Although Mrs. Rice's return to the vampire series is refreshing, after her last few attempts to keep a reader excited about her "latest book" (Violin depressed me and I left it unfinished as with Menmoch the Devil), I will be hard-pressed to buy any new releases. Pandora felt like a roman history lesson - boring (I skipped over pages), and I felt she should have focused more on Pandora's life as a vampire and her feelings for Marius. I detect somewhat an "I am woman hear me roar" type of personality in Pandora. Give me more LeStat and his army or even better - Ramses! Maybe Anne needs a "sabbatical" to freshen up her tales from the darkside.