En esta fascinante nueva novela, Anne Rice demuestra una vez más su don para la narración fascinante y la creación de mitos y magia, mientras entreteje dos de sus mundos más fascinantes, las de las Crónicas vampíricas y las brujas de Mayfair.

I picked up MERRICK, officially the 7th book in Anne Rice’s Vampire Chronicles, with some high expectations, mainly because I have just waded through her three epics about the Mayfair witches, and I was looking forward to getting back to her blood suckers, a group I much prefer. I found the Mayfair series to be consistently overwritten, and often sluggish, heavy laden with detail and back story, causing the reader to plow through a lot of pages in order to get to the story. I am no prude, but much of the sexual content of the Mayfair books left a bad taste. So, if I was happy to again be in the company of Lestat and his fellow blood drinkers, it came with some trepidation, because MERRICK was a crossover, where Rice’s two fictional worlds, one of witches, the other, of vampires, would meet.

On the plus side, at just under 400 pages, MERRICK is a relatively quick read, and mercifully free of the excessive verbal padding that made the Mayfair books so long. But that doesn’t mean we do not get a couple of chapters where someone sits around and recounts a long adventure from the past, giving us a ton of back story. This is one of Rice’s most reliable tropes. I’m sure I was not the only one who was disappointed that Lestat was not front and center in this book, and that he didn’t interact with Rowan Mayfair, the central character of the other series. The main POV character in MERRICK is David Talbot, the former elderly member of the Talamasca whose soul now resides in the body of a youthful vampire. David has been a prominent supporting character in most of the recent Vampire Chronicle volumes. The other principles are the angst and guilt ridden Louis, the POV character from the original INTERVIEW WITH THE VAMPIRE, and Merrick Mayfair, a biracial member of the witching clan, and a powerful witch in her own right. Merrick, who has little or no contact with the rest of the extended family, has been a member of the Talamasca (secret group of observers and documenters of the supernatural) since her early years, having been recruited by the then still human David. The plot turns on Louis, who is desperate to contact the spirit of Claudia, the vampire child sired by Lestat back in the antebellum South, whom he loved, and conspired with against their maker. As faithful Rice readers know, Claudia came to a bad end, and Louis wants to know if she is at rest, or in torment as an earthbound spirit. David turns to Merrick for help with Louis’s problem, and she is more than happy to oblige them. But does Merrick have her own agenda, and is she manipulating both vampires for her own ends?

MERRICK is heavy on creepy atmosphere, there are severed limbs, and plenty of blood; Rice is always on a sure footing when New Orleans is the setting for a book, and this one has a great side trip to the Mayan temples in Central America, where the spirits abound. I liked the sight of Louis besotted with Merrick like a love sick puppy, a real, and welcome departure for the whining vampire of previous books, even if it is not through honest means. But for a book featuring vampires, witches, and ghosts, I expected more, and I thought the last 50 pages were building toward a gut punch of an ending, something Rice has done well in other books, only to be let down. As usual, Anne Rice never meets an adjective she doesn’t love, and we get detailed descriptions of homes, furniture, and clothes, not to mention constant reminders of the physical beauty of all these supernatural creatures. Lestat does show up late in the book, but I think at the time she wrote this (the late ‘90s), Rice was kind of out of gas when it came to her most favorite creation.

All in all, I found MERRICK to be a decent potboiler, one that didn’t always exploit some of the elements of its plot more fully – I would have liked to see more of ghost Claudia. A lot of reviewers either loved the book, or hated it, but I come down solid in the middle. It helps a lot if you were a big fan of both Anne Rice’s vampire books and the Mayfair witches. Anyway, I am going to progress onward to the next installment in the Vampire Chronicles. Hopefully, we’ll get that long promised TV adaptation sometime soon. ( )

EDITORIAL REVIEW: At the center is the beautiful, unconquerable witch, Merrick. She is a descendant of the gens de colors libres, a cast derived from the black mistresses of white men, a society of New Orleans octaroons and quadroons, steeped in the lore and ceremony of voodoo, who reign in the shadowy world where the African and the French--the white and the dark--intermingle. Her ancestors are the Great Mayfair Witches, of whom she knows nothing--and from whom she inherits the power and magical knowledge of a Circe.Into this exotic New Orleans realm comes David Talbot, hero, storyteller, adventurer, almost mortal vampire, visitor from another dark realm. It is he who recounts Merrick's haunting tale--a tale that takes us from the New Orleans of the past and present to the jungles of Guatemala, from the Mayan ruins of a century ago to ancient civilizations not yet explored.Anne Rice's richly told novel weaves an irresistible story of two worlds: the witches' world and the vampires' world, where magical powers and otherworldly fascinations are locked together in a dance of seduction, death, and rebirth.

In her mesmerizing new novel, the author of The Vampire Chronicles and the saga of the Mayfair Witches demonstrates once again her gift for spellbinding storytelling and the creation of myth and magic. Here, in a magnificent tale of sorcery and the occult, she makes real for us a hitherto unexplored world of witchcraft.
At the center is the beautiful, unconquerable witch Merrick. She is a descendant of the *gens de couleur libres*, a society of New Orleans octoroons and quadroons steeped in the lore and ceremony of voodoo, who reigned in the shadowy world where African and French--the dark and the white--intermingled. Her ancestors are the great Mayfair Witches, of whom she knows nothing--and from whom she inherits the power and the magical knowledge of a Circe.
Into this exotic realm comes David Talbot--hero, storyteller, adventurer, almost-mortal vampire, visitor from another dark realm. It is he who recounts Merrick's haunting tale--a tale that takes us from the New Orleans of past and present to the jungles of Guatemala, from the Maya ruins of a century ago to ancient civilizations not yet explored.
Anne Rice's richly told novel weaves an irresistible story of two worlds: the witches' world and the vampires' world, where magical powers and otherworldly fascinations are locked together in a dance of seduction, death, and rebirth.
*Description from inside jacket*
From copyright page:
Frontispiece: Maya carving of ceremonial dancer on slate ax. Copyright Justin Kerr.

as always, I love little mixed witches and their demons. ( )

Pretty good read. Much better than the last book. Pretty decent story. Well written. ( )