Blood Canticle is a novel by Anne Rice in which she combines the new characters from her previous novel Blackwood Farm with those from her previous novels in The Vampire Chronicles and The Lives Mayfair Witches Trilogy.

Synopsis

Centered in New Orleans, Blood Canticle is narrated by Lestat. The protagonist is a young Mayfair witch, named Mona. At the beginning of the novel, Mona is wasting away, victim to a mysterious disease brought on by the birth of her daughter, a so called Walking Baby. As the novel plays out, Mona and her guardian, Rowan Mayfair, the current designee of the Mayfair legacy, reveal more and more about the powerful genetic plague that has haunted the Mayfairs for generations: the Taltos.

In what she believes to be her dying hour, Mona - highly romantic in nature - buys quantities of roses and takes them to the house of her lover, Tarquin "Quinn" Blackwood, who is also a vamipire and dear companion to Lestat. Here she lays them on his bed, intending to spend her final moments here. In order to survive the massive decline that her body has undergone, she becomes a vampire through Lestat's working of the Dark Trick. This is done also largely to satisfy Quinn, who could not bear to see her this way.

When trying to prevent Mona's family from discovering her tranformation, Lestat falls unwillingly in love with Rowan Mayfair. Secretly, she pines for him as well.

Lestat's blood is quite powerful — second only to the queen and mother of the vampires and perhaps the children of the millennia. Mona learns this quickly and discovers that she can easily dispatch inferior vampires with the powerful gifts that Lestat's potent blood bestows upon her.

In short, she grows strong quickly. Now, with renewed vigor and anger over her situation with Rowan and their shared secret of the Taltos causes her to lash out verbally at Rowan and her husband Michael. As she struggles with herself, Lestat, and her vampiric lover, Quinn Blackwood , she learns her place in her new night world.

As she learns, Lestat pledges to find the Taltos child of Mona if it still lives. For this, Lestat enlists the help of Maharet , the queen and mother of the vampires. Even Lestat alludes to the powerful strength of Maharet in her jungle abode. In a very short time, due to the technology of email, Maharet provides critical information for their search.

The story comes to a dramatic conclusion where Mona, journeying with Quinn and Lestat, come to the secluded island where the Taltos live. But instead of a secluded paradise, the three vampires learn about years of intrigue and civil war among this isolated race of beings. In the end, the remaining Taltos join the Mayfair clan at the medical center in New Orleans. This place keeps them safe. Furthermore, it provides a place where the Taltos can learn and be together as a family.

Mona and Quinn are again together and will remain so, presumably without the companionship of Lestat.

Rowan Mayfair seeks out Lestat, half in love with him and exhausted by her life, requesting that he perform the Dark Trick. Lestat declines, pained as he is, because she is a guiding force for the Mayfair family and he cannot take her away from it.

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The style of this book deviated immensely from Rice's other works, while the storyline also meant that there was a very strong (and much-publicised) split in fan opinion.