supernatural birth.

The duo returns to the states, where Lasher sets out to impregnate other female members of the Mayfair family. All attempts are unsuccessful as the women immediately miscarry and hemorrhage to death. Rowan manages to escape Lasher, and after hitchhiking to Louisiana, collapses in a field and gives birth to Emaleth, a female Taltos. Rowan's last words to Emaleth are to find Michael, which she sets out to do, thinking that Rowan has died.

Rowan is found, and is rushed to a hospital, where she is diagnosed as being in toxic shock. An emergency hysterectomy is performed to save her life, eliminating all chances of her ever giving birth again. She is taken home to Michael, where she remains in a coma, though, unbeknownst to all, she is still aware of her surroundings.

Lasher returns to the house to tell Michael and Aaron his story of his past life. Born to Queen Anne of England, the second wife of Henry VIII, and a man from Donnelaith, Lasher is believed to be a saint known as Ashlar, and is quickly taken away by his father to Donnelaith. His father is the son of the Earl of Donnelaith, and from there he is sent to Italy to become a priest. He returns to Scotland after Elizabeth I takes the throne, and is killed there while performing Christmas Mass by followers of the Protestant reformer John Knox. He knows nothing again until Suzanne calls him back into existence.

Michael patiently hears Lasher out, and when his story is complete, Michael wastes no time in killing him and burying under the great oak in the yard. Soon after, he discovers Emaleth in Rowan's room, feeding her the highly nutritious milk from her breasts. This resuscitates Rowan, but upon seeing Emaleth before, she panics and screams at Michael to kill her. Michael refuses to, so Rowan grabs a gun and shoots her daughter in the head. Rowan immediately realizes what she's done, and crying for her daughter, insists that she be the one to bury her. She buries Emaleth next to Lasher under the oak.

[...]

I was disapointed that someone reviewed this book that didn't even finish it! I was struggling through the middle but raced through the end, which kept me hanging on. I definatly recomend this book, it was a wonderful follow-up to The Witching Hour. Rice is a sequel queen (just look at Lestat compared to Interview). I love her sensual writting and am recomending this book to everyone I know. I do think Witching hour should be read first, just so you get the back-ground. Also, see the vampire chronicles for more Talamasaca info. After reading Lasher I wonder why they were interested in Vampires. Anybody have any ideas? Or should I just read Taltos?

In the end I think it became that simple for me. I don't like Lasher. I don't like the female lead, and Michael wore out his welcome as well. For myself the downfall of the Mayfair Witch series isn't in the prose which is every bit as seductive as ever, it is that the characters became distasteful. While the Vampire Chronicle characters of Lestat, Louis, Claudia, etc have a way of both attracting and repelling the reader, in the end I found most of the characters in this series to be simply repellent. Rice still writes in a wonderful style, but these characters worse than left me cold-- they often disgusted me.

Now that Lasher has become human (which occurred in the previous book, "The Witching Hour"), he wants to continue his lineage by procreating with any Mayfair who can bear a Taltos. Unfortunately, very few of the women he impregnates live for very long, including Gifford, Edith, Mandy, Lindsay, Clytee, and Alicia Mayfair. They all die shortly after sex, resulting from uterine hemorrhaging. The only woman, so far, who can carry a Taltos to full term is Rowan Mayfair, who is the thirteenth witch and also Lasher's birth mother. At the beginning of this book, Rowan is pregnant with Emaleth, Lasher's soon-to-be mate. During her entire pregnancy, Rowan is hidden away in various European locales (such as Berlin, Paris, and Geneva) so that no one--particularly her family--will be able to find them. The couple do eventually return to the States, where Rowan gives birth to Emaleth, and Lasher pursues the above mentioned Mayfair women.

Meanwhile, Michael Curry (Rowan's husband) and the other Mayfairs are teaming up with Aaron Lightner and Yuri Stefano (two ex-members of the Talamasca) to protect the women in the Mayfair family from Lasher's devious scheme, as well as attempting to find Rowan--alive, hopefully. However, working against them are two Talamasca replacements, Erich Stolov and Clement Norgen, who will do everything they can to capture Lasher alive, even if that means killing anyone in their way.

A few new members of the Mayfair clan make appearances in "Lasher", such as Mona, the redheaded 13-year-old nymphomaniac who seduces Michael and becomes pregnant by him; her drunken parents (Alicia--the same one mentioned above who dies because of Lasher--and Patrick) and her wise, quiet great-grandmother (Ancient Evelyn).

"Lasher" begins where the last book ("The Witching Hour") left off. This book is almost half the size of the first, mainly because there's no lengthy family history to sort through. Well, there is Lasher's biographical speech at the end of the book, but that only takes up about 100 pages, not hundreds like in "The Witching Hour".

If you enjoyed "The Witching Hour", you'll love this sequel. And don't miss "Taltos" either, the third and final book in this series. All three of these books are must-reads for Anne Rice fans.

DREADFUL! It's boring, it drags, it's boring, it's a waste of money...and did I say it was boring? BECAUSE IT IS. It lacked explanation of the characters and why somethings occured..etc. And my book fell apart......there are better Anne Rice books out there...avoid this one. You can do better than this.

I found this book to be all that I imagined it to be and more. It picks up exactly where The Mayfair Witches leaves off without missing a beat. Can Michael find his true love? If he does, will it be in time to save her? You'll have to read it to find out. If you enjoyed The Mayfair Witches, you'll love this book. The description of each character and scenery transports you to the frontline of the story. You won't be able to help but be cocooned in the story with the Mayfair family and feel each reaction as they do. Rarely do books come along that so involve you as Anne Rice's books do. I highly recommend this book for anyone who has either read The Mayfair Witches or is looking for a truly spell-binding, fictional book concerning the unknown of this world. Read one of The Mayfair Witches Chronicles, and you will just HAVE to read the rest.