Of Love and Evil

Zusatztext "Ghosts and angels aside! Of Love and Evil transcends the metaphysical thriller label through its grounding in historical fact...[Toby's] sense of wonder proves infectious for the reader as well...[Rice] not only explores a battle against evil! but asks what it means to be evil and who gets to define it. Above all! Of Love and Evil is simply good entertainment." Carmela Ciuraru! The Boston Globe "Rice tells a good story! nicely balancing the profound and the profane." Judith Chettle! Richmond Times-Dispatch "Rice knows how to tell a story! and this one's a lot of fun. . . Rice's knock-your-socks-off cliffhanger ending leaves no doubt that this series has wings." People magazine (3½ stars out of 4) "Rice is remarkable in her ability to breathe life into another place! another time." The Associated Press "Present! as always! is the author's ability to craft dreamlike prose to lull readers into believing every heavenly scenario she puts forth without a whiff of disbelief." Andrea Hoag! The Denver Post A bullet of a bookand an absolute bull's eye. Kirkus (starred) Readers who enjoy Rice's larger-than-life tales and elegant writing will find much to appreciate here! and the cliff-hanger ending will leave fans eager for the next installment. Kristine Huntley! Booklist Informationen zum Autor Anne Rice Klappentext Rice's lyrical! haunting new novel is a metaphysical thriller of angels and assassins that once again summons up dark and dangerous worlds set in times past. CHAPTER ONE I DREAMED A DREAM OF ANGELS. I SAW THEM AND I heard them in a great and endless galactic night. I saw the lights that were these angels, flying here and there, in streaks of irresistible brilliance, and some as great as comets which seemed to draw so close the fire might devour me, and yet I felt no heat. I felt no danger. I felt no self. I felt love around me in this vast and seamless realm of sound and light. I felt intimately and completely known. I felt beloved and held and part of all I saw and heard. And yet I knew I deserved nothing of it, nothing. And something akin to sadness swept me up and mingled my very essence with the voices who sang, because the voices were singing of me. I heard the voice of Malchiah rise high and brilliant and immense as he said that I must now belong to him, that I must now go with him. That he had chosen me as his companion and I must do what he would have me do. How strong and brilliant was his voice rising higher and higher. Yet there came against him a smaller voice, tender, lustrous, that sang of my life on earth and what I had to do; it sang of those who needed me and loved me; it sang of common things and common dreams, and pitted these with faultless courage against the great things which Malchiah sought to do. Oh, that such a mingling of themes could be so very magnificent and this music should surround and enfold me as if it were a palpable and loving thing. I lay upon the breast of this music, and I heard Malchiah triumph as he claimed me, as he declared that I was his very own. The other voice was fading but not conceding. The other voice would never concede. The other voice had its own beauty and it would go on singing forever as it was singing now. Other voices rose; or they had been there all the while. Other voices sang all around me and of me, and these voices vied with angelic voices as though answering them across a fathomless vault. It was a weave, these voices, angelic and other, and I knew suddenly that these were voices of people praying, praying for me. They were people who had prayed before and would pray after and in the far future and would always pray, and all these voices had to do with what I might become, of what I m...

"Ghosts and angels aside, Of Love and Evil transcends the metaphysical thriller label through its grounding in historical fact...[Toby’s] sense of wonder proves infectious for the reader as well...[Rice] not only explores a battle against evil, but asks what it means to be evil and who gets to define it. Above all, Of Love and Evil is simply good entertainment."
*—*Carmela Ciuraru, *The Boston Globe

• "Rice tells a good story, nicely balancing the profound and the profane."
  *—*Judith Chettle, *Richmond Times-Dispatch 
  * 
  "Rice knows how to tell a story, and this one’s a lot of fun. . . Rice’s knock-your-socks-off cliffhanger ending leaves no doubt that this series has wings."
   
  —People magazine (3½ stars out of 4) 

"Rice is remarkable in her ability to breathe life into another place, another time."
 —The Associated Press

"Present, as always, is the author’s ability to craft dreamlike prose to lull readers into believing every heavenly scenario she puts forth without a whiff of disbelief."
—Andrea Hoag, The Denver Post 

“A bullet of a book—and an absolute bull’s eye.”
 
—Kirkus (starred)

“Readers who enjoy Rice’s larger-than-life tales and elegant writing will find much to appreciate here, and the cliff-hanger ending will leave fans eager for the next installment.”
* 
—Kristine Huntley, *Booklist

Auteur

Anne Rice

Texte du rabat

Rice's lyrical, haunting new novel is a metaphysical thriller of angels and assassins that once again summons up dark and dangerous worlds set in times past.

Résumé
The second book in nationally bestselling Songs of the Seraphim series is a gripping metaphysical thriller in which angels partner up with assassins, from the author of Interview with the Vampire.

Barely recovered from his previous divine mission, former contract killer Toby O'Dare is once again summoned by the angel Malchiah to investigate the poisoning of a prominent nobleman and stop the haunting of a diabolical dybbuk. Together, they travel back to fifteenth-century Italy—the age of Michelangelo, the Holy Inquisition, and Pope Leo X—and this time Malchiah has Toby pose as a lute player sent to charm and calm this troublesome spirit. But Toby soon discovers that he is in the midst of plots and counterplots, surrounded on all sides by increasingly dangerous threats as the veil of ecclesiastical terror closes in around him.

Échantillon de lecture
CHAPTER ONE

I DREAMED A DREAM OF ANGELS. I SAW THEM AND I heard them in a great and endless galactic night. I saw the lights that were these angels, flying here and there, in streaks of irresistible brilliance, and some as great as comets which seemed to draw so close the fire might devour me, and yet I felt no heat. I felt no danger. I felt no self.

I felt love around me in this vast and seamless realm of sound and light. I felt intimately and completely known. I felt beloved and held and part of all I saw and heard. And yet I knew I deserved nothing of it, nothing. And something akin to sadness swept me up and mingled my very essence with the voices who sang, because the voices were singing of me.

I heard the voice of Malchiah rise high and brilliant and immense as he said that I must now belong to him, that I must now go with him. That he had chosen me as his companion and I must do what he would have me do. How strong and brilliant was his voice rising higher and higher. Yet there came against him a smaller voice, tender, lustrous, that sang of my life on earth and what I had to do; it sang of those who needed me and loved me; it sang of common things and common dreams, and pitted these with faultless courage against the great things which Malchiah sought to do.

Oh, that such a mingling of themes could be so very magnificent and this music should surround and enfold me as if it were a palpable and loving thing. I lay upon the breast of this music, and I heard Malchiah triumph as he claimed me, as he declared that I was his…