Taltos (Lives of Mayfair Witches) - Softcover

Rice, Anne

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0345404319 ISBN 13: 9780345404312

Publisher: Ballantine Books, 1996

Synopsis

When Ashlar learns that another Taltos has been seen, he is suddenly propelled into the haunting world of the Mayfair family, the New Orleans dynasty of witches forever besieged by ghosts, spirits, and their own dizzying powers. For Ashlar knows this powerful clan is intimately linked to the heritage of the Taltos.

In a swirling universe filled with death and life, corruption and innocence, this mesmerizing novel takes us on a wondrous journey back through the centuries to a civilization half-human, of wholly mysterious origin, at odds with mortality and immortality, justice and guilt. It is an enchanted, hypnotic world that could only come from the imagination of Anne Rice . . .

Praise for Taltos

“Taltos is the third book in a series known as the lives of the Mayfair witches. . .Their haunted heritage has brought the family great wealth, which is exercised from a New Orleans manse with Southern gentility; but of course such power cannot escape notice . . . or challenge . . . Rice is a formidable talent. . . . [Taltos]is a curious amalgam of gothic, glamour fiction, alternate history, and high soap opera.”—The Washington Post Book World

“Anne Rice will live on through the ages of literature.”—San Francisco Chronicle

“An intricate, stunning imagination.”—Los Angeles Times Book Review

“Spellbinding . . . mythical . . . Anne Rice is a pure storyteller.”—Cosmopolitan

“Beautifully written.”—Kirkus Reivews (starred review)

“Her power of invention seems boundless. . . . She has made a masterpiece of the morbid, worthy of Poe's daughter. . . . It is hard to praise sufficiently the originality of Miss Rice.”—The Wall Street Journal

About this title

Review

In a swirling universe filled with death and life, corruption and innocence, this mesmerizing novel takes us on a wondrous journey back through the centuries to a civilization half-human, of wholly mysterious origin, at odds with mortality and immortality, justice and guilt. It is an enchanted, hypnotic world that could only come from the imagination of Anne Rice...

From the Back Cover

Meet Mr. Ash, quiet-spoken, tall, unfailingly kind - sole survivor of an ancient species, the Taltos - thriving among humankind as he has always done, now the head of a great corporate empire. As the novel opens, he is stunned to learn from an old and mysterious friend that another Taltos has been seen - in the very same Scottish glen where centuries ago, long before the coming of the Romans, Ash ruled his clan. At once he is propelled into the world of Rowan Mayfair, and into the mysteries of the Mayfair family - the New Orleans dynasty of witches forever besieged by ghosts, spirits, and the dizzying powers of his own species - a family intimately involved with the heritage of the Taltos, a family of unique, brilliant, and troubled souls struggling as they have for centuries to use both science and magic in their battle for greatness, even survival. At the heart of the novel is the Talamasca, a secular order of psychic scholars, the only organization in existence which may understand Ash, his Taltos past, and the dilemma of the Mayfair witches. The story of the Mayfair family continues, moving from London to Donnelaith, Scotland, to New Orleans, back and forth through time - from the origins of the Taltos and their mythic Lost Land to the moral crises of the present day.

About this edition

• Publisher: Ballantine Books
• Publication date: 1996
• ISBN 10: 0345404319
• ISBN 13: 9780345404312
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback
• Number of pages: 576