The novel opens in present-day Paris in a crowded café, where David meets Pandora. She is two thousand years old, a Child of the Millennia, the first vampire ever made by the great Marius. David persuades her to tell the story of her life.

Pandora begins, reluctantly at first and then with increasing passion, to recount her mesmerizing tale, which takes us through the ages, from Imperial Rome to eighteenth-century France to twentieth-century Paris and New Orleans. She carries us back to her mortal girlhood in the world of Caesar Augustus, a world chronicled by Ovid and Petronius. This is where Pandora meets and falls in love with the handsome, charismatic, lighthearted, still-mortal Marius. This is the Rome she is forced to flee in fear of assassination by conspirators plotting to take over the city. And we follow her to the exotic port of Antioch, where she is destined to be reunited with Marius, now immortal and haunted by his vampire nature, who will bestow on her the Dark Gift as they set out on the fraught and fantastic adventure of their two turbulent centuries together.

I loved this book. I think I've read it three or four times since it came out.

Saving for the Vampire bookbox.

Adding to the Vampire Bookbox.

This journeyed to me as part of the recently-unstalled Vampire Bookbox. Since these books have been out of circulation for the last five years, I am setting them aside to use for a new round.

I don’t think I have read this one of Rice’s novels, so this seems like a good opportunity!

I think this is now one of my favorite of Rice’s vampire novels. The main characters are compelling and I felt like she hit a good balance between the supernatural and the historical, romantic drama and tense adventure. It’s an exciting ride that plays with the reader’s expectations.

One big content warning for some future readers is that some folks may be distressed by her depiction of enslaved people who are apparently happy with their position and very devoted to their owners (even before any supernatural influences.) She also includes some racial aspects to enslavement that I doubt the historical accuracy of and seem more influenced by American race-based slavery than the slightly more flexible version of the era this novel is set in. Slavery is one part of the Roman Empire that I think most modern writers try to downplay, and I actually appreciate her attempt to include it, since it was such a large part of wealthy peoples’ lifestyle. Someone had to do all the behind-the-scenes labor for that daily luxury! I just think it went a bit beyond Rice’s skill level to portray that delicate social situation for modern readers. (Her not-always-great attempts at depicting American slavery in the 18th and 19th centuries throughout her novels are discussed pretty frequently, and by folks more articulate than me!) If you know that reading this type of depiction is upsetting, I recommend waiting until you have the emotional bandwidth and resilience. Some folks might find this component distasteful enough to prevent them from wanting to engage at all, and I can understand that too.

Added to the new edition of the Vampire Bookbox

Choosing this from the vampire bookbox 🧛‍♂️