In the past few years, many fans have sworn off Anne Rice, flinging her later novels against the wall with cries of "First draft!" and "Never again!" But these same fans may want to take a chance on her Southern gothic Blackwood Farm, a fast-paced and erotically charged, though uneven, novel of the Vampire Chronicles. Blackwood Farm has an unusual flaw: it isn't long enough. Many of its triumphs and tragedies demand more development than they receive. Motivations are sometimes unlikely or unexplained, and the ending is far too rushed.

Blackwood Farm introduces Quinn Blackwood, the sexy, eccentric young gentleman who becomes both a vampire and the heir to the Blackwood estate. All his life, Quinn has been haunted by Goblin, a doppelgänger no one else can see--or believe in. But Goblin is real, and he is becoming maliciously tangible, strengthened by the blood that Quinn unwillingly drinks. Quinn's only hope of liberation from his increasingly dangerous doppelgänger is to find the legendary vampire Lestat. But Lestat has vowed to destroy any vampire who sets foot in New Orleans....

Blackwood Farm features characters from both the Vampire Chronicles and the Mayfair Witches series, but this self-contained novel makes a good entry point for newcomers to Anne Rice's fictional world (however, Vampire Chronicle virgins really should start with Interview With the Vampire, the first in the series and arguably the finest vampire novel of the 20th century). --Cynthia Ward


From Publishers Weekly
Just in time for Halloween, Rice's latest gothic epic blends her beloved Vampire Chronicles with her Mayfair Witches series. Near the dank Sugar Devil Swamp, sinister bayou country where critters far more fearsome than gators lurk, overheated Quinn Blackwood suffers a protracted case of adolescent angst driven by his violent love-hate relationship with Goblin, his spirit-world doppelganger. As heir to Blackwood Farm and an enormous fortune, Quinn enjoys every luxury the decadent Deep South of Rice's imagination can provide, from culinary delicacies to Jasmine, his equally satisfying mulatto housekeeper. Seemingly hell-bent on seducing everyone within range, regardless of gender, age or consanguinity, he falls into a passionate but fatal relationship with 15-year-old nymphomaniac Mona Mayfair, offshoot of the Mayfair clan of witches. But he cannot control Goblin's ferocious jealousy or his nefarious double's taste for blood, particularly once Quinn is made into a Blood Hunter by Petronia, a malignant bisexual spirit who stalks the haunted family cemetery at the edge of the swamp. Rice fleshes out her slim plot line with gory set pieces of vampire history in ancient Athens, Pompeii and 19th-century Naples. She excels at vivid descriptions of macabre landscapes, gloomy estate houses and the lust that motivates her Blood Hunters and propels her ghoulish narratives. Her dialogue and characterizations, however-even of the durable Vampire Lestat, called upon by Quinn for deliverance from Goblin and Sugar Devil Swamp's unholy spirits-are flat and predictable here. But it's intrigue, eroticism and obsession that fans want, and they'll find plenty of all three.Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From Library Journal
Fledgling vampire Quinn Blackwood makes a desperate appeal to the older, stronger Lestat to save his loved ones from Goblin, a doppelganger out to destroy them. Since Quinn entered the dark world of the undead, the once caring and protective Goblin has amassed tremendous strength and a ruthlessness that cannot be controlled. Lestat is intrigued but refuses to make a decision until Quinn tells his life story. Slowly, the dark, Gothic settings and eccentric characters that make Rice's fiction so fascinating emerge. Quinn, along with his mirror image, Goblin, resides on Blackwood Farm, an immense Louisiana estate. His was an isolated childhood but not an unhappy one. Then, while in his teens, he learns of an ancestor's horrifying crime, one that continues to attract vengeful ghosts. The brightest light in Quinn's life is Mona Mayfair, a delicate, pretty girl who blithely admits to being a witch. With the introduction of Mona, Rice deftly brings together her two popular series, the "Vampire Chronicles" and the "Mayfair Witches." The result is at least as good as Rice's earliest novels because she centers her story on new characters with interesting stories of their own. Using lush, voluptuous prose, Rice tells a complex and mesmerizing story. Recommended.Patricia Altner, Information Seekers, Columbia, MDCopyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From AudioFile
Quinn Blackwood has seen ghosts and spirits as long as he can remember. His family home, Blackwood Farm, teems with them, and with their stories. When Quinn becomes a vampire, his lifelong goblin companion turns violent, threatening the lives of those Quinn cares about most. David Pittu infuses the story with a whining, almost pathetic, tone perfectly suited to the poor little rich boy protagonist and his quest for peace. Within this overall mood, Pittu gives every character, large and small, a delightfully clear personality and vocal signature. His Lestat carries an odd accent, not quite French and not quite British, but his own for all that. Even Pittu's children speak authentically, with no trace of squeakiness or condescension. Bring on the next installment! R.P.L. © AudioFile 2003, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine


From Booklist
Rice breathes new life into the long-running Vampire Chronicles with the tale of Quinn Blackwood, a young vampire haunted by a menacing doppelganger. Tormented by his familiar, Goblin, who has been with him since his birth, Quinn seeks out the famous vampire Lestat, hoping that Lestat can help him control Goblin. Lestat accompanies Quinn to his family estate, Blackwood Farm, and meets Quinn's great-aunt, Lorraine, who is known as Aunt Queen. Encouraged by Lestat's interest, Quinn shares his family history, beginning with Manfred, who built Blackwood Farm and also a mysterious mansion on nearby Sugar Devil Island. Quinn was raised by his grandfather, Pops, after his mother, Patsy, a selfish country singer, refused to have anything to do with him. At first, Goblin is Quinn's only friend and companion. The other members of Quinn's family are concerned, but eventually they begin to acknowledge Goblin. As the years go by, Goblin grows stronger and becomes jealous of other people in Quinn's life. When Quinn falls in love with Mona Mayfair, a beautiful young witch, he has to grapple with Goblin's jealousy as well as Mona's forbidding family. Not until Quinn becomes a vampire does Goblin become a truly dangerous threat to Quinn and those he loves. Rather than extrapolating from previous Vampire Chronicles, the latest presents a completely fresh story, a gripping gothic yarn that revives the series. Kristine Huntley
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved


Review
“Rice breathes new life into the long-running Vampire Chronicles with the tale of Quinn Blackwood, a young vampire haunted by a menacing doppelganger….Rather than extrapolating from previous Vampire Chronicles, the latest presents a completely fresh story, a gripping gothic yarn that revives the series.” -- Booklist

”Rice’s books have always had a sexy edge, and she’s not gone stale.” -- Metro Weekly (Washington D.C.)

“At least as good as Rice’s earliest novels because she centers her story on new characters with interesting stories of their own. Using lush, voluptuous prose, Rice tells a complex and mesmerizing story. Recommended.” -- Library Journal

“Blood refreshed for Rice: Vampiric intrigue returns in Blackwood. Blackwood Farm is strong and continues the return to form for Rice that began with Merrick.” -- The Denver Post

“Blackwood Farm is Anne Rice’s best book in years. In fact, it may be necessary to go back to the initial trio of vampire novels to find one that flows with as much grace and continuity. Not only is it beautifully descriptive; it is wonderfully scripted -- with all sorts of unexpected turns…. Rice fires all the weapons in her storyteller’s quiver -- including several kinky, sexually explicit scenes. She uses surprisingly short chapters, most ending with a suspenseful note that practically begs the reader to move on for just one more page.” -- Miami Herald

“Quinn’s story is beautifully haunting. His tale is like a curiosity shop, filled with lovely and unusual things…. There is an intimacy to Blackwood Farm that makes readers feel as though they are an important part of Quinn's world. And it's a world they won’t want to leave.” -- Detroit Free Press

“Classic Anne Rice…hard to put down… Fans of Rice will enjoy this novel, since it is a return to the form that originally drew so many into her bizarre subworld of blood drinkers and witches in the first place.” -- United Press International

“Blackwood Farm is a collection of unexpected twists and turns. Rice implements all of her tricks -- spirits, ghosts, vampires, witches, strong family bonds, platonic and forbidden romantic love. The finale should elicit a squeal of excitement from readers who thought Rice was merely going through the motions. Luckily, that lull has passed. Blackwood Farm closes with enough unearthed family secrets to fill another novel and a cliffhanger that promises a sequel.” -- The Charlotte Observer

Praise for Anne Rice:
“Rice’s strengths as a writer [include] her knack for colourful characters, her loving attention to historical detail [and] her imaginative exploration of myth and mysticism.” -- The Globe and Mail

“[Merrick] is a book where Rice’s two worlds -- of witches and vampires -- finally collide.” -- Ottawa Citizen


From the Hardcover edition.


Review
?Rice breathes new life into the long-running Vampire Chronicles with the tale of Quinn Blackwood, a young vampire haunted by a menacing doppelganger?.Rather than extrapolating from previous Vampire Chronicles, the latest presents a completely fresh story, a gripping gothic yarn that revives the series.? -- Booklist

?Rice?s books have always had a sexy edge, and she?s not gone stale.? -- Metro Weekly (Washington D.C.)

?At least as good as Rice?s earliest novels because she centers her story on new characters with interesting stories of their own. Using lush, voluptuous prose, Rice tells a complex and mesmerizing story. Recommended.? -- Library Journal

?Blood refreshed for Rice: Vampiric intrigue returns in Blackwood. Blackwood Farm is strong and continues the return to form for Rice that began with Merrick.? -- The Denver Post

?Blackwood Farm is Anne Rice?s best book in years. In fact, it may be necessary to go back to the initial trio of vampire novels to find one that flows with as much grace and continuity. Not only is it beautifully descriptive; it is wonderfully scripted -- with all sorts of unexpected turns?. Rice fires all the weapons in her storyteller?s quiver -- including several kinky, sexually explicit scenes. She uses surprisingly short chapters, most ending with a suspenseful note that practically begs the reader to move on for just one more page.? -- Miami Herald

?Quinn?s story is beautifully haunting. His tale is like a curiosity shop, filled with lovely and unusual things?. There is an intimacy to Blackwood Farm that makes readers feel as though they are an important part of Quinn's world. And it's a world they won?t want to leave.? -- Detroit Free Press

?Classic Anne Rice?hard to put down? Fans of Rice will enjoy this novel, since it is a return to the form that originally drew so many into her bizarre subworld of blood drinkers and witches in the first place.? -- United Press International

?Blackwood Farm is a collection of unexpected twists and turns. Rice implements all of her tricks -- spirits, ghosts, vampires, witches, strong family bonds, platonic and forbidden romantic love. The finale should elicit a squeal of excitement from readers who thought Rice was merely going through the motions. Luckily, that lull has passed. Blackwood Farm closes with enough unearthed family secrets to fill another novel and a cliffhanger that promises a sequel.? -- The Charlotte Observer

Praise for Anne Rice:
?Rice?s strengths as a writer [include] her knack for colourful characters, her loving attention to historical detail [and] her imaginative exploration of myth and mysticism.? -- The Globe and Mail

?[Merrick] is a book where Rice?s two worlds -- of witches and vampires -- finally collide.? -- Ottawa Citizen


From the Hardcover edition.


Book Description
In her new novel, perennial bestseller Anne Rice fuses her two uniquely seductive strains of narrative -- her Vampire legend and her lore of the Mayfair witches -- to give us a world of classic deep-south luxury and ancestral secrets.

Welcome to Blackwood Farm: soaring white columns, spacious drawing rooms, bright, sun-drenched gardens, and a dark strip of the dense Sugar Devil Swamp. This is the world of Quinn Blackwood, a brilliant young man haunted since birth by a mysterious doppelgänger, “Goblin,” a spirit from a dream world that Quinn can’t escape and that prevents him from belonging anywhere. When Quinn is made a Vampire, losing all that is rightfully his and gaining an unwanted immortality, his doppelgänger becomes even more vampiric and terrifying than Quinn himself.

As the novel moves backwards and forwards in time, from Quinn’s boyhood on Blackwood Farm to present day New Orleans, from ancient Athens to 19th-century Naples, Quinn seeks out the legendary Vampire Lestat in the hope of freeing himself from the spectre that draws him inexorably back to Sugar Devil Swamp and the explosive secrets it holds.

A story of youth and promise, of loss and the search for love, of secrets and destiny, Blackwood Farm is Anne Rice at her mesmerizing best.


From the Hardcover edition.


From the Inside Flap
In her new novel, perennial bestseller Anne Rice fuses her two uniquely seductive strains of narrative -- her Vampire legend and her lore of the Mayfair witches -- to give us a world of classic deep-south luxury and ancestral secrets.

Welcome to Blackwood Farm: soaring white columns, spacious drawing rooms, bright, sun-drenched gardens, and a dark strip of the dense Sugar Devil Swamp. This is the world of Quinn Blackwood, a brilliant young man haunted since birth by a mysterious doppelgänger, “Goblin,” a spirit from a dream world that Quinn can’t escape and that prevents him from belonging anywhere. When Quinn is made a Vampire, losing all that is rightfully his and gaining an unwanted immortality, his doppelgänger becomes even more vampiric and terrifying than Quinn himself.

As the novel moves backwards and forwards in time, from Quinn’s boyhood on Blackwood Farm to present day New Orleans, from ancient Athens to 19th-century Naples, Quinn seeks out the legendary Vampire Lestat in the hope of freeing himself from the spectre that draws him inexorably back to Sugar Devil Swamp and the explosive secrets it holds.

A story of youth and promise, of loss and the search for love, of secrets and destiny, Blackwood Farm is Anne Rice at her mesmerizing best.


From the Hardcover edition.

FROM OUR EDITORS

This ravishing Vampire Chronicles novel tells the carefully knotted tales of Quinn Blackwood, a brilliant and charming young bloodsucker who has been haunted since childhood by a mysterious doppelg￯﾿ﾽnger named Goblin. Quinn enlists the feared, revered Lestat to help control this ominous creature. Together they return to Quinn's Southern gothic hereditary estate, where they unearth dark family secrets that only make his nemesis more menacing.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

Welcome to Blackwood Farm: soaring white columns, spacious drawing rooms, bright, sun-drenched gardens, and a dark strip of the dense Sugar Devil Swamp. This is the world of Quinn Blackwood, a brilliant young man haunted since birth by a mysterious doppelgänger, “Goblin,” a spirit from a dream world that Quinn can’t escape and that prevents him from belonging anywhere. When Quinn is made a Vampire, losing all that is rightfully his and gaining an unwanted immortality, his doppelgänger becomes even more vampiric and terrifying than Quinn himself.
As the novel moves backwards and forwards in time, from Quinn’s boyhood on Blackwood Farm to present day New Orleans, from ancient Athens to 19th-century Naples, Quinn seeks out the legendary Vampire Lestat in the hope of freeing himself from the spectre that draws him inexorably back to Sugar Devil Swamp and the explosive secrets it holds.
A story of youth and promise, of loss and the search for love, of secrets and destiny, Blackwood Farm is Anne Rice at her mesmerizing best.

About the Author: Anne Rice lives in New Orleans with her husband, the poet and painter Stan Rice.

SYNOPSIS

In her new novel, perennial bestseller Anne Rice fuses her two uniquely seductive strains of narrative -- her Vampire legend and her lore of the Mayfair witches -- to give us a world of classic deep-south luxury and ancestral secrets.

FROM THE CRITICS

Globe and Mail

Rice's strengths as a writer [include] her knack for colourful characters, her loving attention to historical detail [and] her imaginative exploration of myth and mysticism.

Book Magazine

After the historical wanderings of 2001's Blood and Gold , Rice takes a step into the modern day with this newest installment of the Vampire Chronicles series. Quinn Blackwood is the scion of a wealthy and eccentric Louisiana family. They have a seemingly limitless fortune, their own haunted mansion and even a haunted island in Sugar Devil Swamp. A passionate, bisexual young man, Quinn has been turned into a vampire, and the entire book is his retelling of that violent and tragic event to Lestat, the brat prince of the undead. Making an appearance in the story are Chronicles standbys the Talamasca, an ancient order of scholars who just refuse to allow the undead to drink blood in peace. Quinn's moony musings and the Creole flavorings of the story inevitably recall Louis, Lestat's aristocratic companion from Interview With the Vampire . Quinn can give a rich poetic spin to the most mundane events, but, like Louis, he can also come off as a pretentious dilettante. Rice wisely intertwines Quinn's tale with that of the Mayfair witches, her other favorite night-stalkers, who breathe fresh air into the sexy, if occasionally silly, story. Author￯﾿ﾽChris Barsanti

Book Magazine - Chris Barsanti

After the historical wanderings of 2001's Blood and Gold, Rice takes a step into the modern day with this newest installment of the Vampire Chronicles series. Quinn Blackwood is the scion of a wealthy and eccentric Louisiana family. They have a seemingly limitless fortune, their own haunted mansion and even a haunted island in Sugar Devil Swamp. A passionate, bisexual young man, Quinn has been turned into a vampire, and the entire book is his retelling of that violent and tragic event to Lestat, the brat prince of the undead. Making an appearance in the story are Chronicles standbys the Talamasca, an ancient order of scholars who just refuse to allow the undead to drink blood in peace. Quinn's moony musings and the Creole flavorings of the story inevitably recall Louis, Lestat's aristocratic companion from Interview With the Vampire. Quinn can give a rich poetic spin to the most mundane events, but, like Louis, he can also come off as a pretentious dilettante. Rice wisely intertwines Quinn's tale with that of the Mayfair witches, her other favorite night-stalkers, who breathe fresh air into the sexy, if occasionally silly, story.

Publishers Weekly

Just in time for Halloween, Rice's latest gothic epic blends her beloved Vampire Chronicles with her Mayfair Witches series. Near the dank Sugar Devil Swamp, sinister bayou country where critters far more fearsome than gators lurk, overheated Quinn Blackwood suffers a protracted case of adolescent angst driven by his violent love-hate relationship with Goblin, his spirit-world doppelganger. As heir to Blackwood Farm and an enormous fortune, Quinn enjoys every luxury the decadent Deep South of Rice's imagination can provide, from culinary delicacies to Jasmine, his equally satisfying mulatto housekeeper. Seemingly hell-bent on seducing everyone within range, regardless of gender, age or consanguinity, he falls into a passionate but fatal relationship with 15-year-old nymphomaniac Mona Mayfair, offshoot of the Mayfair clan of witches. But he cannot control Goblin's ferocious jealousy or his nefarious double's taste for blood, particularly once Quinn is made into a Blood Hunter by Petronia, a malignant bisexual spirit who stalks the haunted family cemetery at the edge of the swamp. Rice fleshes out her slim plot line with gory set pieces of vampire history in ancient Athens, Pompeii and 19th-century Naples. She excels at vivid descriptions of macabre landscapes, gloomy estate houses and the lust that motivates her Blood Hunters and propels her ghoulish narratives. Her dialogue and characterizations, however-even of the durable Vampire Lestat, called upon by Quinn for deliverance from Goblin and Sugar Devil Swamp's unholy spirits-are flat and predictable here. But it's intrigue, eroticism and obsession that fans want, and they'll find plenty of all three. Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.

Library Journal