The Witching Hour (Lives of Mayfair Witches, #1)

by Anne Rice

[Amber (The Literary Phoenix)]

Ughhhhhhhh.

I didn't like this book. There are so many things to it that didn't works for me. It's incredibly long and draggy, with nearly 75% of the book just being an extended family history. The parts that weren't, were mostly sex or indecision or lengthy explanations. For such a long book, very little actually happened.

While the history of the Mayfair witches is interesting enough, I didn't find the story Anne Rice was telling interesting at all. There's no actual witchcraft - the closest bit is in Rowan's dreams. What there is, however, is incest and possession and a lot of talking. And sexxxxx. Sex dreams. Ancestral sex. Sex with a possessed sibling. Sex with a grandfather. One man fathered three generations of Mayfair witches. So much. It's the longest audiobook I've ever listened to, and I was ready to DNF it but I wanted to finish it just so I could complain about it. Which is the wrong way to read a book, by the way.

The elements and themes to this book were not working for me, and I found the writing a bit draggy compared some of her other works. What I would have liked from this book was novella about the various members of the Mayfair family. I found several of Rowan's ancestor's far more interesting than Rowan herself. The instalove between Rowan and Michael was just ridiculous to me - I have a little more tolerance in YA because of the age of the characters, but between a 20 year old and a 40 year old, it felt particularly silly.

I know so many people like the Mayfair books, but I don't love them. I really, really don't. I think the history is interesting, but I don't like the direction Rice decided to take these in and I have absolutely no intention of reading any other Mayfair books.