Merrick

October 2, 2000
Talbot, a vampire familiar to Rice readers, though now inhabiting a different body, relates this eerie tale about an "octoroon of exceptional beauty" named Merrick, a Mayfair witch with whom he has been obsessed for an eternity. The narrative weaves through time--from present-day New Orleans, to Talbot's first meeting with Merrick, to an adventure they shared years ago in the jungles of Guatemala. Flashbacks aside, this story focuses on Talbot's attempt to convince Merrick to use her voodoo magic to conjure up the vampire daughter of his friend and fellow vampire Louis. Fans will recognize characters from past books, including Louis and Lestat. Rice offers a haunting look at the separate but equally intriguing worlds of witches and vampires united here through Merrick's witchcraft on Talbot's behalf. Jacobi's reading of the tale is spellbinding. His refined British tone--with the slightest trace of a classic Transylvanian accent--fits Talbot's character perfectly, and he flavors the narrative with verve and mystery accordingly. Simultaneous release with the Knopf hardcover (Forecasts, Aug. 14).

June 1, 2000
Witches and vampires collide in Rice's latest, which stars the beautiful Merrick, descendent of a New Orleans society of octoroons and quadroons. Merrick learns that her ancestors are the Great Mayfair witches from ordinary-guy vampire David Talbot.

Copyright 2000 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

July 1, 2000
Midway through the Oz series, Frank Baum bogs down. The characters palaver a lot, traipse down roads of brick and other stuff, experience a few humdrum happenings, and gather at the end to feed, all without the ghost of a good plot putting in an appearance. Perhaps Rice is in similar doldrums in her series set in New Orleans and other venues that are Ozlike in their imperviousness to real-world events and personalities and are inhabited by people who, like Oz's, never age and die. Of course, those people are un-Ozlike vampires, and, okay, some other important characters do age and die, despite being powerful, un-Ozlike witches. But this installment of Rice's vampires-and-witches saga is as tepid as "The Road to Oz." Vampire David Talbot looks up witch Merrick Mayfield to get her to raise the spirit of a little-girl bloodsucker whose demise tortures conscience-stricken fellow vampire Louis de Pointe du Lac. Two-thirds of the book later, they have not yet begun to try to retrieve the wee mosquito's shade. Instead, they are stumbling through Guatemala in a flashback, looking for pre-Olmec temple treasures left behind by an earlier expedition of Merrick's and presumably unplundered by Indy Jones types. Yawn, yawn. In the end, David and his master, the vampire Lestat, have to enlist Merrick in their ranks for her own good, after which she and David, at least, feed. Baum got his spirits back for the last Oz books he wrote. May Rice's revive, too. ((Reviewed July 2000))(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2000, American Library Association.)