Novel: Blackwood Farm

Overview
Anne Rice returns to the worlds of the Vampire Chronicles and the Mayfair Witches with a Southern Gothic tale that threads family curses, restless spirits, and the seductive immortality of vampires. The story centers on Quinn Blackwood, the last of a storied Louisiana line, whose ancestral home harbors a malign presence that violates sleep and sanity. Haunted, desperate, and running out of options, Quinn turns to Lestat de Lioncourt, whose curiosity and appetite for drama draw him into a long-buried web of Mayfair secrets.
Rice blends lush atmospheric description with philosophical rumination, shifting between Quinn's tormented plight and Lestat's irreverent, often theatrical narrations. The novel deepens the crossover between two of Rice's major series while exploring lineage, possession, and the strange comforts and hazards of seeking immortality through vampirism.

Plot
Quinn Blackwood inherits Blackwood Farm under a cloud of eerie occurrences: uncanny noises, shadowy intrusions, and a preternatural entity that visits him nightly. The presence is tied to the Blackwood and Mayfair bloodlines, and its attacks grow more dangerous and disorienting, pushing Quinn toward self-destruction. Hoping for rescue, he seeks out Lestat, who by nature and habit cannot resist unraveling such mysteries, especially when they intersect with the Talamasca and the Mayfair legacy.
Lestat arrives, intrigued by the blend of witchcraft and hauntings. His investigations expose historical secrets: family betrayals, occult pacts, and a spirit linked to the Mayfair witches that refuses to be contained. The Talamasca, the secretive order that studies paranormal phenomena, has long observed these families, and its records and rivalries play into the struggle. As Lestat confronts the supernatural force and the human weaknesses feeding it, alliances shift and painful personal revelations surface.
Resolution comes through a combination of vampire power, ritual knowledge, and confronting inherited sin. The narrative balances moments of high supernatural dread with Lestat's theatrical bravado and Quinn's vulnerable humanity, culminating in a reckoning that both diminishes and complicates the hold of the haunting.

Main Characters
Quinn Blackwood is a haunted protagonist: proud, wounded, and ill-equipped to face a force that strikes at the core of his identity and family history. His desperation makes him sympathetic, and his determination drives the plot's emotional stakes. Lestat serves as both savior and provocateur, bringing his appetite for the dramatic, his vampire strengths, and an irreverent moral lens that both aids and complicates Quinn's quest.
Supporting roles include members of the Talamasca, representatives of the Mayfair lineage, and other figures whose loyalties and motives deepen the mystery. The spirit at the center, tied to ancient Mayfair darkness, functions less as a one-dimensional villain and more as the embodiment of ancestral wrongdoing and supernatural obsession.

Themes and Tone
Heritage and fate dominate: the novel asks how much of identity is inherited and how much can be altered through choice, even when supernatural forces seem to dictate destiny. Loneliness and desire reverberate through both mortal and immortal lives, with vampirism offering a complicated refuge from human fragility while amplifying ethical ambiguities. Rice interrogates the allure of power and the costs of burying uncomfortable truths.
The tone mixes brooding Southern Gothic with theatrical, often witty vampiric monologue. Mood is built through opisthographic details of setting, long memories of family deeds, and the uncanny persistence of a past that refuses to be quieted.

Connections and Legacy
Blackwood Farm deepens the crossover between the Vampire Chronicles and the Mayfair Witches, setting emotional and supernatural threads that carry into subsequent novels. Readers familiar with either series will find returning motifs and characters recontextualized, while newcomers encounter a densely woven tale that rewards attention to lineage and lore. The novel stands as an atmospheric, character-driven episode in Rice's broader exploration of immortality, sin, and the stubborn echoes of blood.