Aaron Lightner is a member of the Talamasca. Always helping others to get over supernatural experiences.That's what he does when he meets a doctor who has a newly psychiatrist had been in charged of Deirdre Mayfair and tried his best to stop the medication she was on as he was asked by the mysterious man who was always sitting next to her. He recollects his experience in New Orleans at the Mayfair mansion and still feels guilty by not doing anything for her.

Michael Curry is tired of the press, is tired of all those strangers who want him to touch something to a friend, a parent to know if they died peacebly. He damns the day, a person saved him from the waters and woke up with this strange gift. He still wants to see that savior but how could he find a way out of the bleakness that envelops him every time he drinks himself to oblivion? He knows he has come back for a reason, that the beings that helped her to save him made a pact with him for him to live. He needs her and he needs to touch the boat on which he was to see if he can remember. He does not remember what his mission is, he just knows he has mission.

Rowan Mayfair, a neurosurgeon, who, by everyone's standard, is a magician with a scalpel. Like Michael, she has a gift. She knows when she operates if her patient will survive. She also knows that she is guilty of killing her father. She can't control this gift and is very afraid of theguft which is also a curse.

Rowan is the person who saved Michael and she also wants to meet him. On the day, they finally meet, Lightner comes to the Michaels house. But he sees them leave. Michael touches the boat but nothing comes back. He knows after having touched Rowan that she thinks she killed her father with her gift. He knows about her. As in all Rice's novels, they fall madly in love. But Michael knows that he has to go back to his childhood town, New Orleans, he knows that the house he sees in his dreams is that old house in the French quarter where he saw that mysterious man sitting next to Deirdre.

Rowan has no choice but to let him go with the promise he won't drink himself to oblivion before getting to New Orleans. There, he meets with Aaron Lightner, who asks him to read the Mayfair records that the Talamasca has archived since the 17^th century. He learns the Mayfair witches started in Scotland, where a member of the Talamasca saved the daughter of the first Mayfait witch, Deborah. He, then, tries to save her again in France but with no avail.But her daughter fled with her husband and all the jewels of the Mayfair, especialy the emerald necklace, passed upon each female that is designated as the leader of the Mayfair Family.

While Michael reads the chronicles, Rowan learns that her real mother has just died. Rowan's mother is deirdre and the night she dies Rowan sees the mysterious man for the first time. She decides to join Michael in New Orleans.

To be honest, I think the book could do well with some revamping. : ) It has a very slow start. And if not for my perseverance, i would have stopped before hitting the interresting part of the novel. However Anne Rice could have make a excellent book with 300 pages less!!! After you start reading the book and get into, then you can either detest it, as a mediocre novel in comparison to the Vampires Chronicles or you will love it or like it. I liked it. I am definitely a Vampire Chronicles fan, not a Mayfair Chronicles fan. But it is a good book and can be read easily, especially with the sex parts : ) My advice, borrow it at the library, no need to buy it, though i warn you, it will take you about 3 weeks to go beyong the first 300 pages. : ) I did enjoy it. If not that review would be worse than that!!!!