Are you looking to read one of the amazing books by Anne Rice? She wrote eight different series, mostly in the gothic fiction genre, and we have covered all Anne Rice books in order in this article. We also included her standalone novels and her non-fiction works in publication order.
Anne Rice is beloved by fans, and many were heartbroken to hear the announcement of her death on December 11, 2021. Whether you’ve been a dedicated fan since her first novel was published nearly 50 years ago or have yet to read a book by her, this list of the Anne Rice books in order will help you decide which book you should pick up to celebrate her writing legacy.
If you’ve already started one of her series you can scroll down and check the order to figure out which book to read next. On the other hand, if you’re looking to read a book by Anne Rice for the first time, we have a summary section at the end to help you choose.
About Anne Rice
Anne Rice was born Howard Allen Frances O’Brien in 1941. She changed her name to Anne at an early age and grew up in New Orleans, Louisiana where many of her novels are set.
Also at a young age she became interested in vampires and witches. It is a passion that would last for her entire life and evolve into numerous bestselling novels.
Throughout her writing career, Rice used other pseudonyms such as Anne Rampling and A.N. Roquelaure. Typically, Rice used them for books with more adult themes. Although in reality, all of her work contains touches of horror, lust, and powerful homo-erotic elements present in many of her characters.
Under these pseudonyms, her most popular work is the Sleeping Beauty series.
Her best known work is Interview with the Vampire, which she wrote in 1973 and was published three years later. In 1994, Neil Jordan made a movie based on the book starring Brad Pitt and Tom Cruise.
Rice wrote Interview with the Vampire following the death of her five-year-old daughter Michele. It was her attempt to create something out of her grief. It was then published in 1976 and became her longest running series: The Vampire Chronicles.
Interview with a Vampire captured the hearts of readers and has been credited as reviving the trend of vampire stories. Rice wrote more than 30 books, which have sold more than 150 million copies.
Her son Christopher announced her death on social media, which was caused from complications following a stroke. Rice was 80. There will be a celebration of her life in 2022 taking place in New Orleans that will be open to the public.
Anne Rice Books in Order
The Vampire Chronicles Order
- Interview with the Vampire (1976)
- The Vampire Lestat (1985)
- The Queen of the Damned (1988)
- The Tale of the Body Thief (1992)
- Memnoch the Devil (1995)
- The Vampire Armand (1998)
- Merrick (2000)
- Blood And Gold (2001)
- Blackwood Farm (2002)
- Blood Canticle (2003)
- Prince Lestat (2014)
- Prince Lestat and the Realms of Atlantis (2016)
- Blood Communion (2018)
Sleeping Beauty Books
- The Claiming of Sleeping Beauty (1983)
- Beauty’s Punishment (1984)
- Beauty’s Release (1985)
- Beauty’s Kingdom (2015)
Ramses the Damned
- The Mummy or Ramses the Damned (1989)
- Ramses the Damned: The Passion of Cleopatra (With Christopher Rice) (2017)
- The Reign of Osiris (With Christopher Rice) (2022)
The Mayfair Witches
- The Witching Hour (1990)
- Lasher (1993)
- Taltos (1994)
New Tales of the Vampires
- Pandora (1998)
- Vittorio, The Vampire (1999)
Christ the Lord
The Songs of Seraphim
- Angel Time (2009)
- Of Love and Evil (2010)
The Wolf Gift Chronicles
- The Wolf Gift (2012)
- The Wolves of Midwinter (2012)
Anne Rice Standalone Books in Order
- The Feast of All Saints (1979)
- Cry to Heaven (1982)
- Exit to Eden (as Anne Rampling) (1985)
- Belinda (as Anne Rampling) (1986)
- Servant of the Bones (1996)
- Violin (1997)
Anne Rice Non-Fiction Books
- Called Out of Darkness (2008)
Summary of Anne Rice Books in Order
The Vampire Chronicles
1. Interview with the Vampire
Originally begun as a short story, the book took off as Rice wrote it, spinning the tragic and triumphant life experiences of a soul. As well as the struggles of its characters, Interview captures the political and social changes of two continents. The novel also introduces Lestat, Anne’s most enduring character.
But primarily this is the story of Louis, as told in his own words, of his journey through mortal and immortal life. Louis recounts how he became a vampire at the hands of the radiant and sinister Lestat and also how he became indoctrinated, unwillingly, into the vampire way of life. His story ebbs and flows through the streets of New Orleans.
It includes defining crucial moments such as his discovery of the exquisite lost young child Claudia, wanting not to hurt but to comfort her with the last breaths of humanity he has inside. But, he makes Claudia a vampire, trapping her womanly passion, will, and intelligence inside the body of a small child.
The hatred both Louis and Claudia have for Lestat sends them halfway across the world to seek others of their kind. Louis and Claudia are desperate to find somewhere they belong, to find others who understand, and someone who knows what and why they are.
2. The Vampire Lestat
The Vampire Lestat, whom we first met in Interview with the Vampire, has his own story to tell. Anne Rice’s second book in The Vampire Chronicles follows Lestat through the ages as he conducts his own search for his origins and to find meaning in what has happened to him.
Unlike the cruel and dark Lestat we saw in Interview, this book reveals a sympathetic figure with his own blend of morality, romanticism, and bravery. Lestat has been asleep for 55 years and awakes entranced with the modern world. Thus, he becomes a superstar rock musician and millions of fans fall under his spell.
Breaking the vampire code of silence, Lestat reveals himself to the world in the hopes that the world’s immortals will rise and join together to solve the mystery of their, and his, existence.
The novel moves effortlessly back in time to eighteenth century France, the world of Lestat’s childhood aristocracy, as he tells his story.
3. The Queen of the Damned
The Queen of the Damned weaves together three brilliantly colored narrative threads that span 6,000 years. This novel goes back to the origin of vampires, sweeps across the world through the ages, and then brings to life an astonishing climax in the twentieth century.
Firstly, the rockstar known as Vampire Lestat prepares for a concert in San Francisco where there are hundreds of vampires among the crowd. But these vampires all hate Lestat’s power and are determined to destroy him.
Meanwhile, across the world the same nightmare is taking place in the dreams of vampires and mortals. That’s because in these nightmares twins with fiery red hair and piercing green eyes are suffering an unspeakable tragedy.
Finally, Akasha, Queen of the Damned and mother of all vampires, rises from a 6,000 year sleep. She puts into motion a horrific plan under the guise of saving mankind that will elevate her and her chosen lover to the status of gods.
4. The Tale of the Body Thief
In the dark and blooming domain of the living dead, Lestat has been a courted prince for generations. But he’s on his own now.
Then, in his desperate desire to rid himself of his uncertainties and loneliness, Lestat goes on the most perilous mission of his troubled life.
5. Memnoch the Devil
Lestat is on the lookout for Dora, the drug lord’s gorgeous and charming mortal daughter. That is because Dora has affected Lestat in a way that no other mortal has, and he can’t seem to get her out of his mind.
Simultaneously, he becomes increasingly conscious that the Devil is aware of who he is and desires something from him. Lestat is lured in by Memnoch, who claims to be the Devil himself, while caught between his vampire world and his affection for Dora.
6. The Vampire Armand
The vampire Armand’s story spans centuries, from his youth in Kiev Rus to ancient Constantinople, when he is sold into slavery by Tartar raids. We witness him emotionally and intellectually enslaved to the great vampire Marius, who masquerades among humanity as a mysterious, reclusive painter and who would bestow the gift of vampiric blood on Armand at a splendid palace in Renaissance Venice.
As the novel races to its climax, we see its eternally vulnerable and romantic hero forced to choose between his twilight immortality or the salvation of his immortal soul.
7. Merrick
Merrick descends from a society of New Orleans octaroons and quadroons who reign in the murky world where the African and the French intermingle. Which is to say that her ancestors are also the Great Mayfair Witches.
David Talbot tells the story of the gorgeous, unconquerable witch. It’s a story that takes us from past and present New Orleans to the Guatemalan jungles, from Mayan ruins a century ago to ancient civilizations yet to be discovered.
8. Blood And Gold
In this book Marius, who used to be Lestat’s tutor, discloses the mysteries of his two-thousand-year life. Marius, a proud Senator in Imperial Rome, was kidnapped and then turned into a “blood god” by the Druids. Following which he became the jaded defender of Akasha and Enkil, Queen and King of the vampires, in whom the supernatural race’s essence dwells.
We follow him as he must leave the vampire Pandora in a tragic way. It is through his story that we observe the fall of pagan Rome to Emperor Constantine and the horrifying sack of the Eternal City by the Visigoths.
9. Blackwood Farm
Quinn Blackwood is a smart young man being tormented by a mystery doppelganger. “Goblin” is a ghost from a dream realm that has Quinn in its clutches. His doppelganger stops him from belonging any place since infancy.
Quinn’s doppelganger grows even more terrifying as he turns into a vampire. Consequently, this causes Quinn to seek help from the famous vampire Lestat in the hopes of breaking away from the ghost that keeps drawing him back to Sugar Devil Swamp and its explosive secrets.
10. Blood Canticle
Lestat, the vampire, who was once the pinnacle of evil, is now seeking the metamorphosis that Memnoch the Devil set in motion. As he saves Patsy’s ghost from the evil world of the Earthbound, unravels the riddle of the Taltos, and unselfishly determines the fate of his beloved Rowan Mayfair, he battles with his vampirism and yearns for goodness, purity, and love.
11. Prince Lestat
Old vampires, awoken from a lengthy slumber under the soil, are carrying out the orders of a Voice by burning their relatives without mercy in cities all across the world, from Paris to Mumbai, Hong Kong to San Francisco.
There is only one vampire that can unite the entire world of the Undead. But will Lestat heed the call to unite the Children of Darkness as they face this new twilight?
With little time to spare, Louis de Pointe du Lac, Armand, and even the vampire Lestat must embark on a trip to uncover who — or what — is driving this strange monster.
12. Prince Lestat and the Realms of Atlantis
Lestat’s undead body and soul have been taken over by a strange external entity. This ancient and enigmatic power and unearthly spirit of vampire mythology possesses all of the unfathomable Universe’s might, history, and evil reach. It is also through this spirit that we learn the captivating story of a vast ancient sea force.
We come to understand the secrets of this lost kingdom of Atalantaya, the lost realms of Atlantis, as we learn of its mighty, far-reaching powers and perfections, and how and why the vampire Lestat, indeed all vampires, must reckon with the terrifying force of this ageless, all-powerful Atalantaya spirit so many millennia later.
13. Blood Communion
In this spellbinding novel, Lestat, addresses the tribe of vampires and tells the riveting story of the formation of the Blood Communion and how he became Prince of the vampire world. He also explains how he is true ruler of this vast force, and how his vision for all the Children of the Universe to thrive as one, came to be.
Sleeping Beauty
1. The Claiming of Sleeping Beauty
This is a retelling of Sleepy Beauty in which the Prince wakes Beauty by sexual initiation rather than a kiss. As a result, Beauty’s complete and absolute enslavement to him is his recompense for ending the hundred years of enchantment.
Above all, in this book Anne Rice explores erotic yearning and fantasy in a classic setting that becomes a compelling experience.
2. Beauty’s Punishment
Beauty has been banished from the Satyricon-like environment of the Castle, as a result of a secret and forbidden infatuation with the rebellious slave Prince Tristan. She is sold at auction and will soon be subjected to the enticing penalties of “the village,” as the boldly attractive Captain of the Guard takes over her education in love, brutality, control, obedience, and affection.
3. Beauty’s Release
Beauty’s adventures on the dark side of eroticism have found her as an Eastern Sultan’s captive and a prisoner in the harem’s unique boundaries. Furthermore, her meetings with the numerous variants of sexual fantasy are described in a sensual, rich prose that amplifies this magnificent representation of Love’s secret realm.
The Beauty series is an unparalleled study of sexuality as this sumptuous adult fairy tale nears its climax.
4. Beauty’s Kingdom
Following the Queen’s death, Beauty and Laurent return to the kingdom they fled from twenty years ago. It is now that Beauty decides to seize the kingdom in exchange for voluntary carnal servitude. Countless princes, princesses, lords, ladies, and commoners travel to Beauty’s kingdom, where she and her husband usher in a new period of desire, longing, and pleasure.
Ramses the Damned/The Mummy
1. The Mummy or Ramses the Damned
In ancient Egypt, he was Ramses the Great, but he has awakened in luxurious Edwardian London as Ramses the Damned. Subsequently, he must now forever wander the earth.
He mingles with the aristocracy and partakes in their sensual lifestyle, but his heart still belongs to Cleopatra. As a result, his love for her will force him to commit an act that will place everyone around him in grave danger.
2. Ramses the Damned: The Passion of Cleopatra
Former Egyptian pharaoh Ramses the Great is reawakened by the elixir of life in Edwardian England. He gets swept up in a furious and deadly struggle of wills against the once-great Queen Cleopatra, now eternal alongside his bride-to-be. Cleopatra has been resurrected by Ramses using the same dangerous elixir that brings the dead back to life.
However, as these ancient rulers defy one another in their quest to understand the powers of the strange elixir, they are haunted by a mysterious presence even older and more powerful than they, an entity summoned from the mists of time.
3. The Reign of Osiris
Having vanquished foes both human and supernatural, Ramses the Great has found love with the beautiful heiress Julie Stratford in Edwardian England. But now, with the outbreak of a world war looming, Ramses and those immortals brought forth from the mists of history by his resurrection will face their greatest test yet.
The Mayfair Witches
1. The Witching Hour
This is the story of the Mayfair family, generations of male and female witches, and how the death of one enhances the others by passing on their knowledge.
Each generation, one Mayfair witch gains the abilities of a particular man. This man is Lasher and he bestows gifts, stimulates, and defends the witches. Deirdre, Lasher’s current witch, is currently catatonic due to psychological shock treatments.
Meanwhile, Deirdre’s daughter, Rowan, is far away; she doesn’t understand the gifts she possesses, but they come in handy as a doctor. One day, Rowan saves a man, Michael, from drowning. Michael then develops extraordinary powers and seeks out Rowan.
Together they will sift through Rowan’s family history as she tries to break her family’s ties to Lasher.
2. Lasher
The Talamasca, paranormal investigators, are on the lookout for the newborn Lasher. But as they do, the Mayfair females are dying of hemorrhages, and Rowan and Michael have a rare genetic disorder.
Lasher is a different species entirely, and now that he has a corporeal body, he represents an incalculable threat to the Mayfairs. When Rowan and Lasher fly to Houston together, she gets pregnant with a Taltos, a monster similar to him.
3. Taltos
The Talamasca seek to preserve the nearly extinct Taltos race by bringing together a male and female. Their searching catches the attention of an ancient Taltos named Ashlar entwined with Lasher’s identity.
Ashlar reveals the taltos mythology and lineage and enlists the help of Michael and Rowan in his battle against evil. Ashlar longs to make right the sufferings of his people. To help Ashlar, Michael must keep his coupling with Mona Mayfair a secret, for it has produced a new female Taltos.
Rowan attempts to assist him, but the task is difficult given that Morrigan, the Taltos, is now heir to the Mayfair fortune. Morrigan has become the new monster of the Mayfair family.
New Tales of the Vampires
1. Pandora
In a busy cafe in modern-day Paris, the vampire David Talbot encounters Pandora. She is the Child of the Millennia, the first vampire ever created by the great Marius, and she is two thousand years old. Through conversation, David eventually persuades her to reveal her life’s biography.
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.
2. Vittorio, The Vampire
When Vittorio’s entire family is challenged by an evil power, his world of courtly magnificence and rural pleasures is suddenly imperiled. Then Vittorio is tempted by the vampire Ursula, the most attractive of his supernatural foes.
As he goes forth in search of revenge, joining the terrifying Court of the Ruby Grail, growing increasingly charmed and perplexed by his feelings for the enigmatic Ursula, he encounters demonic opponents, conflict, and political intrigue.
Christ the Lord
1. Out of Egypt/Young Messiah
A baby is born to a modest Jewish household in the chaotic first century in Israel — but to a magnificent destiny. As he comes to grips with his exceptional abilities and the whispered mysteries surrounding his birth, he has an unsettled upbringing.
The family has fled the Holy Land to the relative safety of cosmopolitan Alexandria due to King Herod’s brutal regime. They decide to return home to Israel, to Galilee, a turbulent area under Roman domination, during a period of disorder and turbulence, insurgency and confusion, after Herod’s death.
2. The Road to Cana
Despite the fact that legends of a virgin birth have long surrounded Yeshua, he has spent decades as one of many who attend the synagogue on the Sabbath. Everyone who knows and loves him is looking for any indication of the direction he will finally pursue.
Finally, we watch him emerge from his baptism, ready to face his fate and the Devil. We see what occurs when he takes the water from six large limestone jars, turns it into cold red wine, is recognized as the anointed one, and is pushed to rally all of Israel to fight Rome and follow him, as the prophets predicted.
The Songs of the Seraphim
1. Angel Time
Toby O’Dare, alias Lucky the Fox, is back on the job as a contract killer. But there’s a catch, because he’s a soulless spirit: A living corpse.
When a mystery visitor, a seraph, gives him the chance to rescue rather than harm lives, his nightmare world of lone and murderous missions changes. O’Dare, who has long wished to be a priest, seizes the opportunity.
Now he’s sent back in time to thirteenth-century England, to dark worlds where infants mysteriously die or vanish, and Jews are accused of ritual murder.
2. Of Love and Evil
Former contract murderer Toby O’Dare must investigate the poisoning of a renowned nobleman. His task is to stop the haunting of a devilish dybbuk, even while he is recovering from his previous holy assignment.
Together, they journey to fifteenth-century Italy. But Toby quickly realizes that he is caught up in a web of conspiracies and counter-plots, encircled on all sides by increasingly grave dangers as the curtain of clerical fear closes in around him.
The Wolf Gift Chronicles
1. The Wolf Gift
Reuben suddenly finds himself changing after a terrible incident. His hair has grown longer, his skin has become more sensitive, and he can now hear sounds he couldn’t before. Now, he must confront the beast within himself or perish utterly.
2. The Wolves of Midwinter
The Morphenkinder are busy preparing for the old pagan midwinter feast. Everyone is welcome at the feast, even those who do not wish them well.
Reuben Golding, the newest Morphenkinder, is having to adjust to his new life as a Man Wolf. He must learn to manage his cravings and bloodlust. But as the feast approaches, fate continues to pursue Reuben, most notably in the guise of a peculiar, troubled ghost who appears at the window, unable to communicate.
Standalone Novels
1. The Feast of All Saints
Before the Civil War, there were people living in Louisiana unlike anybody else in Southern history: The gens de couleur libre. They were born of African slaves and the French or Spaniards who enslaved them.
This historical tale follows the lives of four of them: Men and women torn between the realms of master and slave, privilege and tyranny, desire and suffering.
2. Cry to Heaven
This is the story of the castrati. These beautiful and ethereal male sopranos were adored by royal courts and magnificent opera theaters all throughout Europe for their elegant bodies and amazing vocals. While they were worshipped as idols, they were reviled for everything they were not.
3. Exit to Eden
Lisa Kelly is the manager of The Club. The Club is a remote BDSM resort that provides high-end clientele with an exclusive setting in which they can experience the life of a master or mistress.
Meanwhile, prospective obedient slaves are offered at auctions by the world’s most recognized trainers. They are compensated at the conclusion of their term at Eden, which varies from six months to two years. Lisa, as the chief female trainer and co-founder, has first dibs on the new slaves and picks Elliot Slater.
Lisa and Elliot have an instant and unmistakable attraction that grows stronger over time and finally leads to love.
4. Belinda
Jeremy Walker is a famous children’s illustrator who finds in Belinda the materialization of his sexual fantasies. Her youthful innocence and sexual maturity awaken in Jeremy a passion which is impossible to ignore. The desire for such a young woman is a risky transgression and, therefore, untameable.
The relationship established between the two goes beyond the limits of normality and, far from being ephemeral, becomes a journey through the different ways of living love.
5. Servant of the Bones
Azriel, Servant of the Bones, is a pure spirit who manifests as a ghost, genii, demon, or angel. As he travels from ancient Babylon, full of royal intrigue and religious turmoil, to Europe during the Black Death, and finally to the current world, he pours his heart out to us.
He finds himself in a struggle with his own human beginnings and the terrible powers who have attempted to sentence him to a life of wickedness and devastation amidst the towers of Manhattan.
6. Violin
This is the story of Triana, who once aspired to be a famous musician, and the demonic fiddler Stefan, the tortured spirit of a Russian nobility. Stefan begins to prey upon Triana by using his magical violin to fascinate, then to rule and drag her into madness via the music she loves.
But Triana, possibly even more than Stefan, recognizes the power of music. She sets out to defy Stefan and battle not just for her sanity, but also for her life.
Non-Fiction
1. Called Out of Darkness: A Spiritual Confession
After decades as a self-proclaimed atheist, Anne Rice rediscovered and completely accepted her Catholic religion in this autobiographical spiritual submission. It all starts with her upbringing in New Orleans when she contemplated joining a convent.
As she developed into a young adult, she began to have doubts about faith, God, and the Catholic Church. This eventually led her to reject religion. In the late 1990s, however, the author rediscovered her Catholic faith, recognizing how much she wanted to commit her entire existence, including her literary skills, to God.
Final Thoughts on Anne Rice Books in Order
If you’ve made it all the way to the end, you are probably committed to reading one of the Anne Rice books in order. Or maybe you were looking for your favorite Anne Rice book on this list. Did you find it? Let us know in the comments down below.
Looking for more book recommendations?
Check out this list of the 20 Best Adult Fantasy Romance Books.
One thought on “All 35+ Anne Rice Books in Order | Ultimate Guide”
Thank you for this! Rice is one of my favorite authors and there are books I need to read and re-read! Wasn’t sure of the order to read the series books in. I sure didn’t want ti have to pay for a book to tell me which book I should read and when! Thanks,again. This is perfect! Also,vyour brief summary of each book was very helpful in helping me remember which books I have and haven’t read as yet. 😁