At the bottom of the post, be sure not to miss out on entering a contest to potentially win a signed, First-edition hardcover of “The Vampire Lestat!” The contest is ending very soon!!

Hi Coven Members, Things are ramping up in the world of Anne Rice, as we are now only forty days or so away from the historic release of Prince Lestat. Our minds are under assault with extreme excitement, at this point, and we need to seriously ramp things up, in terms of pre-release day events, via Lestat Book Coven to find someway of keeping our excitement at bay.

Over the next few weeks, I am going to directly ask you about ideas for internet-based events to further heighten the level of celebration, to truly usher in the release of Prince Lestat with style.All discussions of this type will take place, where it always takes place, on the Facebook Group page for the Lestat Book Coven

Below, you will find more details about how to properly pre-order your copy, without insensitively deciding to buy your copy- a very rare, limited-edition bound ARC, on Ebay. We have talked extensively about it, and I won’t dredge up my rather unsparingly critical words about those that buy or sell these copies, prior to a book’s pub. date.

I completely understand the temptation, especially as someone that still checks Netgalley daily, in vain for a digital ARC, being put up someday, without my notice.. We are all very excited about the book, and it will be hard to withstand temptation, especially when some people decides to sell their copies on Ebay-pre pub. date- on Ebay.

But, please, for the sake of respecting the embargo, do not purchase copies,but rather report them via Ebay!! Also, if you have the opportunity (and you may, for legitimate press purposes) to read the book in advance, please do not spoil or divulge anything, from the book, beyond the preview first-chapter snippet!
More information about Pre-ordering Prince Lestat: 

The book is slated to  be released October 28th, 2014, and has been honorably put on embargo, to ensure that the secret of the very enigmatic, wonderful plot remains unspoiled, non-tampered till that most auspicious, exciting day comes before us…

Dare to click the book cover below, to pre-order your copy, because this is a book you will not want to miss, if you view yourself as a serious fan of the Vampire Lestat…

Details about Dani Hoot’s newest vampire novella (edited by your coven master), Hooh-Strah-Dooh

**Edited relying upon the services of “A Bibliophile’s Workshop:” a specialized editorial/publicity company for indie-writers, comes this wonderful vampire-themed novella, from indie-writer Dani Hoots, called Hooh-Strah-Dooh.  It was a great pleasure to edit this work. If you love the mobster element fused with some vampire-related action/drama scenes, this is the book to read, while you’re traveling to work either by train and bus!!

      For this Sunday’s discussion post, I have a very special surprise for all you wonderful Lestat fans, who might want to nab their own e-book copy of this insanely fun supernatural-adventure romp!!

Click the fabulous cover image below, to be taken to the Amazon page, to purchase your own copy!

    Nola Cancel’s Amazing Anne Rice Interview Compilation Book- The Next Requisite Thing, for any self-defined Anne Rice fanatic, to add to their Anne Rice book collection

If you’re not convinced of Nola Cancel’s enviably great attention-to-detail and nuance, when it comes to interviews, check out my Amazon review of her book:

“Nola Cancel’s “Anne Rice: The Interview” is impeccably organized and written with the keen eye of an adept interviewer. If you want to delve into the extremely interesting mind of a talented writer by seeing through the eyes of a careful observer, this is the definitive collection of interviews to purchase and find more about this generation’s most fascinating writers. This is a volume that is so tightly edited and so superbly written that it’s yet another noteworthy example of the top-notch quality of many self-published projects!

If you are like myself and consider yourself a fervid fan of Anne Rice’s works, this is yet another fine volume to add to your growing collection of critical literary essays and other supplementary volumes about Anne Rice’s works and the paradigmatic-shifting authoress herself!”

Prince Lestat Book Tour Information:

Yes, several venues have discreetly posted some ticket information for the upcoming Prince Lestat book tour. I will not be able to attend one of these events, due to being currently enrolled in an evening program for Paralegal Studies. My turn of bad luck has caused almost every event for the last quarter of the year to have some sort of event interfere with plans for this event.  More than likely, I’ll be attending the New York event, for all those in the coven who are planning to meet Anne Rice at some point during her tour.

For your convenience, all events that are not free event (a vast majority, unfortunately, are) happen to have asterisks (*) next to them:

If you manage to find any more events, please leave the link and other pertinent details in the comment area below! Thanks.

*October 28, 2014- Anne Rice& Victoria Wilson Book Signing- New York , NY (ticket information pending, stay tuned for details on where & how to securely purchase tickets for this signing)
*November 2, 2014- Anne Rice & Christopher Rice Book Signing New Orleans,LA
*November 5, 2014- Anne Rice, In Conversation with Christopher Rice- Hartford, CT (for some reason, this event is a bit exorbitantly priced)
*November 6, 2014- Anne Rice, In conversation with Victoria Wilson- Philadelphia, PA
*November 8, 2014- Anne Rice, In conversation with Victoria Wilson- Chicago, Il
*November 19, 2014- Anne Rice, In conversation with Christopher Rice- Los Angeles, CA   
(Click the hyper-linked text, to be referred to site to buy tickets!)

**Click the cover image above for Anne Rice’s Queen of the Damned, to be taken to Amazon, to purchase the newest edition, containing the first chapter of the much-anticipated Prince Lestat.**

Discussion for Queen of the Damned  begins September 1st, 2014, so be sure to have your copy prepared to read analytically, for the next few weeks, all leading up to October 28, 2014: the official release date for Prince Lestat!!

Note about new format, for remainder Queen of the Damned-specific discussions, occurring over the next few weeks:

Over the last few weeks, many of you have braced my haphazard scheduling ways, in order to make sure you attended and partook in our live discussions, taking place on Google Plus Hangouts on Air. I really loved the format, for the most part, because I was finally able to somewhat emulate the feel of a real discussion, at least from my end. But increasingly, from no fault of any of the fine members of the coven, I began to feel slightly detached from the other members discussing;and even worse, the limited format of having one person be the leader of the discussion via video format (on one end) and having everyone else be restricted to mostly text-based message that no other members could see created a certain overwhelming feel of conversational artificiality, for the most part. There was no natural fluidity in these live chats, and I felt like I was the most important presence on the screen, as though I was the leader of the discussions and had the most important views on Anne Rice’s books.

   Feeling beset by this strange wall of silence and artificiality that has hindered the flow and efficiency of our conversations (through no fault of anyone’s own), I have decided to return to the original format of having (1) a weekly newsletter w/ discussion posts, posted on Thursdays here on my blog; (2) discussion posts, answering one of the discussion questions; it will be brief and somewhat ambiguous, to promote more of everyone’s own thoughts and considerations on a given issue or strand of significant meaning from the book (3) all discussions will either be in the comment areas of these blog posts, or occurring at all times on the Lestat Book Coven Facebook Group Page.

   On the Lestat Book Coven Facebook Group Page, there are many discussions occurring in real-time, and you are welcome to post quotes, songs, images, or really anything related to the expansive world that Anne Rice has created. Right now, there are approximately 1,500 members, and there are bound to be more, as October 28,2014 (the release date for Prince Lestat) comes ever closer in the light of our immediate reality.

Queen of the Damned Reading Assignment # 2:

For the next two months or so, we are dedicating our time to discussing one of the more multifaceted, complex books in the Vampire Chronicles. You may forget your excitement, for the time being, for Prince Lestat, once we start digging into the various layers that comprise this book. For this week, into the next, (till next Thursday’s newest newsletter, September 25, 2014) , your second Queen of the Damned Reading assignment will be to read the entire long chapter 6 section, of Part 1 (right before Part 2 All Hallow’s Eve), and ponder the two questions below

To leave your response to these questions, be sure to join our highly active, very popular Lestat Book Coven Facebook Group page, where you may discuss this and other Vampire Chronicle books, without fear of spoilers. You may also leave your comments on either this post, or the upcoming discussion post, being posted on this blog this Sunday!!

Discussion Questions to Ponder throughout your reading:

Questions specific to assigned reading, chapter 6 of part 1 of “Queen of the Damned”

1. How does the description of Jesse and the legacy of her household relate to a missing link in Lestat’s own family history? This is really the first, most pronounced segment of Anne Rice’s Vampire Chronicles, where we see a family history not be lost, or eradicated (or stymied) by one of the family members, or more than one being turned into a vampire. There is something esoteric about the rituals and knowledge of this family, and the house of this family has the same enchanting, enigmatic element of the Mayfair Mansion. Do you think this novel, in a sense, foreshadows the later publication and elements that are the bulk of The Witching Hour?

2. Discuss the Talamasca-anything that piques your attention about them. How does Anne Rice make us come to be enthralled in their shadowy, conspiratorial existence in the rest of her novels?

3. At the beginning of this section, Stan Rice’s poem “Their Share,” is published there, what thematic importance does it play in this chapter?  The way Stan Rice’s poetry plays a pivotal role, in telling the subtextual story of this novel, will be the theme, discussed in more extensive detail this coming Sunday, September 21st, 2014. Read the poem-isolated from the reading, and think about it, return to it, after reading Chapter 6, of Part 1, of Queen of the Damned, then think about it with a refreshed sense of the intricacies of Chapter 6.

Questions specific to the novel as a whole:
1. Watch the horrid (or least from my opinion, horrid), or campy adaptation of Queen of the Damned? Technically,what worked and didn’t work about this film adaptation? Discuss anything else you wish, in terms of comparing the film and the book (without getting too bogged down in the semantics of “the book is always better..” type discussions). Let’s focus on comparing two different mediums of telling a story, and whether or not one, or the other, in this specific instance (being Queen of the Damned) whether the film or book were more effective, in portraying the complex story of Anne Rice’s Queen of the Damned?

2. In post-modern literature terminology, a novel that combines seemingly disparate (or completely diverse) types of literary elements, from different genres, are often called pastiche novels. Well, to be more proper, this technique is called pastiche (the blending of different genre elements), and novels like Queen  of the Damned. How many different genre elements can you find, from this week’s reading, or even before? Do you think Queen of the Damned is a rich example of a pastiche novel, or novel exhibiting elements of a pastiche?

Do you like the modern tone to many of the sections, in contrast to the historical retrospective sections (a larger chunk of the second/third parts of this book are dedicated to this?

3. Queen of the Damned has one of the most complicated structures of any of the novels, as the book involves almost all the perspectives of all  the diverse number of vampires. In many ways, it is truly the most multifarious of the novels, and it has fragments of perspectives that may even feel irrelevant. Focusing on the assigned pages themselves, do you feel that all the perspectives offer new insight into the different ways vampire behave, and do you personally like Anne Rice’s structural approach with this book, overall? Does it feel less introspective, as a result, thus less personal, in  any sense?

4. What do you think of the issue “paradigm shift” in relation to Queen of the Damned? Ponder this carefully, in relation to the overarching theme or purpose of the trilogy arc of the Vampire Chronicles?

Leave your own thoughts below in the comment section, and be sure to check out this Sunday’s discussion post, for what to ponder and think about, while reading the below assigned section for Queen of the Damned?

Also, be sure to check out the contest details below, for more information on how to potentially win a first edition, signed hardcover copy of “The Vampire Lestat”

Contest Details:

WIN A SIGNED, FIRST EDITION HARDCOVER OF THE VAMPIRE LESTAT!!

The following photos of the prize substantiate my claims above:

** VERY IMPORTANT CONTEST RULES:**Due to high prices for international mailing, this contest is only open to those, living either in the US or Canada. I apologize in advance for neglecting to post these rules, but they are very important, for my budget is tight. And while I would love to be able to open up the contest to all Lestat fans, living somewhere around the world, the exorbitant costs with mailing things kinda prevents that from ideally happening.

Also, the contest associated with the Vampire Lestat musical is now completely eradicated; this is the newest contest for winning a SIGNED, FIRST EDITION Hardcover copy of Anne Rice’s The Vampire Lestat.  Unlike past contests, due to my error in judgement, the contest’s winner is selected completely at random, and having the most entries on the Rafflecopter App. does not guarantee winning the contest, but only increases the likelihood of winning!!

The contest is being run to help promote my new editorial and publicity services, open to any interested Self-published writers. I don’t feel like rehashing all the details here about the reason for its development, and the descriptions of the services provided for this service, so I advise you click the hyperlinked text- A Bibliophile’s Workshop–to read more about this very exciting new service for self-published writers

** To access the Rafflecopter contest to enter this contest, Click one of Jo Vee’s two beautiful artworks, out of many more as displayed on the recently published art galley on my blog, to access the Rafflecopter App for this contest.**

**Random House recently released these new editions of the first three novels of the Vampire Chronicles, with the first chapter included in them. Click the corresponding images to be taken to the Amazon Product Page, for each of them, for more information on how to attain one for yourself!!**