Book Review: Blood Communion by Anne Rice

Blood Communion is Anne Rice’s 13th book in her Vampire Chronicles series. It’s also another interesting tale with the immortal Prince Lestat!

Blood Communion: A Tale of Prince Lestat is the 13th book from Anne Rice’s famed The Vampire Chronicles series. I have to say ever since she brought back the series in 2014 with Prince Lestat, I’ve been loving the direction it’s going. Her two books before that, Blackwood Farm and Blood Canticle (the last one she wrote until 2014) were both downers, but I feel that the hiatus has helped the series.

The tale is told by Prince Lestat (our favorite narrator) and he explains the beginning of his days as the leader of vampires. We also get to know more about the feud with the evil Rhoshamandes (he’s not the only problem that Lestat faces either), who isn’t interested in living with the court of Lestat. He reminds me of another evil character from the series, Santino. You could definitely see the similarities.

Blood Communion is shorter than most of her books (less than 300 pages), which isn’t a bad thing. The book explains enough in the beginning that people who haven’t read her work can get enough of an understanding. If you do end up reading this first, I still say to go and start at the beginning with Interview with the Vampire. 

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Also, the pace is faster than most of Rice’s books. I compare it to another favorite Blood and Gold, which is a great book but is nowhere near as fast of a read. Though like the rest of her stories, it moves back and forth to past and present.

Rice always takes the reader on a journey of morality and historical places. You will be traveling to several places, one is back to Louisiana. I want to live in Dmitri Fontayne’s (or Mitka as he tells Lestat to call him) house!

It’s hard not to tell too much about the story, but one character that I despised does meet his end, which I loved! I also enjoyed reading about the meetings and festivities that the vampire court has. The popular author has an imagination that still amazes me and I’ve read plenty of her books.

I forgot to mention that Blood Communion is the first of Rice’s books that has illustrations.  The added illustrations are a nice touch.

Overall I would say that this short tale about the “Prince of Vampires” is alluring and a must-read. It’s always good to see Anne Rice and Lestat back, especially when it’s an excellent story. This book gets 4.5/5 stars.  

So will you be getting a copy of Anne Rice’s new novel on Oct. 2 or will you be skipping out? Share your thoughts about the new book in the comments!