Lasher (Lives of the Mayfair Witches #2)

Lasher (Lives of the Mayfair Witches #2)

3.77 of 5 stars 3.77  ·  rating details  ·  32,408 ratings  ·  472 reviews
From the day her first Vampire Chronicle was published, critics and readers--readers by the hundreds of thousands--have been mesmerized by the writings of Anne Rice.And with the publication of The Witching Hour, she created for us yet another world and legend, and both the chorus of praise and the multitudes of her readers once more increased.

Now, Anne Rice brings us again...more
Hardcover, 577 pages
Published September 12th 1993 by Knopf (first published January 1st 1992)
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Silvana
This is a difficult book to write a review about. I've been an avid fan of Anne Rice's books since I was in junior high, since I love her style of writing and of course her gothic themes (vampires, demons, witches).

Lasher is the second novel of the Lives of the Mayfair Witches trilogy. The first is "The Witching Hour" and the third is "Taltos". I guess I have to find Taltos a.s.a.p. in order to complete this whole er...journey.

Lasher is a Taltos, which is an almost extinct super-human race who l...more
Jude Arnold
This review is of the 1993 edition by Ballentine International and has a woman's body wrapped in a sheer sheet on the cover.

OMG! Wow! Thank you Anne Rice for Lasher!
Anne Rice is my favorite female author, for sure. And she lives. And I watch videos of her, so I feel like I “know” her. I have total respect for her. She fascinates me. Now talk about writing good and evil; she’s the best. Do I ever wish I could write like she does! I’m a huge fan.
I started reading her Lasher on Thursday and just fi...more
Erin
I read this in highschool also. It is book 2 in the Mayfair witches series.

The Talamasca, documenters of paranormal activity, is on the hunt for the newly born Lasher. Mayfair women are dying from hemorrhages and a strange genetic anomaly has been found in Rowan and Michael. Lasher, born from Rowan, is another species altogether and now in the corporeal body, represents an incalcuable threat to the Mayfairs. Rowan and Lasher travel together to Houston and she becomes pregnant with another creat...more
Lucy Smith
This is the worst book I have ever read. If you are considering reading this book, please do not read it. I will never ever get those hours of my life back again- please do not waste yours! I would honestly rather gouge my own eyes out with a rusty fork than read this again. My husband read the book before me, hated it, but mischievously encouraged me to read it even though he knew I would hate it, as some sort of psychological test of endurance. I have never forgiven him for this.

If you think t...more
Al

From the day her first Vampire Chronicle was published, critics and readers - readers by the hundreds of thousands - have been mesmerized by the writings of Anne Rice. And with the publication of "The Witching Hour," she created for us yet another world and legend, and both the chorus of praise (see back of jacket) and the multitudes of her readers once more increased. Now, in her new novel, Anne Rice brings us again - even more magically - into the midst of the dynasty of witches she introduced

...more
Delicious Strawberry
at 3.5/5 stars, Lasher is a good (in most ways) sequel to the Witching Hour. However, I found the whole premise of Lasher keeping Rowan prisoner (and tied down to the bed plenty of the time and leaving her alone, even being gone for so long that she actually soiled herself due to being unable to get off the bed and go to the toilet) A more realistic kidnapper/hostage situation could have been set up, especially because Lasher wants Rowan to help him restart the Taltos race, that IS asking a lot...more
Michelle
The beginning of this novel left me with some confusion over how much time had passed since the end of The Witching Hour. Lasher does in fact pickup right were The Witching Hour ends. This confusion originated because one minor character in the first book was continually referred to as a "little girl"; However in the second book she plays a bigger role and is a teenager. After the first few chapters it became clear why the initial thoughts were of a little girl in the first book. I will let you...more
Colleen Reynolds
Boy was this a letdown after reading The Witching Hour. It was really long and drawn out. I felt like the entire book was just two very long rehashings of the first story with a couple of blanks filled in. It was almost like re-reading the first book and became quite tedious at times. I guess it was important to develop the character of Lasher, but I think it could have been done effectively by just adding another chapter or two to the already long first book. I haven't read the Queen of the Dam...more
RNOCEAN
So stunningly bad is the first third of this book that only the lunatic and the true devotee are likely to get beyond it. It is actually a riot of Rice's worst sins: strained and wooden characterizations, the abandonment of plot for the sake of a tangled and murky history, and a sort of mutant prose stumbling between a modern person's idea of old-fashioned elegance and an old-fashioned person's idea of how people actually talk in the 1990s. Part of the purpose of this 200-page cancer is to make...more
Alexa
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 Y...more
Lisa
Apr 22, 2009 Lisa rated it 5 of 5 stars  ·  review of another edition Recommends it for: Becky
Recommended to Lisa by: Jade
Shelves: 2009
Utterly mesmerising from start to finish (to the point that I actually took a day off work just to read it!), and brings yet more depth and complexity to the series than I previously thought possible.

The writing is absolutely spellbinding, and never more so than throughout the stories recounted by Julien and Lasher - both two characters whom I had previously thought of as unsympathetic, depraved and sinister, though seductive (when seen through the file on the witches compiled by the Talamasca i...more
Gabriel
Lasher is the second book in the Mayfair series, and was something of a let down to me. The previous book was such a Goliath, that this book seems to be tiny in comparison.

Rowan is queen of the coven, and her female relatives are dying all around her due to a cerebral hemorrhages, and Rowan and Michael have discovered that they have genetic abnormalities. Rowan gives birth to Lasher, and has a body of his own now, and is a serious threat to the Mayfair women.

Rowan travels to Houston, and becomes...more
Lori
Anne Rice certainly took her liberties with LASHER by including incest into the clan of the Mayfair Witches. But I wasn't prudish enough to NOT read or dismiss this very common happening thoughout because it is very real in our own 'real world history.'

If you want a warm, mushy family story then LASHER is not for you. Lasher is a demon spirit who preys on female Mayfairs in his attempt to procreate. Rowan Mayfair, queen of the coven who has borne Lasher's child, has now disappeared. This is wher...more
Kathryn
In my opinion this was the weakest book in the series. I HATED Lasher, the immortal idiot who never seems to learn, or care, about his mistakes. And I was still so mad about what Rowan did at the end of the first book that I found it hard to sympathise with what Lasher puts her through (Hard, but not impossible. Rowan has it ROUGH through most of this book). Mona is an odd character, fun to read but difficult for me to like since she skates the fine edge between precocious free-spirit and self-e...more
Joey
This book kind of surprised me. As I wrote in my review for The Witching Hour, I really loved THAT book as a young adult (13-15 I'd guess), and had for many years after considered it one of my favorite novels ever written. However, re-reading it at age 31 revealed a number of fatal flaws that I could not get over.

I was not expecting much from Lasher by consequence, as I read it as a young adult too, though I do not believe I ever finished it.

Imagine my surprise when I re-read it and found Lash...more
Daniel Osborn
What can't I say about Anne Rice. Another great novel. This is the second book in the Witching Hour series. We now get more indepth detail into the spirit known as Lasher.

The first book Witching Hour leaves off on christmas day when Michael and Rowan Mayfair gets married. The demon Lasher runs off with Rowan. Lasher is wanting to interbreed between the family of witches so that he can become stronger and become flesh. He breeds on Rowan and they both have a child.

The first part of this book is...more
HankinsonHolmes
Let talk about vampires. Despite the recent resurgence of vampires books, movies, TV shows, I would still defend strongly the position that Anne Rice's series of vampire chronicles are, by far, superior to all that have come since. The mood and imagery she develops in her tales transport you to worlds that are unknown to mere mortals. You will find her depiction of the vampire thought process, emotions, devastating struggle with their condition, hopeless but thrilling, at the same time, to be in...more
Tonielle
Wow. Just wow. The most brilliant writing imaginable, each character practically stepped out of the pages. Anne Rice loves blurring the lines between antagonistic and protagonist characters and I always find this a breath of fresh air. Every character shows the truth of humanity, in that we are all a little good or a little bad, but which is the majority is based on our choices/consequences as human beings. This seems to be the greatest difference between Lasher (Ashlar) and humans, a point whic...more
Leontine

!!WARNING!! This review can contain spoilers if you haven't read The Witching Hour!!
In Lasher, Anne Rice immediately picks up where she left me in The Witching Hour. The first half of the story there are lots of events rapidly following each other. Of course things happen which are dark, which stretch the boundaries and speak of untold mysteries. Especially the erotic encounter between Michael and teenager Mona may go against the grain for some readers. The storytelling holds this fusion of dis...more
Wendy
OK.. WEIRD, story line is unlike anything I've ever read. But I loved it! The story was so unusual, had me eager to turn the page. Not for the faint of heart, but entertainment value truly high up on the scale.
Tamielt
Rating's only 3.....I like the book no matter how "sinful" it is XD but the thing there is, I don't really like the idea of Lasher being dead....especially the sweet girl-taltos Emaleth.

One more thing is that,why does it seem like everyone's blaming Lasher for the "evilness"? And besides, Rowan wasn't kidnapped by Lasher, she RAN away with him!And oh...I don't really like Michael Curry, even from the very beginning (The Witching Hour).

The title is LASHER...and yet for me, his character in this b...more
Starling
In the past this book was anything but my favorite. I've read it several times. I didn't like where Anne Rice took the story of her Witches. But reading it again, and finally accepting that she went where I did not want her to go, made it clear that this book is one of her better ones.

There is the usual heavily layered detail. The cities from viewpoints that I don't personally have.

You really hate Lasher before the book is over. He truly is an evil being caring only for what he personally wants...more
Stephany G
After getting through the history lesson in the first book I was ready for this one to really speed things up which didn't really happen until the end. This book drags. Again, too much useless detail. You follow a character who acts nowhere close to normal while she is in a love hate relationship with this thing. I am figuring out that the action happens at the end of Anne Rice books and the rest is just a long slow filler. These books aren't just interesting enough to me to read straight throug...more
Kadma Sixx Von D
This is the second book in the Mayfair Witches story. The Witching Hour definitely set a standard, but the whole family story was delivered in one book, in Lasher, Rice takes her time to go through Julien's and Lasher's story. I personally enjoyed knowing more about Julien, who is one of the most interesting characters in the saga, although he was left in the limbo by the end of the book. Also, Mona Mayfair is a great character that could have been more developed. What disappointed me, is the po...more
Shelley
After experiencing the density and depth of "The Witching Hour", I had very high expectations for "Lasher", which were not entirely met, hence the 3 vs. 4 stars. This is still a wonderfully written book with detailed characters. I'm impressed by Rice's ability to bring so many varied personalities to life in one series. I'm not thrilled with the ending of the book, even though I had come to despise Lasher. Much of the way his story played out was just not what I expected. Perhaps if I read it ag...more
Emily
Though not as compelling as its prequel, Lasher is an entertaining read. Again shifting back and forth from past to present, Lasher tells his own story, Julian tells his, and we meet the enchanting present-day Mona. While in "The Witching Hour" the method of telling about past events was unique, the historical documents of the Talamasca, in "Lasher" we are told about the past in narrative fashion from the ghost of Julien, as well as Lasher himself. It's a perfectly acceptable convention, but not...more
Samantha Sabovitch
Lasher has a quicker pace than the first book in the Lives of the Mayfair Witches trilogy, The Witching Hour, but it still drags. The story itself is fascinating, but Anne Rice insists on repeating information we've already heard, focusing briefly on tertiary characters whose mundane inner ramblings are inconsequential to the overall story, and giving us too much detail. To truly comprehend this book, one would require a detailed glossary of characters. Some key plot points and reveals were lost...more
Renee
{please excuse the following usage of the F-word/p.s not very much of a review but more of after reactions}


HOLY FUCKING CRAP IN A HAT BASKET.
The first half was a bit hard to dredge through in my opinion cause barely anything happened except people bantering about what Lasher could be and how different he is to human beings. Some other things happen to, but I wont say without giving out those dreaded spoilers >.<

But once you get to the midhalf of the book, then things start to get rolling...more
Gabriel
Within the first hundred pages, you know if you are willing to read the rest of this book. You know that you have entered a whole new realm, one that is much removed from the characters and love and themes and hopes of The Witching Hour. Within those hundred pages, you begin to feel the darkness seeping out of each printed word, flowing over your hands and onto your lap. Whether you embrace this change or not determines whether you finish this book or not.

I gave it a chance.

I allowed the author...more
Elizabeth Lehto
After reading the Witching Hour, I was prepared to be highly let down by this book. I was pleasantly surprised after I got through the first few chapters and found it hard to put the book down.
Some sections of the book I found more exciting than others. Like the Witching Hour, there was several sections of background. While interesting at times, I feel that some of the description was needlessly long. This was especially true when it came to Lasher's story, it felt like the background descripti...more
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Lasher (Lives of the Mayfair Witches, #2)
Lasher (Lives of the Mayfair Witches #2)
Lasher (Lives of the Mayfair Witches #2)
Lasher v. 1 (Paperback)
Lasher (Paperback)

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Anne Rice (born Howard Allen Frances O'Brien) is a best-selling American author of gothic, supernatural, historical, erotica, and later religious themed books. Best known for The Vampire Chronicles, her prevailing thematical focus is on love, death, immortality, existentialism, and the human condition. She was married to poet Stan Rice for 41 years until his death in 2002. Her books have sold near...more
More about Anne Rice...
Interview with the Vampire (The Vampire Chronicles, #1) The Vampire Lestat (The Vampire Chronicles, #2) The Queen of the Damned (The Vampire Chronicles, #3) The Witching Hour (Lives of the Mayfair Witches, #1) The Tale of the Body Thief (The Vampire Chronicles, #4)

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