The third volume in the series featuring the Mayfair witches, following "The Witching Hour" and "Lasher". The Taltos are the spirits - immortal, dangerous and damned - from whom the Mayfairs derive their occult powers, and at whose mercy they are.
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...

Customer Rating:
Summary: sweeping epic
Comment: I have always been a fan of grand epics, i read "The Lord of the Rings" for fun. i really enjoyed the history and the romance of the story and because of the Mayfair Chronicles, i want to go go to New Orleans and see "the man" for myself.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: great story for pedophiles
Comment: Hmmm. It's impossible to write about the plot in a coherent manner because there are several intertwining threads:

As the title implies, this book is mainly about the Taltos--a race of beings we were introduced to in The Witching Hour. Ashlar is, or at least believes himself to be, the last of his kind. He's lonely, currently obsessed with dolls (collecting and manufacturing them), and when he discovers another Taltos has been seen, he drops everything to check it out.

And of course there are the Mayfairs, as this is the last book of the Mayfair Witch trilogy. Rowan seems to be following in her mother's footsteps at the beginning of the book, though she's not quite as completely catatonic--she walks, eats, dresses herself, etc., but doesn't speak, communicate, or acknowledge the presence of others.

The family seems to be turning to the 12-year-old designee of the legacy, Mona, who's pregnant with Michael's child.

Then there's the Talamasca. There's corruption within the Talamasca: Aaron Lightner is killed, and his friend and contemporary Stuart Gordon is behind it, motivated by his plan to resurrect the Taltos race. He has a female Taltos, and he plans to find a male so they can mate.

Contrary to the average opinions on Amazon, I enjoyed this more than I did The Witching Hour. The Taltos race was an interesting concept, and we got a lot more detail about them. (This was presumably also present in Lasher, but I haven't read it.) It also lacked a lot of the problems I had with The Witching Hour: it had a coherent plot--even if there were several threads, the story itself held together quite well; and while there were still a few tangential flashbacks, they weren't nearly as numerous or intrusive as those in The Witching Hour.

However. I was completely creeped out by Mona, and not in the way you're creeped out by vampires or spiders, but in a lose-my-lunch kind of way. The nonchalant way an "affair" between a 12-year-old and a man in his 40s was handled pushed my squick buttons hard. The affair was bad enough, but that it was presented as normal.... Added to that is the fact that she's treated as the head of the family, and everyone defers to her. She's 12. T W E L V E. Not 18, not 16, not even 14--12. She's a child. Nope, just could not swallow this. As with the other witches in The Witching Hour, we're told she's very powerful, which might account for some of the attitude, if we ever saw any evidence of that power, which we don't.

And then there was the stylistic choice that was seriously nails-on-the-chalkboard irritating. Mona becomes friends with her teenage cousin Mary Jane. I rather liked Mary Jane, but she talks like this:

I'll get it, you rest there against that tree, that's the tree I told you about, the cypress tree, oldest one in these parts, you see this was the pond out there, the little pond???? You know??? Where the family would go rowing??? Here, take the lantern, the handle doesn't get hot.

Grrrrr. Why use 3 and 4 question marks? One would do, really, to show the speech patterns. Just bugged the heck out of me. I'm not even going to mention the comma splices. Of course, if I'd loved the rest of the book, that would be a minor niggle.

Though I liked it better than the first of the trilogy, even if Mona had been 16 or 18, I wasn't more than mildly interested in the story. Mona at 12 just made me disgusted.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: Taltos
Comment: The third book in the Mayfair Trilogy just draws it all together and makes you want more! Anne Rice exceeds all expectations!

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Customer Rating:
Summary: I am sooooo disapointed!
Comment: Taltos in my opinion is the worst of the three mayfair witch books. Unfortunetly you must read it if you have gotten this far in the trilogy. Once again Rowan is annoying!!! It was interesting to find out the true history of the taltos, but somtimes it was a little much. i found myself skimming~ That is soooo not like me, especially since I love this series. The death of Aaron really upset me. All in all it is a great story, however I really think that Rice Fluffed this book up with alot of unneccessary stuff and totally skimped on the ending! The ending STUNK, in my opinion. I am still holding out for another book in this series..............Or maybe a movie!!!!!!!

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Customer Rating:
Summary: Not Free SF Reader
Comment: The end of this story of spirits and incest, and some back story on the whole Taltos development. It turns out that there are a few of these, and one of them becomes and important character in the book.

Mona finds out she is carrying Rowan's husband's child, and they decide to have it.

Supernatural types end up running away togethre.

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