Preview of The Witching Hour Summary:

Rice writes about the supernatural world that she feels co-exists with the so-called natural world. In TheWitching Hour, witches and demons with powers beyond those of humans use those powers for good and evil. Unlike the vampires in her Vampire Chronicles, the witches in this novel are not especially harmful to the health of mortals, and they in fact are mortal themselves, burning to death or crashing to earth from great heights from which they have flung themselves or been flung.

Most often their powers are used to increase their wealth and power and to wreak havoc on their enemies. The point is that when one sees a family that seems always to prosper even when illness or adversity strikes, Rice's explanation seems to be that there are supernatural creatures out there who have the power to overcome things that mere mortals cannot.

The main theme of The...