Blood and Gold (Vampire Chronicles) by Anne Rice (2001-10-16)

The Vampire Chronicles continue with Anne Rice's spellbinding new novel, in which the great vampire Marius returns. The golden-haired Marius, true child of the Millennia, once mentor to the Vampire Lestat, always and forever the conscientious foe of the Evil Doer, reveals in his own intense yet intimate voice the secrets of his two-thousand year existence. Bravely, Marius seeks a new civilization in the midst of glittering Constantinople, only to meet with the blood drinker Eudoxia. We see him ultimately returning to his beloved Italy, where after the horrors of the Black Death, he is restored by the beauty of the Renaissance. We see him become a painter living dangerously yet happily among mortals, giving his heart to the great Botticelli, to the bewitching courtesan Bianca, and to the mysterious young apprentice Armand. Moving from Rome to Florence, Venice, and Dresden, and to the English castle of the secret scholarly order of the Talamasca, the novel reaches its dramatic finale in our own time, deep int he jungle where Marius, having told his life story, seeks some measure of justice fromt he oldest vampires in the world.