Author:Anne Rice
'[W]hen I found Rice's work I absolutely loved how she took that genre and (...) made [it] feel so contemporary and relevant' Sarah Pinborough, bestselling author of Behind Her Eyes
'[Rice wrote] in the great tradition of the gothic' Ramsey Campbell, bestselling author of The Hungry Moon
SERVANT OF THE BONES is Anne Rice's new electrifying novel, with a hero as mesmerising, seductive and ambivalent as the vampire Lestat. Azriel is a restless Jewish spirit, born almost 2500 years ago in Babylon, who can be called forth by whoever holds and understands the arcane mystery of the casket of golden bones he is tied to. Caught between heaven and earth, Azriel is forced to bear witness to the long and troubled history of Western civilisation, from the household of an ancient Greek philosopher and the deathbed of Alexander the Great, to the Mongolian Steppes and fourteenth century Strasbourg, where Jews were made scapegoats for the Black Death. And finally in the present, he is summoned to witness and avenge a brutal murder on Fifth Avenue. The dead woman is Esther, step-daughter of Gregory Belkin, fanatical messianic leader of a worldwide cult, the Temple of the Mind. Belkin is known to be the son of Holocaust victims, but he has a secret history which binds Azriel's fate to his. SERVANT OF THE BONES is as rich and terrifying, as sensual and violent as any novel by Anne Rice - an enthralling epic which conjures up more than two thousand years of Jewish history and penetrates the unfolding mysteries of evil, redemption, life and death.
This brilliant collection of essays should be a feast for his admirers, as well as for those who approach his dazzling oeuvre for the first time...Calvino is not only constantly and supremely intelligent; he is constantly and supremely faithful to his narrative imagination
—— GuardianCalvino juggles with ideas, spinning around the roles of reader, author, character, in ever-changing spheres, seeking the literary form that is yet to be, to fill the bookshelf as yet uncarved
—— Literary ReviewIt's one of the many joys of The Literature Machine that the reader, always a crucial player in Calvino's literary game, gets to watch the writer also as a reader, though at one further remove. That the game is serious is never in doubt, however playful, however feather-light its motions. In Calvino's fictions, the narrative gymnastics, the comic irony, the enchantments of fantasy and the charm of paradox all perform exquisitely precise manoeuvres in that area "between the lightness of ideas and heavy weight of the world
—— New StatesmanAn extraordinary feat of historical and artistic imagining
—— Anton Nickson , Time OutMythical and mystical, Mistress of Spices is reminiscent of fables and fairy tales. . . . The story Divakaruni tells is transporting, but it is her gift for metaphor that makes this novel live and breathe, its pages as redolent as any freshly ground spice.
—— BooklistFor ARRANGED MARRIAGE, 'As irresistible as the impulse which leads her characters to surface to maturity, raising their heads above the floods of silver ignorance'
—— New York Times Book Review