Anne Rice, crea­tor of the Vampire Lestat, the Mayfair witches and the ama­zing worlds they inha­bit, now gives us the first in a new series of novels lin­ked toge­ther by the fled­gling vam­pire David Talbot, who has set out to become a chro­ni­cler of his fel­low Undead.

The novel opens in present-day Paris in a crow­ded café, where David meets Pandora. She is two thou­sand years old, a Child of the Millennia, the first vam­pire ever made by the great Marius. David per­suades her to tell the sto­ry of her life.

Pandora begins, reluc­tant­ly at first and then with increa­sing pas­sion, to recount her mes­me­ri­zing tale, which takes us through the ages, from Imperial Rome to eigh­teenth-cen­tu­ry France to twen­tieth-cen­tu­ry Paris and New Orleans. She car­ries us back to her mor­tal girl­hood in the world of Caesar Augustus, a world chro­ni­cled by Ovid and Petronius. This is where Pandora meets and falls in love with the hand­some, cha­ris­ma­tic, ligh­thear­ted, still-mor­tal Marius. This is the Rome she is for­ced to flee in fear of assas­si­na­tion by conspi­ra­tors plot­ting to take over the city. And we fol­low her to the exo­tic port of Antioch, where she is des­ti­ned to be reu­ni­ted with Marius, now immor­tal and haun­ted by his vam­pire nature, who will bes­tow on her the Dark Gift as they set out on the fraught and fan­tas­tic adven­ture of their two tur­bu­lent cen­tu­ries together.