The Coven Chronicles: Kirstens Rise

---

She is found by Louis de Pointe du Lac , the protagonist of Interview with the Vampire , and begs him to "wake" her mother.

Louis instead feeds on Claudia, much to his self-disgust, and leaves her for dead. However, her life is saved by Lestat de Lioncourt , Louis's maker. Claudia is taken to the vampires' wealthy townhouse in the heart of New Orleans, and there she is turned into a vampire by Lestat. Lestat tells her that she is his and Louis's "daughter" and that now that she is in their family, Louis can not leave them.

Though Louis is at first horrified at the thought of a vampire child and indeed he accuses Lestat of condemning Claudia to hell , he and Claudia become very attached and the three form a close relationship and live a "family" lifestyle for the next several decades. Although the three vampires spend many years in happiness, luxury and comfort, Claudia slowly but surely begins to grow more and more detached, insisting on self-sufficiency and even gaining her own miniature coffin so that she does not have to sleep with either Lestat or Louis during the daylight hours.

Claudia becomes highly self-educated and philosophical under Louis's tutelage. She also becomes an indiscriminate murderer under Lestat's guidance. She would "appear to her victims as a little angel" and lure them to their deaths. As the decades pass, Claudia becomes increasingly dissatisfied and irritated with constantly being "dressed as a doll" by her two fathers. Her frustration leads her to kill an innocent mother and daughter and leave their corpses to rot in the kitchen of the townhouse.

When her deed is discovered by Lestat and Louis, she snaps into a blind rage and informs the two that she isn't a little girl anymore, but is cursed and trapped in the body of a five year old child, thus forever damned to a body never able to develop. She desperately wants to physically mature into a full grown woman but will never have that chance, and that she never asked to become a vampire in the first place, therefore she hates her two fathers more than she ever thought possible. Afterwards, Claudia remains attached to Louis but grows increasingly hostile toward Lestat, holding him responsible for her inner misery.

Obsessed with finding out the origins of vampires and finding "her own kind", Claudia questions Lestat on his maker and about creating other vampires and even about the creation of the very first vampire. Lestat knows all these answers, but refuses to say a word and give Claudia any insight. Finally through with her "father", Claudia poisons Lestat with the blood of a poisoned young boy and slashes his throat, having Louis leave Lestat's desiccated and seemingly lifeless body in the local swamps. Claudia and Louis flee New Orleans and head to Europe, where Claudia's research has indicated vampiric activity.

They are embittered and disillusioned when the only vampires they come across are mindless, unintelligent beasts who have no moral compass and are a far cry from the sophisticated vampires that Claudia and Louis are.

Eventually, the two head to Paris to embrace civilization and find happiness again. The wedge between Louis and Claudia grows larger than ever as Claudia spirals even further into maddened fury at the torturing thought of being trapped within the body of a little girl forever. Claudia is repulsed by these vampires and what she considers to be their cheap theatrics. Santiago, a prominent figure among the vampire coven, suspects Claudia and Louis of killing their maker which is strictly against the rules of the vampire lifestyle.

Eventually, Claudia and Louis meet Armand , a charming and handsome vampire who Louis becomes enchanted by. Armand falls in love with Louis, and Claudia hears Armand telling her telepathically to leave Louis as a companion. The punishment for any vampire who attempts to kill their own kind is immediate death.

Lestat's plea to be allowed to take Louis away is ignored as Louis is sentenced to an eternity of starvation, locked inside a coffin. Though Louis's life is spared, Claudia and Madeleine are left to die in a room where they cannot escape exposure from the sun, which of course is fatal to any vampire. He escapes the scene with Armand and the two vampires leave together. It is Claudia's death that finally turns Louis cold and away from his "mortal passion", a death that Armand forever mourns. More of Claudia's relationship with Lestat is revealed in Lestat's eponymous autobiography, where he describes her fondness for playing with her victims as he did, and his sorrow at the turn their relationship took.

Still, he reiterates his statement made at the end of Interview with the Vampire , that Claudia "should never have been one of us. And later in the book, when Jesse was in the hotel, she found Claudia. Jesse did survive the event. It soon becomes clear to Jesse that Claudia's ghost , or at least a psychic imprint left behind after her violent death, is haunting the townhouse. Claudia's ghost realizes that Jesse can see her, and haunts her all the way back to the Motherhouse when Jesse is taken off the assignment.

Jesse sees her as a little girl playing with a woman-shaped doll, sitting outside of her window and watching her, and describes a feeling of menace and anger radiating from Claudia. When Jesse is turned into a vampire by the end of the novel, she loses the ability to see and communicate with spirits, as is usually the case with vampires, and thus loses the ability to see Claudia.

Emma Galvin did a great job voicing all the characters. She was the bright side to this story. Did Arcana Rising inspire you to do anything? Evie needs to make a choice and stick with it. I have read the actual book a couple of times and have been checking every other day to see if the audio book had been published.

I, of course, love everything Kresley Cole writes and have even read the books that aren't on Audible.

Arcana Rising

I love the Arcana series and can hardly wait for the next installment. You won't be disappointed with this book! Love the story, the series and the narrator. Can't wait for the next book! One of the my favorite series! I own all in print, and listen through all of them every other month. I cant get enough. I love it so much. The characters are so good. The narrator is so good. I make everyone I can read this so that I can discuss theories.

This is so dumb. I think about it all of the time. Would you listen to Arcana Rising again? Yes, because I know Emma is excellent for this series. Who was your favorite character and why? Jack will always be my favorite character. I fell even harder for Jack in Cole's Day Zero novella. How does this one compare? Yes, I'm sure its the same as all her other fantastic narrations of this series. Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting? It probably will be once I finish listening to it.

I'm a die hard arcana fan, so, I ended up reading the book instead of waiting for it to come out on audible. The suspense was killing me, and so, I was too impatient to wait for Cole to get things together with audible before finding out what happened next in this series.

I also read the Day Zero novella for the same reason. It would be cool to see a narration of Day Zero with different narrators doing different characters, but I don't think Cole has that in the works Regardless, you can still appreciate this book without reading the Day Zero novella. But, I do feel like Day Zero gave more depth and understanding to the different characters. When certain new characters came into play in this book, I already knew where they were coming from and understood them on a different level than readers who hadn't read Day Zero would.

This book is pretty good, but my favorites are the first two books. Thats why I gave the story line four out of five stars. This book seems stretched thin so that this series would create four books instead of three as Cole had originally intended for this series. I learned only a few additional things about this series that I didn't know before reading it. The rest, while interesting seemed like filler to stretch the story out in my opinion. There were no more crazy babblings from the fool, or Jack's cajun French, and reckless ruggedness, which is what made the first two books interesting in my opinion.

There was also less action or scary parts. I liked Evie's character in the beginning of this book. She was so edgy and bad ass, but then, she became super soft like puddy once she met up with death again. I know she's a sweet Southern girl and everything, but at times, she was so soft, she bordered on stupid.

People who bought this also bought...

Then, there was her and death's relationship, which seemed forced at times. Perhaps there is a reason for that though, or maybe, its because I'm a die hard Jack fan that I couldn't get into their romance. All in all, I still hold out hope for Jack and Evie to be together again in the end.

After all, she chose him at the end of the last book, not Death. I think that 1. Evie and Death will have their child, and the game will end because things will be balanced between life and death. Death will sacrifice himself to end the game so that Evie can survive with his child, and she can live happily together with Jack. Evie will miscarry because, he's death after all. I think people forget that. How can death ever give life?

Even if he's with life, his life can only mean death because he's death. On the cajun side of things, Jack has to be the hanged man. I mean, at this point in the story, its the only thing that makes logical sense.

I'll be very surprised, if not disappointed if he's not. Especially, after reading Day Zero.

And especially since Jack made the decision to go incognito in this book, and in past games, Death said he never faced nor learned who the hanged man was. Also, since the beginning, Jack has constantly come between Death and Life. I don't think thats a coincidence. Cole has constantly played with this idea of something "hanging" between life and death pun intended.

Even when Jack became incognito, Evie became pregnant, thereby creating something else that dangles between Death and Life. I just wonder why a child has come into play when there is already an arcana character in place to "dangle" between Evie and Aric? Regardless, between Jack and Death, Evie will probably be safe until the game ends. Jack will do everything out in the Arcana battle field to secretly keep Evie safe he loves her , and Death will do everything to guard pregnant Evie from other Arcana from inside his stronghold.

Only time will tell though. My theories are just that, theories. Cole isn't one of my favorite authors for nothing. Somehow, she still manages to surprise the hell out of her readers. I know I've been critical in this review, but its only because I've had the pleasure of devouring some of Cole's more masterful pieces of literature, and know what she's truly capable of.

Press question mark to see available shortcut keys

I've read everything Cole has ever written, and each book provides something new. She's incredible, even masterful at writing a series, so, happy reading everyone. Cole likes to pitch opposites against each other, then bring them together, and she also likes to put destined female and male leads together. Death is Evie's second choice when it comes to everything romantic, and I don't think he's going to win out in the end considering other books of Cole's that I've read.

Somehow though, Cole will end this book so both team death and team Jack readers will love how this series ends. This book is a lovely addition to the series, and soon, we'll all marvel at Cole's ending this spring with her final arcana book.

Buy for others

But this book was filled with rushed scenes, pathetic prose, and ridiculousness in general. I firmly believe that Ms. Cole threw this book together in haste just to get something into print. Here's where I had my issues: Half of this book was just her whining about wanting revenge on Richter for Jack's "death. No action, no plots, no schemes.

She is supposedly one of the most powerful Arcana, yet she doesn't use her powers. She is wholly dependent on everyone else to do things for her. And all she does is whine. Evie spent the better part of the first three books trying to get to her grandmother for answers. Now she has her granny in the flesh, but just because she doesn't happen to like what her grandmother is saying, Evie writes her off as a crazy person. And the fact that her granny is dying doesn't even seem to make an impression. In fact, when the old lady dies, Evie is relieved!

To Evie, these two men are apparently interchangeable. A few weeks of mourning the demise of her "soul mate" and Evie is rattling the headboard with Death. I can't even describe the stupidity here. I wish I would have reread this series before starting this book.

There is so much that happens in the previous book that I have forgotten, that I am now kicking myself for not listening to them all over again. I have kept notes on all 22 Tarot cards and who is who, I will share them with those others that wish they would have. I did like how this book reiterated all the major arcana's again in this book. For a young adult book, I am again surprised that there are sex scenes in the series. Not that it bothers me, it is just surprising.

I still reeling at the direction this book took, not what I expected. I love this series and can't wait for the next installment. I feel there will be a twist when it comes to Death in books to come, and of course this book left off with some really big questions. Narrator is awesome as usual and I would be willing to read any of her readings. Ending is at 8: So I love this series and was so excited when Arcana Rising came out on audio. For me this was a weak entry in the Arcana series. It felt like it was story filler but there was no real action and drama as in the previous books.

This book was mostly Evie's angsty feelings about her two loves. It just lacked the grit of previous books. I remember thinking at a point where the book said it had 34 min remaining "how can there only be 34 min? It feels like this could only be the halfway point in the book. So wow to my surprise there was really only about 10 more min in the story with the other 24 min being a excerpt from Day Zero.

Ms Cole just stuck a cliff hanger in there and that was it. Overall I'm disappointed in the entry to the series. It should have been like a book 3. If you've ever read series that do that 3, 3.

Customers who bought this item also bought

That's about how much story you feel like you got out of this despite its length. I will of course buy whatever Kresley Cole publishes and I hope that the next book delivers as the first 3 did.

• The Mobile DJ Handbook: How to Start & Run a Profitable Mobile Disc Jockey Service
• Residue Reviews: Residues of Pesticides and Other Contaminants in the Total Environment (Reviews of Environmental Contamination and Toxicology)
• Chasing Merlin (The Chasing Camelot Trilogy Book 1)
• TRANSCENDING DAWN ~ THE ABDUCTION (TRANSCENDING DAWN VAMPIRE SERIES Book 3)
• PnP Digital nº 1 - Migração de dados, micro desktop com Ubuntu Linux e outros trabalhos (Portuguese Edition)