From the author of the extraordinary Vampire Chronicles comes a huge, hypnotic novel of witchcraft and the occult through four centuries. Demonstrating, once again, her gift for spellbinding storytelling and the creation of legend, Anne Rice makes real for us a great dynasty of witches—a family given to poetry and to incest, to murder and to philosophy; a family that, over the ages, is itself haunted by a powerful, dangerous, and seductive being. On the veranda of a great New Orleans house, now faded, a mute and fragile woman sits rocking... and The Witching Hour begins. It begins in our time with a rescue at sea. Rowan Mayfair, a beautiful woman, a brilliant practitioner of neurosurgery—aware that she has special powers but unaware that she comes from an ancient line of witches—finds the drowned body of a man off the coast of California and brings him to life. He is Michael Curry, who was born in New Orleans and orphaned in childhood by fire on Christmas Eve, who pulled himself up from poverty, and who now, in his brief interval of death, has acquired a sensory power that mystifies and frightens him. As these two, fiercely drawn to each other, fall in love and—in passionate alliance—set out to solve the mystery of her past and his unwelcome gift, the novel moves backward and forward in time from today's New Orleans and San Francisco to long-ago Amsterdam and a château in the France of Louis XIV. An intricate tale of evil unfolds—an evil unleashed in seventeenth-century Scotland, where the first "witch," Suzanne of the Mayfair, conjures up the spirit she names Lasher... a creation that spells her own destruction and torments each of her descendants in turn. From the coffee plantations of Port au Prince, where the great Mayfair fortune is made and the legacy of their dark power is almost destroyed, to Civil War New Orleans, as Julien—the clan's only male to be endowed with occult powers—provides for the dynasty its foothold in America, the dark, luminous story encompasses dramas of seduction and death, episodes of tenderness and healing. And always—through peril and escape, tension and release—there swirl around us the echoes of eternal war: innocence versus the corruption of the spirit, sanity against madness, life against death. With a dreamlike power, the novel draws us, through circuitous, twilight paths, to the present and Rowan's increasingly inspired and risky moves in the merciless game that binds her to her heritage. And in New Orleans, on Christmas Eve, this strangest of family sagas is brought to its startling climax.

Continua a hipnótica saga da família em que durante quatro séculos sucedem-se contos de bruxarias e forças ocultas. Essa história se inicia quando Rowan Mayfair, mulher bonita e neurocirurgiã brilhante, consciente de seus poderes especiais, mas ignorante do fato de que eles são herditários, encontra um homem afogado na costa da Califórnia e o faz retornar à vida. Ele é Michael Curry, alguém que lutou para superar a pobreza e que agra, em sua experiência de quase morte, percebe um novo poder sensorial que ao mesmo tempo fascina e assusta. Num fôlego contínuo, a imaginação de Anne Rice em "A hora das bruxas" leva a acompanhar Rowan em seu jogo inconsciente e arriscado, herança da qual não pode fugir, até uma certa noite de Natal quando a saga familiar atinge o seu surpreendente clímax.

Em A hora das bruxas, a autora mais uma vez exorciza seus demônios e fantasmas, narrando a saga de uma família na qual durante quatro séculos sucedem-se contos de feitiçaria e forças ocultas. Recria com realismo uma dinastia de bruxos, tendo como ponto central a família Mayfair, uma classe subversiva que cresceu e prosperou dedicando-se à magia negra, convivendo pacificamente com incesto, assassinatos e um espírito meio divindade celta, meio demônio, chamado Lasher.

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 creature like him, a Taltos. Lasher seeks to reproduce his race in other women, but they cannot withstand it. Rowan escapes and becomes comatose as her fully-grown Taltos daughter is born. The Mayfairs declare all-out war on Lasher and try to nurse Rowan back to heatlth. Michael remains entwined in the Mayfair family and learns how he comes by his strange powers. Michael's ghostly visiting from a long-dead Mayfair reveals the importance of destroying Lasher. In the investigation, Lasher's origins are revealed, the new Taltos Emaleth returns, and the climax of death and life engulfs the family. —annerice.com

“WHAT CAN I CONFESS? I'M ASHLAR. I'M A TALTOS. It's centuries since I've seen one single other member of my own species. Oh, there have been others. I've heard of them, chased after them, and in some instances almost found them. Mark, I say almost. But not in centuries have I touched my own flesh and blood, as humans are so fond of saying. Never in all this time....[pg. 64] 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 . . .

El magnetismo, el atrevimiento, el poder erótico y la amargura de una pasión que supera el tiempo distinguieron la ya proverbial Entrevista con el vampiro. En Taltos, esas características se multiplican y conforman un mundo mitológico e hipnótico, más oscuro y a la vez más seductor que el de las “Crónicas Vampíricas”. Taltos habla de una raza poderosa dotada de conocimientos paranormales, que se alimenta de segundos y vive a lo largo de los siglos.De Nueva Orleans y Luisiana a Stonehenge, de las Tierras Altas escocesas a la más remota historia de la Oscuridad de los Tiempos, pasando por un Nueva York hipertecnológico, los Mayfair, los Talamasca y los Taltos combinan el poder de sus mitos, su sabiduría oculta y los últimos avaces tecnológicos en una vertiginosa danza con el destino.

En el tercer tomo de la saga irrumpe un nuevo personaje, Ashlar, un taltos, mientras los protagonistas de los dos volúmenes anteriores siguen luchando contra la fatalidad y contra la historia de la familia Mayfair. La Talamasca, las brujas y los taltos tendrán un papel determinante en la tragedia que se desarrolla en el que es el último volumen de la saga publicado hasta la fecha.

Find here the original trilogy from Anne Rice's bestselling series about the lives of Mayfair witches...The Witching HourDemonstrating once again her gift for spellbinding storytelling, Anne Rice makes real for us a great dynasty of four centuries of witches—a family given to poetry and incest, murder and philosophy, a family that over the ages is itself haunted by a powerful, dangerous, and seductive being called Lasher who haunts the Mayfair women...LasherAt the center of this the brilliant and beautiful Rowan Mayfair, queen of the coven—and Lasher, the darkly compelling demon whom she finds irresistible and from whose evil spell and vision she must now flee. She takes with her their terrifying and exquisite child, one of "a brood of children born knowing, able to stand and talk on the first day." Rowan's attempt to escape Lasher and his pursuit of her and their child are at the heart of this extraordinary saga, moving around the globe, backward and forward through time, and between the human and demonic worlds...TaltosAshlar is the last of his race—or so he thinks. When he 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. 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...