Blood and Gold by Anne Rice

He's Marius, a real piece of work! They're... it doesn't matter who they are because once they become too difficult for him to deal with he just makes another younger vampire to replace them. Yes, it's our annual Anne Rice-a-thon! This time we read Blood and Gold, a book which recaps almost every other Vampire Chronicles book including and of course especially Memnoch the Devil, the one we refuse to read. You will not break us, Anne. This seems to be the eighth book in the series and we're pretty sure she's writing them just for us at this point. If you haven't read any of the other books or listened to our episodes on them, this may not be the best starting point - this book was clearly written for the loreseekers. You gotta be up on a whole host of weirdoes for this one to make a lot of sense. I didn't even remember some of these jabronis! So, remember all the gross grooming business from The Vampire Armand? (Real grooming, the youth pastor kind.) It is far, far more distressing in this book because now you see it from Marius' perspective instead of Armand's, and it is so much worse. We found it actively distressing. Additionally, this is generally a book about an enraging sack of shit mansplainer. It has all the traditional Anne Rice mess turned up to 11 (although surprisingly she elides the "shit your pants" part of turning into a vampire in this one? Small blessings.) So, read and listen with care for yourself.