Almost thirty years after Akasha, the Queen of the Damned, awoke, and after Mekare enacted her revenge and took on the Sacred Core to become the new Queen of the Damned, the vampire world finds itself in turmoil again. A mysterious Voice has been rousing old vampires from their sleep to burn the dens of young ones, leaving the vampire community scared. Benji Mahmoud broadcasts every night, calling for the old ones to come together - including Lestat, especially Lestat - and come up with a solution and save them all. Of course Lestat, vainglorious, ostentatious Lestat, is fully aware of what's going on (the Voice has been speaking to him off and on for years, naturally), but it's not until things get really bad that he finally gets involved.
I'll admit that I was hesitant to read this one. The Vampire Chronicles were a big part of my middle school years (if I could've gone full goth at that time in my life, I would've definitely given it a shot) so when Anne announced several years ago that she was returning to the Catholic church and was planning to write about Jesus, I was a bit turned off (nothing wrong with Jesus, just not my choice of literature). I was interested when she returned to the supernatural with The Wolf Gift but I found the story just okay, and began to wonder if I had grown out of her world. But cracking open Prince Lestat was like hanging out with old friends you haven't seen in awhile. It was great to be back among these characters, and meet some new ones, even if I had forgotten how much effort it can take to get through one of these novels (so much talking, you guys). This is also the first chronicle where it felt like Anne really committed to the world, including a specific vocabulary and making her characters stick to using it. The self-aware bits where the characters go on about how the Vampire Chronicles and Lestat's short-lived music career were so popular and influential made me chuckle a bit, because it almost comes off as really professional fanfiction. If you're familiar at all with these characters, then the ending should not come as a surprise (in fact, you should be able to see it coming at least a hundred pages out), but it works so well in broadening the world of the books that it doesn't feel like a letdown. If you were like me and concerned that a return to Lestat would be a disappointment, I assure you that it's not. Hopefully you'll find your return to the Vampire Chronicles as pleasant as I did.
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