Lasher

I'm a huge fan of Anne Rice, and loved The Witching Hour along with many of her other books, but for some reason had never gotten around to reading Lasher. When I first started it, I was fully absorbed. I love Rice's detailed and luscious writing style, and her ability to create fully fleshed-out, interesting characters. These are some of this book's best elements, along with a additions to the Mayfair history in the back stories of Julian and Evelyn, and new, engaging characters like Mona and Yuri. In pieces, this is a great book, but unfortunately, the parts never really come together. The pacing becomes awkward and slow, and the story's best characters don't get enough page time. The book took me forever to finish, because I would get bored, and after putting it down would not go back to it for several days. Most of all, the title character, Lasher, as he develops to show his true flaws, fostered a deep loathing in me, despite his sympathetic characteristics, and I became overly anxious for him to meet his end. When his back story is finally revealed, it should have been a dramatic moment, because his story is the great mystery that the saga of the Mayfair witches is founded on, but I found myself not caring at all.

I wish this was a better book since it has so many great elements, and the writing, as usual for Rice, is beautiful, but because of the poor pacing it was a rather tedious read.

This is the second book in Rice's Mayfair Witches trilogy, and I have to confess that while I find the witches fascinating, the title character leaves me a little cold.
In the first book in the series we learned that the Mayfairs had been subtly manipulated for thirteen generations by a spirit named Lasher, so that they could fulfill a prophecy that would give Lasher physical form. As this book opens Lasher has effectively won, and the Mayfairs have to try to put the genie back in the bottle.
In some ways, this book reminded me of Star Trek VI; both asking the question of “what do you do when the defining grand narrative of your life has ended?” This was understandably on the minds of many Americans as the Cold War came to an end, and it's interesting to see how different genres framed (and answered) the question.

This book is long and drawn out. The entire book is just two very long retellings of the story told in the first book with a couple of blanks filled in. It is almost like re-reading the first book and is quite tedious at times. The development of Lasher could have been done effectively by just adding another chapter or two to the already long first book.
The character of Emaleth felt completely underused. Mona is just an annoying character.
The only good thing to come out of this book is more time and story with Julian Mayfair, arguably the most intriguing character in the series.