The Witching Hour
1990
- spirits
- psychics
- neurosurgeons
- fiction
- witchcraft
- ficción
- witches
- brujería
- sorcellerie
- fantasy fiction
The story
The first in the Mayfair Witches series, The Witching Hour introduces the fictional Mayfair family of New Orleans, generations of male and female witches. This tight-knit and deeply connected family, where a death of one strengthens the others with his/her knowledge. One Mayfair witch per generation is also designated to receive the powers of "the man," known as Lasher. Lasher gives the witches gifts, excites them, and protects them. Unsure as to exactly what this spirit is, the Mayfair clan knows him variously as a protector, a god-like figure, a sexual being, and the image of death. Lasher's current witch is Deirdre, who lies catatonic from psycological shock treatments. Deirdre's daughter, Rowan, has been spirited away from this "evil" and has happily become a neurosurgeon and has an uncanny gift to see the intent behind the facade. Rowan also has a gift few doctors possess--she can heal cells. Yet, though she uses it to save lives, she also fears that she hs caused several deaths. She rescues Michael from drowning. Michael then develops some extraordinary powers that compel him to seek New Orleans and to seek Rowan. He finds both, and pulls the tale closer together by meeting people connected to the Mayfair family who now fear Rowan because she is the first Mayfair who can kill without Lasher's help. Michael dives into learning the history of the Mayfair witches: Deborah, Charlotte, Mary Beth, Stella, Antha, and many others across hundreds of years and three continents. When Michael looks up from his reading, he learns that Rowan has come to New Orleans to attend her mother's funeral. Rowan learns of her family history, her ancestral home in shambles, and Lasher waiting for the next one. Rowan dedicates herself to stopping Lasher's reign. Michael too has his own mission, but it is foggy and unclear to him. But Lasher is seductively powerful and Rowan's gifts offer him the opportunity to achieve his ultimate goal. ([source][1]) [1]: http://annerice.
What it’s like
Dense, humid Southern Gothic in a New Orleans that smells of wet stone, old wood and magnolia, with the sensuous, slightly over-ripe prose of a writer who loves candlelit rooms, heavy drapery and the tactile weight of inherited things. Long chapters unspool in lush, ornate sentences, dwelling on interiors of crumbling mansions, cemetery heat, rain on iron balconies and the faint hum of something unseen in the walls. The mood is brooding and lavish, with a steady undercurrent of unease that sits beside a sensual, velvety intimacy, so it suits a rainy weekend with a pot of coffee, a late night alone with the lamp low, or a long train ride when you want to disappear into a world that feels old and thick with secrets. The pace is unhurried, closer to a slow-building saga than a thriller, with the family's history gradually layered in through letters, memory and archive. Its people are driven and wounded, a gifted surgeon wrestling with guilt over lives she may have taken, and a restless man pulled toward a past he only half understands. Intensity is moderate: deaths occur and there is some violence, and the sexual content is sensual and frank rather than explicit, with a persistent sense of dread rather than gore. It is for readers who love gothic atmosphere, generational family sagas and supernatural romance with a melancholy edge.
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