#49 in Horror
The Witching Hour
- 965
- Pages
- about 18 h
- Reading time
- Locus Award for Best Horror Novel
Affiliate link: buying through it supports BookRank at no extra cost to you.
Our view
“The Witching Hour” is an immense, immersive Gothic saga of a family of witches and the spirit that has shaped its fortunes for generations. Anne Rice wins over those who surrender to it with a disturbing, sensual world that is hard to leave. Readers repeatedly stumble over its length: much of its nearly one thousand pages goes to Mayfair family history, which interrupts the story of Michael and Rowan. Some also find the sexual passages strange.
The view of the BookRank editors, written from readers’ ratings and comments. It does not affect the score or the book’s place in a ranking.
About the book
Lives of the Mayfair Witches is a trilogy of Gothic supernatural horror fantasy novels by American author Anne Rice. It centers on a family of witches whose fortunes have been guided for generations by a spirit named Lasher. The series began in 1990 with The Witching Hour, which was followed by the sequels Lasher (1993) and Taltos (1994). All three novels debuted at No. 2 on The New York Times Best Seller list.
Reading order · Lives of the Mayfair Witches
Full order & progress →- The Witching HourThis book
7.87.8 / 10 - Lasher
7.47.4 / 10 - Taltos
7.57.5 / 10
Where the score comes from
The sources average 7.6 across 198 ratings — not yet many, so the reader vote carries 57% of the weight and the rest pulls toward the Horror average of 7.5. That is how 7.8 comes out.
| Source | Average | Ratings | Weight |
|---|---|---|---|
| Open Library | 8.7 | 29 | 15% |
| Hardcover | 7.4 | 169 | 85% |
Frequently asked
How long is The Witching Hour?
It has 965 pages — longer than 93% of the ranked books in Horror.
In this book
Themes this book shares with others — each leads to the best books on it.
If you liked this
Same shelf — Horror — with scores between 7.7 and 8.0, closest to this book.
