About 12 h 45 min · at 30 minutes a day, about 26 days
Estimated from the page count of this edition. Dense books can take longer than the estimate.
About the book
Quinn Blackwood has grown up on his wealthy family's Louisiana estate accompanied by Goblin, a spirit double who follows him everywhere. When Quinn becomes a vampire, Goblin develops a taste for blood and threatens the people Quinn loves. Seeking help from Lestat, Quinn recounts his childhood among the relatives and ghosts of Blackwood Farm, beside Sugar Devil Swamp, and the history that binds him to the place.
Reader notes
Elaborate descriptions and a long personal confession set a leisurely pace in this Southern Gothic vampire novel, the ninth Vampire Chronicles installment. Family history occupies much of the telling, alongside a significant love story, several explicit sexual scenes, strong violence and abuse.
How it reads
Writing style
Atmospheric · Descriptive · Lyrical · Ornate
Tone
Atmospheric · Dark · Eerie · Unsettling
Structure
Framed · Nonlinear
Driven by
Atmosphere · Character · Relationships
Point of view
First person
Setting
Blackwood Farm · New Orleans · Sugar Devil Swamp
Reading complexity
Writing
4 / 5
Ideas
3 / 5
Structure
4 / 5
Background knowledge
3 / 5
About this profile
Collected’s assessment, not reader ratings. Complexity runs from 1 (least demanding) to 5 (most demanding).
Writing
How much attention the sentences and language require.
Ideas
How much interpretation or abstract reasoning the book asks of you.
Structure
How much you need to keep track of speakers, timelines and connections.
Background knowledge
Prior knowledge needed to follow the book, beyond what it explains.
Emotional intensity
Emotional pressure, from gentle (1) to intense (5). Separate from difficulty.
Somewhat. Ornate, lyrical prose and a nonlinear structure demand attention, while Quinn’s long personal confession moves leisurely through childhood and family history.
Where does it fit in the series?
It is the ninth installment of The Vampire Chronicles. Quinn seeks help from Lestat and recounts his childhood, his transformation into a vampire, and his connection to Blackwood Farm.
How spicy is it?
The content notes flag strong sexual content.
What strong content should I expect?
Strong violence, abuse, and sexual content accompany Quinn’s account of his family and life as a vampire. Goblin’s growing taste for blood threatens the people Quinn loves.
Is it a fast-paced vampire story?
No. Elaborate descriptions and a long personal confession set a leisurely pace. Much of the telling concerns family history, with an emphasis on atmosphere, character, and relationships.
How long is it?
640 pages in the Ballantine Books 2003 mass market paperback edition.
Which edition is shown here?
Ballantine Books · 2003 · Mass Market Paperback. ISBN 9780345443687.
How long does it take to read Blackwood Farm?
About 12 hours 45 minutes at 50 pages an hour, based on the 640-page Ballantine Books edition. Dense books can take longer.
About the author
Anne Rice
Anne Rice wrote Gothic fiction on a deliberately expansive scale, moving between supernatural sagas, historical novels, erotic retellings, and biblical fiction. Her characteristic prose is ornate and atmospheric, attentive to rooms, bodies, clothing, and the charged exchanges through which power changes hands. She often lets her immortals narrate themselves at length, so that confession becomes self-invention and history remains open to competing versions. Interview with the Vampire gives Louis’s moral anguish the shape of a two-century testimony, while The Vampire Lestat answers him with a more defiant autobiography that ranges through theaters, covens, and family memories. Rice repeatedly returns to appetite, guilt, spiritual belief, and relationships in which dependence cannot be separated from domination. These concerns also govern The Witching Hour, where a neurosurgeon’s return to New Orleans opens into a centuries-long family history bound to a seductive and destructive spirit. Even outside her vampire fiction, as in The Claiming of Sleeping Beauty, she makes ritual, submission, and unequal desire central to the narrative structure.
