«Rice, best known for her «Vampire Chronicles» and «Lives of the Mayfair Witches» novels, has taken a new direction in her writing.»

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.

This sequel to The Claiming of Sleeping Beauty resumes Beauty's explicit, teasing exploration of the psychology of human desire and seduction. Now Beauty, having indulged in a secret and forbidden infatuation with the rebellious slave Prince Tristan, is sent away. Sold at auction, she will soon experience the tantalizing punishments of 'the village' as her education in love, cruelty, dominance, submission and tenderness is turned over to the brazenly handsome Captain of the Guard. Once again Anne Rice's classic tale of pleasure and pain dares to explore the most primal and well-hidden desires of the human heart.