The Wolf Gift

NATIONAL BESTSELLER - "Vintage Anne Rice--a lushly written, gothic ... metaphysical tale. This time, with werewolves." --The Wall Street Journal

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.

Publisher: Knopf Publishing Group
Published: 02/14/2012
Pages: 416
Weight: 1.55lbs
Size: 9.20h x 6.10w x 1.60d
ISBN: 9780307595119


Review Citation(s):
Library Journal 12/01/2011 pg. 90
Romantic Times 02/01/2012 pg. 85 - Very Good
Booklist 02/01/2012 pg. 40
Kirkus Reviews 02/01/2012
Entertainment Weekly 02/17/2012 pg. 79
Shelf Awareness 02/14/2012
Publishers Weekly 02/20/2012

About the Author
ANNE RICE is the author of thirty-seven books. She died in 2021.