A daring new departure from the inspired creator of The Vampire Chronicles (“unrelentingly erotic . . . unforgettable”—The Washington Post), Lives of the Mayfair Witches (“Anne Rice will live on through the ages of literature”—San Francisco Chronicle), and the angels of The Songs of the Seraphim (“remarkable”—Associated Press). A whole new world—modern, sleek, high-tech—and at its center, a story as old and compelling as history: the making of a werewolf, reimagined and reinvented as only Anne Rice, teller of mesmerizing tales, conjurer extraordinaire of other realms, could create.
The time is the present.
The place, the rugged coast of Northern California. A bluff high above the Pacific. A grand mansion full of beauty and tantalizing history set against a towering redwood forest.
A young reporter on assignment from the San Francisco Observer . . . An older woman welcoming him into her magnificent family home that he has been sent to write about and that she must sell with some urgency . . . A chance encounter between two unlikely people . . . An idyllic night—shattered by horrific unimaginable violence, the young man inexplicably attacked—bitten—by a beast he cannot see in the rural darkness . . . A violent episode that sets in motion a terrifying yet seductive transformation, as the young man, caught between ecstasy and horror, between embracing who he is evolving into and fearing what he will become, soon experiences the thrill of the wolf gift.
As he resists the paradoxical pleasure and enthrallment of his wolfen savagery and delights in the power and (surprising) capacity for good, he is caught up in a strange and dangerous rescue and is desperately hunted as “the Man Wolf” by authorities, the media, and scientists (evidence of DNA threatens to reveal his dual existence) . . . As a new and profound love enfolds him, questions emerge that propel him deeper into his mysterious new world: questions of why and how he has been given this gift; of its true nature and the curious but satisfying pull towards goodness; of the profound realization that there may be others like him who are watching—guardian creatures who have existed throughout time who possess ancient secrets and alchemical knowledge. And throughout it all, the search for salvation for a soul tormented by a new realm of temptations, and the fraught, exhilarating journey, still to come, of being and becoming, fully, both wolf and man.
About Anne Rice
Anne Rice was born and raised in New Orleans, Louisiana. She holds a Master of Arts Degree in English and Creative Writing from San Francisco State University, as well as a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science.
She is the author of over 30 books, most recently the Toby O’Dare novels Of Love and Evil, and Angel Time; the memoir, Called Out of Darkness;and her two novels about Jesus, Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt and Christ the Lord: The Road to Cana,
Anne publicly broke with organized religion in July of 2010 on moral grounds, affirming her faith in God, but refusing any longer to be called “Christian.” The story attracted surprising media attention, with Rice’s remarks being quoted in stories all over the world.
Anne is very active on her FaceBook Fan Page and has over 550,000 followers. She answers questions every day on the page, and also posts on a variety of topics, including literature, film, music, politics, religion, and her own writings. She welcomes discussion there on numerous topics.
Her latest novel, The Wolf Gift, a werewolf story set in Northern California in the present time, will be published on February 14th, 2012. With this book, Anne returns to the classic monsters and themes of supernatural literature, similar to those she explored in her Vampire Chronicles, and tales of the Mayfair Witches.
Her first novel, Interview with the Vampire, was published in 1976 and has gone on to become one of the best-selling novels of all time. She continued her saga of the Vampire Lestat in a series of books, collectively known as The Vampire Chronicles, which have had both great mainstream and cult followings.
Interview with the Vampire was made into a motion picture in 1994, starring Brad Pitt, Tom Cruise, Kirsten Dunst and Antonio Banderas. Anne’s novel, Feast of All Saints about the free people of color of ante-bellum New Orleans became a Showtime mini series in 2001.
Anne Rice is also the author of other novels, including The Witching Hour, Servant of the Bones, Merrick, Blackwood Farm, Blood Canticle, Violin, and Cry to Heaven. She lives in Palm Desert, California.
A Note From Anne Rice
Writing this book was a pure joy. It was a return for me to gothic motifs — the old dark house, a mysterious death, the promise of family secrets, and the supernatural monster as hero – that I had used in the Vampire Chronicles, and the Tales of the Mayfair Witches. And once again, I felt compelled to create an origin story and a cosmology — this time for my protagonist, Reuben Golding, who finds himself periodically turning into the werewolf of legend. Only unlike the doomed werewolves of so many popular films, Reuben retains full awareness during the transformation and a keen enjoyment of his immense wolfen powers. He never becomes a four footed animal, but remains a deeply conflicted, fierce but compassionate beast-man, hungry for power, and for answers as to the mystery of what he has become. Though similar in many ways to my vampires novels, Reuben’s story is almost entirely contemporary. And for the first time in my writing career I explored the haunted atmosphere of California’s cold, mist shrouded redwood forests, and the romance of the windswept northern California coast. I lived in northern California for over thirty years, and it was a great pleasure to get back to it, to have my hero dining in San Francisco’s North Beach, or meeting his lady love in the quaint town of Mill Valley for breakfast, or driving his sports car north on Highway 101 as he pushes deeper into a grim but at times glorious adventure. —— I’ve been asked: will this be a series? I don’t know. I held nothing back in the writing of The Wolf Gift, but the characters are alive in my imagination, as vividly as any I’ve ever created, and I see the grand house of Nideck Point looming against a leaden sky, beckoning me just as it beckoned my hero, Reuben. – Source: Amazon.Com
Editorial Review
The “gift” of the title refers to a werewolf who acts more like Batman than like a bestial agent of disorder, for he goes about rescuing damsels (and guys) in distress and in the process killing the bad guys.
Reuben Golding has everything going for him—good looks, a monied family, a girlfriend and a job as a reporter for the San Francisco Observer. He’s sent to do a story on a mysterious house north of the city, and there he meets the equally mysterious Marchent Nideck, an elegant older woman who hopes to sell the house now that her great-uncle Felix Nideck has (after a 20-year disappearance) finally been declared officially dead. Touring the house with Marchent, Reuben becomes equally enamored with both architecture and hostess. Shortly after an eruption of spontaneous lovemaking, Marchent is attacked and killed, and Reuben, also attacked, finds himself badly injured. It seems Reuben’s attackers were themselves set upon by a beast who bit Reuben and left him a “Chrism”—the power to transform to lupine status and concomitant power to sniff out evil (literally) and snuff out evil-doers. In the hour’s interlude between lovemaking and attack, Marchent has conveniently contacted her lawyers and willed the Nideck estate to Reuben. The house is filled with Gothic bric-a-brac like old manuscripts and cuneiform tablets that suggest a connection to the supposedly (but not actually?) dead Felix. In his wolfish form Reuben falls in love with the recently widowed Laura, and, mystified by what’s happening, he seeks the advice of his sage brother Jim, a Roman Catholic priest. One of the mysteries is that it doesn’t take a full moon to effect Reuben’s transformation. – Kirkus Reviews
Anne Rice’s ‘The Wolf Gift’
The Washington Post Book Review – February 13, 2012 (Excerpt)
Vampires, witches, demons, angels, Jesus and dybbuks — with “The Wolf Gift,” Anne Rice adds lycanthropes to her bucket list of characters. Rice has never shied away from tackling Big Issues: After two books of a projected trilogy on “Christ the Lord,” her last two novels featured an assassin grappling with redemption. “The Wolf Gift” marks a return to form while still giving a nod to spiritual matters. This is a werewolf novel where the visionary Jesuit theologianTeilhard de Chardin is evoked so often that he nearly becomes a secondary character.
San Francisco journalist Reuben Golding could use some bite when he first visits the magnificent cliff-top Nideck estate, nestled in a redwood forest four hours north of the Bay Area. At 23, sweet-natured Reuben is still called “Sunshine Boy,” “Baby Boy” and “Little Boy” by his family and girlfriend. He’s agreed to do a puff piece on the mansion, put up for sale by Marchent Nideck, who inherited the compound from her Uncle Felix, an adventurer whose will has only recently been opened after his mysterious disappearance two decades earlier.
It doesn’t take more than a few pages for Reuben to fall for both Marchent and the Nideck estate. Rice’s descriptions of the mansion are so lush that readers might do the same — to cop a line from musical theater, this is a book that will leave readers humming the architecture. [Read the full article...]
VAMPIRE ASCENDING by Lorelei Bell
Exciting Hunt For A Vampire Serial Killer in Chicago
Sabrina Strong is a Touch Clairvoyant who knows a secret. She knows her mother was turned into a vampire when Sabrina was ten. Now that she is grown up, a powerful magnate in the Chicago business world hires her to reveal the identity of who relentlessly murders vampires in his ultra-modern stronghold of a hotel. [Read More...]
VAMPIRE ASCENDING
