Christopher Rice Presents - The Vines! NY Times Bestselling Author!

BEFORE...

Spring House had its portrait painted many times before it was destroyed by fire. Images of its grand, columned facade are so prevalent throughout gift shops in southern Louisiana most tourists to the region return home with a haunting sense they had visited the place, even if they didn’t take a bus tour of the old plantation houses that line the banks of the Mississippi River.  
Hundreds of years after the conflagration that reduced the antebellum mansion to timbers and weeds, the house and grounds were restored to a more tourist-friendly version of their original splendor by one of the wealthiest families in New Orleans. 
Several of the slave quarters were removed to make room for a quaint gazebo, and the cane fields where African slaves labored and died in the punishing heat were replaced by manicured, fountain-studded gardens that have since played host to countless wedding receptions.

The affluent families who pay for these events feel no meaningful connection to the place’s violent, bloody history; otherwise they would have second thoughts about staging such gleeful celebrations atop soil forced to absorb decades of systematic degradation and assault. No doubt, many of the brides in question grew up in homes where an etching or a painting of Spring House hung in the foyer or the upstairs hallway or, at the very least, the guest bathroom, and they too were seduced, sometimes subliminally, by these ever-present

reproductions of its pastoral sprawl and muscular profile.  But there is one rendering of Spring House that continues to cause dispute among academics, and it is not found in gift shops. The sketch is primitive, but telltale architectural details of the old house are plainly visible: the widow’s walk and the keyhole-shaped front door, to name a few. 
It depicts a gathering of slaves who have been forced to stand and watch while one of their own is whipped by a man who is clearly the overseer. 
The inexplicable event that seems to have interrupted the overseer’s work is a matter of great contention among those devoted to the study of plantation history. 
Some shape has descended from the branches of a nearby oak tree and twined itself through the overseer’s airborne whip, capturing it in midair and bringing a sudden halt to the bound slave’s violent punishment.  Even though it has no signature or date, the academics and tour guides believe this sketch to be the work of one of the many privileged white historians who took it upon themselves to document the personal narratives of freed slaves after the Civil War ended. Perhaps these accounts of misery moved one of these well-intentioned writers to work beyond the limits of his abilities, resulting in a crude illustration meant to manifest the sublimated rage of his interview subjects. Or maybe it is the work of a former slave, who summoned all the steadiness of hand she could manage and put her own revenge fantasy to paper. 
But these scholars are sure the sketch does not depict an actual event. It’s a metaphor, they insist, an angry dream spilled in ink. Of this assertion these students, who devote their lifework to studying the bloody and complex history that runs catacomb-like beneath the bus tours and the spinning racks of postcards and the five-figure weddings, are absolutely sure. 
And they are wrong. 

~~~

The Vines

By Christopher Rice

With a title, The Vines, coming from a writer who sometimes writes horror, it was clear what this story was going to be...  Rice even jokingly shares in his video that vines fighting against humans was a major part...

What you don't know at this point is that...it takes "blood" to cause those vines to come alive... Anything else beyond that would be a spoiler alert since the horror can only be "experienced" as you read--we can not tell you, else you won't believe us... Or, if I tell you, like that old saying, then I'd have to kill you.

The history of the mansion, located in Louisiana, is the key issue. As a working farm in older days, the plantation had many slaves who had worked the land, had died there--had been buried there. When the plantation had burned, it might have been taken as an omen--that the land had received so much pain and blood from those days and needed to be cleansed... But it could not destroy the hate of those who had lived, and died, there...

And that hate could be revived... When something in today's world happens...

Caitlin Chaisson is now living in the new southern home that was built more for living and social life...All the signs of the slaves have been taken away and anything that had disturbed the land had been left for hundreds of years. But there was one old picture found that nobody knew who had painted it. It showed slaves being forced to stand and watch as the overseer punished one of the men...at least until something had pulled out of the woods and twined around the whip being used--stopping everything, caught in that moment of freedom...

But all the evil has not left the plantation--because it is the people who lived there which brought the evil to the home... Caitlin had been hosting a party when she came upon a scene of evil...her husband was having drunken sex with a women who'd attended the party...and when they wanted more, they ran out into a shed to continue their tryst.

Caitlin was devastated--it had been a celebration for her birthday, but had now become a mockery of what was supposed to be with her lover, her husband. Instead, this was her final birthday gift... Caitlin runs from the sight of this betrayal, to the gazebo, where she discovers she has cut herself with the women's champagne glass as she had thrown it to purposely break...

She sat there with the blood dripping onto the floor, remembering how she had heard comments about her looks and why her husband would marry her... But somehow seeing their embraces had been much worse than ever knowing that her husband did not love her... Even her best friend, Blake had tried to tell her, but Caitlin had turned from him, not being willing to believe. Now she knew.

And she uses the broken flute  and cuts into her arm, intending to end her  life...until she hears what is happening at her feet, sees what is happening on the gazebo floor... tendrils are arising up from between the boards of the gazebo, slowly moving toward her, now dripping blood... vines, looking something like a calla lilly...and it suckles her arm, her blood. But it is the smell that overpowers her, a smell...like fire... and she dreams?

And so she has no time to wait. She must bring herself to the very raw edge of her power, the place where she can feel a writhing, feral chaos in the darkness on the other side.  The darkness below. The darkness underfoot...

But when the door to the slave quarters behind her blows open, she sees neither the overseer nor Spring House’s bastard owner. She sees a perfectly framed view of her husband, Troy Mangier, halfway out of his suit, bare ass flexing as he drives himself into the beautiful young woman. And Caitlin feels herself jostled inside of her dreaming point of view—who was it? A slave?  The past and present have met in a fever dream...

And when she awakes, her arm is no longer bleeding--it is almost healed...

Caitlin feels a strange new power...and she knows exactly what to do with her new friends, the vines...


It is easy to see why Rice is a best-selling author...The Vines is edgy, creepy, and yet totally involving so that the story, through the main character's eyes, makes perfect sense... But with her best friend coming back into her life, even though she had pushed him away when he'd shared what he knew about her husband, Blake proves a true friend, as he works with her, dealing with what is actually happening... 

With a bit of fantasy, sci-fi, as well as horror, Rice presents a horrifying, exciting tale of what may happen when evil enters into and controls the land it has claimed. On the other hand, how the book ends if quite an extraordinary story in itself and, to me, proves that their is both vengeance and renewal that is possible... Given that today's headlines talks about a governor who is being questioned on being racist, we find that there is still more to learn about the uneasy relationship between Black and White people... Sometimes, The Vines helps make decisions for us... 

Memorable, remarkable in its merge of history with the present, and a lesson for all of us in many ways... This is one of my favorites of his books... Highly recommended.


GABixlerReviews

Christopher Rice is the recipient of the Lambda Literary Award and is the New York Times bestselling author of A DENSITY OF SOULS and the Bram Stoker Award finalists THE HEAVENS RISE and THE VINES. He is the head writer and an executive producer of "The Vampire Chronicles", a television show based on the bestselling novels by his mother, Anne Rice. Together they penned RAMSES THE DAMNED: THE PASSION OF CLEOPATRA, a sequel to her bestselling novel THE MUMMY OR RAMSES THE DAMNED. BONE MUSIC, the first installment in his new Burning Girl series, was released March 1st, 2018, and the sequel, BLOOD ECHO, will be released in February 2019. With his best friend, New York Times bestselling novelist Eric Shaw Quinn, Christopher hosts the YouTube channel THE DINNER PARTY SHOW WITH CHRISTOPHER RICE & ERIC SHAW QUINN (#TDPS). THE DINNER PARTY SHOW began as a podcast and Internet radio show. You can download and stream all of their episodes at www.TDPS.tv. He lives in West Hollywood, California. Visit him at www.christopherricebooks.com.

Author photo credit: Cathryn Farnsworth Photography

First Fantasy Novella by Best Selling Author Christopher Rice

One Thousand and One Dark Nights--Once upon a time, in the future… I was a student fascinated with stories and learning. I studied philosophy, poetry, history, the occult, and the art and science of love and magic. I had a vast library at my father’s home and collected thousands of volumes of fantastic tales. I learned all about ancient races and bygone times. About myths and legends and dreams of all people through the millennium. And the more I read the stronger my imagination grew until I discovered that I was able to travel into the stories... to actually become part of them. I wish I could say that I listened to my teacher and respected my gift, as I ought to have. If I had, I would not be telling you this tale now. But I was foolhardy and confused, showing off with bravery. One afternoon, curious about the myth of the Arabian Nights, I traveled back to ancient Persia to see for myself if it was true that every day Shahryar (Persian: شهريار, “king”) married a new virgin, and then sent yesterday's wife to be beheaded. It was written and I had read, that by the time he met Scheherazade, the vizier's daughter, he’d killed one thousand women. Something went wrong with my efforts. I arrived in the midst of the story and somehow exchanged places with Scheherazade – a phenomena that had never occurred before and that still to this day, I cannot explain. Now I am trapped in that ancient past. I have taken on Scheherazade’s life and the only way I can protect myself and stay alive is to do what she did to protect herself and stay alive. Every night the King calls for me and listens as I spin tales. And when the evening ends and dawn breaks, I stop at a point that leaves him breathless and yearning for more. And so the King spares my life for one more day, so that he might hear the rest of my dark tale. As soon as I finish a story... I begin a new one... like the one that you, dear reader, have before you now.

I loved the idea of participating in a series based upon the concept of the ancient stories--so fantastical that they kept alive the storyteller just so that the King would keep Scheherazade alive to tell another one...

When Christopher Rice was asked to participate, he chose a fantasy story that is quite lovely and romantic tale as its characters meet what could be a ghost, a genie, or other magical person who offers a candle to the young woman who happens to visit his store one day... This erotic tale has just three characters--that are humans that is...Cassidy, Shane and Andrew... This is their story...

Two-and-a-half-years, she reminds herself, keenly aware, once again, that ever since she became a business owner she’s tended to round down her every accomplishment, accomplishment, as if no achievement of hers will be good enough until Cassidy’s Corner is out of the red and fulfilling Internet orders from all over the world. Then everything will be better; then she will earn the respect of her husband’s fellow architects at Chaisson & Landry, men and women who currently see her as nothing more than a housewife with a love of long novels and a codependent friendship with her gay best friend. And then she will never have another insecurity in the world. Ever. If she’s not careful, this cruel, self-defeating line of thought will wash away her ambitions with the speed and ease of the rain sluicing through the gutters overhead. She’s not a teenager anymore. She has no business blaming others for the terrible pressure she places on herself at the start of every workday. And if she doesn’t watch herself, she’ll make it Andrew’s fault, too. If he weren’t so driven and successful, she wouldn’t feel the need to compete. And if he weren’t so goddamn handsome, then she wouldn’t constantly feel like she didn’t deserve him, that other women were whispering things behind her back, things like, “What’d she do to land that one? Does it involve splits?” It is fear that tricks her into seeing the blessings in her life as obstacles. It is fear, plain and simple, that twines its black fingers through the love and respect she has for her husband, pulling it apart until its strands look like chains. And nothing good in her life has ever come from treating fear like a teacher. Worse, these thoughts are just painful distractions from uncomfortable, everyday realities. Owning a business is a lot harder than she thought it would be. That’s the long and short of it. And it’s just easier to indulge paranoid fantasies than it is to balance the books, conduct bi-weekly inventories, and stay abreast of trade conventions where she might find that rare, expensive specialty item that will snag the attention of a tourist from Atlanta or a Garden District housewife wandering the Quarter after brunch at Galatoire’s. And then there’s what happened during Mardi Gras...

~~~

Since I had just finished reading Rice's latest book, I remembered that I had one other story on my long TBR list by this author...and pulled it up! It is superb...

Was it the stress Cassiday was feeling? Or was there something that was beginning to happen within her home life--with her two men--her best, and gay, friend, Shane, since childhood and her husband, Andrew... Perhaps she was so tired when she feel asleep that she entered into a magical fantasy dream... But as each moment continued, Cassday was questioning, this can't be real, even though they were all quite surprised at what had happened after drinking too much at the Mardi Gras... Now her heart and mind were torn...

If it was a dream, it was so real... It started when she was hurrying to pick up materials for a job and it had begun to rain...As she was passing a shop delicious smells flowed out to her and she stopped...The shop keeper quickly saw her and invited her in to wait until the rain slowed... As soon as she was in the shop and her materials were stacked on the floor, she turned and went to a specific candle--it was as if she was drawn into the flame itself as it produced smells she at first couldn't identify. Then she realized that there were hints of both of the men who were important to her. How strange that she would think that, because surely it was made of various scents to produce this unique assault on her senses...

The shopkeeper talked to her and immediately insisted that she take the candle as a gift--that he made candles for specific people and, surely, this one had been created for her... Later, he gave instructions...and she followed them...

And that's when the magic began and the three gold-sprinkled spirits visited...

Do you enjoy erotic fantasies? I would quickly tell you that, in my opinion, it was the writing of the author that made this story so fascinating... Setting the story within a fantasy allows readers to consider how the story affects them. The story, the timing, are elusive, suspenseful... How do we define and reveal love to those closest to us? And is attraction the basis of love, or does love evolve from friendship and caring? Readers will undoubtedly be left with thoughts--intriguing thoughts...

I think I was most interested in the inner introspection of each of the three characters as each chapter changes from one person to another. Do we ever really share our most intimate thoughts, needs, desire? If not, can true intimacy occur? In what form? The story is more exploratory in psychological musings than the average erotic tale... To me that was surely a bonus which makes me highly recommend it for those who read explicit erotic fantasies...

GABixlerReviews

Best Seller Christopher Rice Presents New Series--Bone Music!

So what do I do for my birthday? Why, I give myself a book that I wanted to read, as soon as I saw it was available! It's been awhile since I read Rice's fabulous writing... Check out A Density of Souls and The Snow Garden. I've also reblogged a previous interview frp, my other blog, which I am now merging into Book Readers Heaven...for easier viewing...


Bone Music:
The Burning Girl Series

By Christopher Rice

If you've read the book,
do you agree with these potential characters?

Jason Briffel reads the transcript again. His hands are shaking. If anyone inside this roadside diner notices how badly he’s sweating, they’ll probably blame the baking desert heat outside. But it’s not the heat. It’s the same full-body reaction he experiences every time he reads the ten-year-old record of the last time Trina appeared onstage with her birth father. 
Normally the transcript focuses him, which is why he picked it up after the plate of steak and eggs in front of him failed to ignite his appetite. He thought it would collect his scattered thoughts, channel his anxiety and doubt into action. 
It’s been seven years since he showed up on the doorstep of her grandmother’s house in California, even longer since he mailed her those letters explaining how her birth father and her so-called rescue by the authorities had averted her true destiny. Her soul was being starved. Together, the two of them could reawaken that exceptional and enlightened young girl Daniel and Abigail Banning had coaxed into being.  
But today the transcript hasn’t worked its usual magic. Reading it has left him angry and confused. He’s gripped now by the humiliating memory of what happened to him that fateful night at Burnham College. He’s feeling the vise grip of the two blazer-clad security guards who’d appeared out of nowhere right after he entered the auditorium. The ones who’d threatened to call the cops as they carried him out so quickly he could practically feel the wind in his hair. 
A hopeful, perhaps foolish part of him had been convinced that someone in Trina’s inner circle would have seen the wisdom in his letters. Abigail Banning certainly had. 
Unlike Trina, who responded to his attempts at honest communication with a restraining order, Abigail replied in great detail to every single letter Jason mailed her at Haddock Penitentiary. She recognized Jason as the vehicle for her adopted daughter’s restoration, a daughter who’d been divinely gifted to her and then cruelly removed by a world that did not understand the spiritual necessity of life taking. Abigail blessed Jason with words he’d been desperate to hear since he’d first laid eyes on Trina. You will be the Daniel to her Abigail, she’d written. And in so doing, you will become become my son, too. Why hadn’t he read that letter instead of this transcript? He’s brought it with him, along with several others. They’re at the bottom of his backpack, along with the coil of rope, the rolls of duct tape, and the Ziploc bags in which he plans to put the bullets he’s going to strip from the three different guns she keeps in her house. 
Should he read it now? No, there’s no telling what effect it might have on him. Instead he searches the diner for corrupters. There’s one sitting a few tables away: pretty and young, with a blonde ponytail and a halter top that reveals just enough suntanned skin to corrupt. She taps at the screen of her smartphone. The mustached man sitting across from her gazes out at the passing eighteen-wheelers with a vacant stare that reveals all the damage she’s done to his soul. She ignores the man on purpose. Jason knows this. That morning, or possibly the night before, she denied the man sex and took great, silent, delight in the pain this caused him. Right now she’s texting a girlfriend, or maybe several, and they’re reveling in the power she lords over the man, in the pain her withholding creates in him. And she does this because she is a corrupter, one of many. And once Jason has awakened Trina to their combined destiny, she will give herself entirely to their union and help him remove women like this blonde whore from the earth. Trina will burn away the evidence of his work, just like she burned away the detritus of Abigail and Daniel’s victims. But first he has to break down her walls, show her there’s no escape. From her true calling. From her real mother. From him. These thoughts, these plans—this vision—finally give him the confidence he’s been seeking since he stopped off at this diner. He has only a few hours left in his drive, a few hours until he’ll reach the isolated parcel of Arizona desert she now calls home.

~~~

One of the first things she did when she was finally on her own was to choose and legally change her name.
Charlotte soon became Charley, a name she liked and enjoyed using. It was entirely different from her real name, Trina, and its association with The Burning Girl...

Trina's mother had been gruesomely murdered while Trina was in the car. The couple who had acted together to fulfill their thirst for violence had taken the baby...to raise as their own. Trina never knew that her "parents" were serial rape/ murderers. Until she was 7 and they started her out by giving her the responsibility to burn all that had been worn and owned by those murdered. The Burning Girl soon became what she was best known as...

And, it wasn't surprising that a stalker had started following her after seeing all of those false representative books and movies of her formative years... He had tried to talk to Charlie and she quickly put a restraining order on him...Then he talked to her adoptive mother, who was in jail. She quickly realized the potential of getting her daughter to again "work" to fulfill her earlier role in...murder...And Jason wanted to be her partner just as her adoptive father had been to Abigail, her mother...

When her birth father found her and freed her--only to then use her as the basis for books and movies about the years she lived as the child of serial killers, she was harassed and forced to say what she was told.  When she had been old enough to act on her own, she sued her father and escaped from a life she was now trying to put behind her. To do so, she had built an extremely secured home which, initially, was totally away from everybody...She hibernated, not wanting or needing to be with any people. But she had started going to local AA meetings. That's where she met Dylan...

He told her that he knew she didn't belong in AA meetings, but he did provide the opportunity she needed to talk out what had happened. They had met routinely thereafter and Charlie had shared more than she would have ever thought she could...She had begun to trust again... but was still very afraid... Dylan suggested she take medication to help...

“The world is full of bad men, Charlotte. Go find some. 

Show them what you can do.”

And that's when the major plot begins! And it breaks into an unbelievable, fantasy thriller where Charlie becomes "close" but not the same as Bionic Woman. She is a much more fascinating woman which is suited to be responsive to her special needs based on her past and what happened since then... Think, perhaps, PTSD meds with a "kick..."

I loved the way one character was brought into the story. You see, he was a bully in the same school after Trina had been freed...and he was the one who started calling her Burn Girl. But Luke Prescott is a changed man who has an interesting FBI background and also an interesting hacker brother, both of whom greatly enhance the story. Charlie and Luke slowly begin coming acquainted with the new people they now are... as do the team that is slowly developing and surrounding her with care...

Then there is a former close friend of her grandmother who had died, leaving another devastating loss for Charlie to handle... He successfully works with former alcoholics and immediately is there to help protect her when Charlie's first trouble begins...

That is, when her stalker is already in her home one day when she returns...and attacks!

The psychological suspense of the story is what drew me in the most... While I would normally move quickly through a thriller, I found there were so many brilliant gems in paragraphs that kept coming, that I slowed the pace of my reading in order to dwell on significant issues that were woven within the story that I found relevant to both my own and, I am sure, other lives who have been traumatized in some way. The writing related to Charlie's various experiences was sensitively done, and showed the breadth of knowledge and thought of the author in both character development as well as his story telling. Rice's writing is intellectually stimulating, relevant and compelling.

While loving both the previous novels by this author, the "concept" of the medication and the reason for its trial and error approach, provided much to ponder...and a wonderful goal should anybody ever develop such a medication... I am so looking forward to the next in series, having pre-ordered even if it doesn't come out until next year! Charlie's a woman who has gone through trauma like no other... But will she be able to continue to keep the "potential" of the drug under control??! I loved this book and is easily added as a personal favorite! For women, this just might be a must-read for several reasons, at least in my opinion...


GABixlerReviews

Christopher Rice is the recipient of the Lambda Literary Award and is the New York Times bestselling author of A DENSITY OF SOULS and the Bram Stoker Award finalists THE HEAVENS RISE and THE VINES. He is the head writer and an executive producer of "The Vampire Chronicles", a television show based on the bestselling novels by his mother, Anne Rice. Together they penned RAMSES THE DAMNED: THE PASSION OF CLEOPATRA, a sequel to her bestselling novel THE MUMMY OR RAMSES THE DAMNED. BONE MUSIC, the first installment in his new Burning Girl series, was released March 1st, 2018, and the sequel, BLOOD ECHO, will be released in February 2019. With his best friend, New York Times bestselling novelist Eric Shaw Quinn, Christopher hosts the YouTube channel THE DINNER PARTY SHOW WITH CHRISTOPHER RICE & ERIC SHAW QUINN (#TDPS). THE DINNER PARTY SHOW began as a podcast and Internet radio show. You can download and stream all of their episodes at www.TDPS.tv. He lives in West Hollywood, California. Visit him at www.christopherricebooks.com.

The Snow Garden By Christopher Rice, Republished with More Material, Becomes my First Personal Favorite for 2015

 "You live here?" she asked. Mitchell nodded, tugging his keys from his pocket as he moved past her.

He threw open the front door. She took a few hesitant steps into the darkened foyer. Mitchell flicked the switch and light from a brass chandelier fell on walls painted so white she almost squinted. She followed as Michell ducked into the living room. Another chandelier came on and she gasped.

Mitchell turned to see her reaction.

Kathryn held up both hands as if to shield her eyes.

"The Garden of Earthy Delights," Mitchell informed  her proudly.

It took up the entire living room wall, in vivid color and dizzying detail. She had glimpsed the painting bfore, but enlarged onto an entire wall its effect was overwhelming. The naked figures cavorting in a surreal garden of science fiction-like fountains and gently rolling hills looked like pure anarchy. The scene showed pleasure taken to its most ghastly extreme. From where she stood in the doorway the clusters of naked figures looked like swarming insects. The living room itself seemed designed not to disract from the reproduction. A faded Oriental rug covered the hardwood floor. The sofa and chairs were a muted beige. The other white walls suddenly made more sense; she guessed each one was a potential canvas.

As she approached the wall, she almost walked into the glass-topped coffee table; only its slight metal frame made it visible.

She felt Mitchell move next to her.

"It's..."

"Go ahead."

"It's too much."

It sho9uld be," Mitchell answered, not offended.

"What's it supposed to be? Heaven?

"Not even close. Earth."

~~~

After several long minutes, Randall got up, turned on his desk lamp, and returned his attention to Eric's book.

Twentieth-century viewers of Bosch's work have demonstrated a reluctance to view his Garden of Earthly Delights as a condemnation of human sexuality consonant with the established views of the medieval church. In particular, the central panel, with its deceptively beautiful depiction of a paradise earth, has been the subject of relentless speculation. Wilhelm Fraenger put forth a highly questionable but nonetheless wildly popular theory that the entire altarpiece was commissioned by a secret heretical cult known as the Brethren of the Free Spirit, and that the central panel is actually a depiction of the cult's religious rites. Little is known about the Brethren of the Free Spirit beyond the fact that their practices included some form of ritual promiscuity, and that its members believed that unrestrained sexual activity was a method they could use to return themselves to the state of purity possessed by Adam before the fall. Consequently, its members were also known as Adamites. However, it is impossible to isolate the central panel from the altarpiece, and objective viewers must not forget that only several inches to the left, the same figures who take delight in the earth's fleshly pleasures are punished in hell for their joy.

As if Eric would ever forget, Randall thought...

~~~

The Snow Garden

By Christopher Rice

I guess after working nearly 40 years on a university campus, the last years managing and directing the utilization of university facilities, I am naturally attracted to the college environment as a favorite setting for novels. Then, too, both this novel and The Density of Souls, which was published yesterday, create a feel of the dark gothic tone I've loved since I first starting reading adult novels. This one, especially, also presents one of the most fascinating mysteries of suspense I've read. The author has also included information about the original publishing, what was changed...and more...to provide the readers an opportunity to get to know the author better.

The Snow Garden, originally published as Rice's second novel was his favorite of the first two. It is not similar to his debut except in his ability to hold readers in suspense and to a climatic ending, but more deeply reveals the writing genius that weaves a story that is ageless and certainly has a timeless story that will resonate for generations to come. 

The novel is amazing in the number of twists that come into the story, none of which could have been anticipated, at least in my opinion. At first, it comes across as a somewhat typical college campus student environment, with a variety of sexuality issues spotlighted that could be faced by any students who are excitingly moving away from home and trying to settle into a totally different environment where freedom seems the logical assumption. Ahhh, but that is where the mystery starts because one after another of the students find that either their past greatly influences their new-found freedom--or the personal interactions with other students totally opposes their expectations.

Let's just say that I was happy my university classes were taken as a part-time, working individual who had no time or interest in the social environment of full-time students...

"How was the meeting?" Kathryn asked,
standing awkwardly as April got down on all
fours and dove headfirst into her closet, which
was two feet deep and voered with a tattered
curtain instead of a door.
"I Need a beer." She tossed a pair of her Gucci
boots out behind her. They landed at Kathryn's
feet...
"Did you know there was a black national
anthem?"...April had gone to a meeting of
the African American Student Alliance, and
from the tone of her voice, it was clear that
her worst fears had been confirmed.
"It was like the first day of high school. I
walked into the center and the only person
that would even talk to me was Marcel.
...But with me, see, being biracial is a
problem because all the real black women
there think I'm going to steal all the good
men. Good black men who would take a
half-white woman over them any day.
How's that for unity?"
Kathryn gently curved an arm around
April's back and rested her chin on
April's shoulder. "So I guess you didn't
tell them you were a dyke."
~~~

The Prologue raises immediate interest, but then drops from the story, leaving the reader beginning to see the mystery start but left dangling...

There was one thing that caught my attention that others might not--there was a mention of a former student who was now acting as the architect for buildings on the campus in a very modern style as compared to the rest of the campus. I immediately wondered why--didn't they have a campus master plan to prevent that sort of thing? LOL... Well, this mention was minor so I ignored it as something that just personally interested me... Assuming that the money contributed to the college was the reason the buildings were being accepted. I was happy though that some of the students were upset with the change...

Of course this added reason for my personal pleasure--in more ways than one I discovered...

The main scene for the book is in the dorm of a few main characters. Somehow, perhaps because of their background, although it doesn't say specifically, Randall Stone and Kathryn Parker had become very close friends, although not romantically. Randall, she knew was gay. To me, her need for a gay friend was quickly apparent when we learn her past. And, to a great extent, so also for Randall...

Then we have Randall's roommate who seems to be on campus purely to see how many girls he can get into bed... Having been designated as roommates places an ironic twist in itself as Randall is confronted with not being able to get in his room often... BTW, it was a coed facility, which was an unusual twist for me to accept given the time frame. In fact, it led to some of the relationship issues, as girls who had been hurt by his promiscuity would no longer come to visit their friends on that floor...

Randall removed a silver flask from the inside pocket of
his jacket, accidentally or on purpose flashing the Helmut
Lang label...Eric felt hugely foolish because he was so
nervous that he had just offered one of his students--a
freshman--alcohol...Eric moved past him into the living
room, turning on lamps as he went. Light fell in stages,
and when it hit the reproduction of The Garden of Earthly
Delights, Eric heard a small gasp.
"Bosch."
...I've read your book," he said nonchalantly, his back to
Eric as he stared up at the framed print above the bookcase...
His gaze traveled from Eric's to the print across the room.
"I bought a print of it too....
"Do you believe him?"
~~~

Neil Patrick Harris seemed to fit the personality of Randall... A good-looking guy with a mysterious background, or at least one he was unwilling to share...

It was too easy for Eric to think he
could have prevented it all by not
answering the front door...But the
loud series of knocks startled him
and he was standing halfway down
the stairs. Early October dusk
darkened the foyer, and on the
other side of the door a shadow
was cupping its hands against the
glass pane, trying to peer inside.
"Professor Eberman?"
He didn't recognize the voice,
but no one called him Professor
Eberman. His colleagues called
him Eric...and so did most of his
grad students...His undergraduates
...rarely called him anything...
"Professor Eberman..." There
was a pleading note in the voice
now and it drew Eric...as he
saw the boy...he fought the
urge to slam the door shut in his
face. His name was Randall Stone;
the only reason Eric knew this was
because after spotting him in the
second row on the first day of
lecture, Eric went back to his
office and leafed through his
copy of that year's freshman
face book. A perfectly harmless,
private activity...
~~~

But we find that he had come to campus to meet Professor Eric Eberman, who had written a book delving into "The Garden of Earthly Delights," which had been painted centuries ago, but which seemed to continue to garner study and research by others, including Eberman (my choice Richard Gere).

Eberman was married by his wife had a sister with cancer and was away from home one weekends...

She awoke to the theme from Shaft.

Strange shapes drifted across the far wall and she sat up, groping for the halogen lamp next to her bed. The torchiere sent light to the ceiling, its styrofoam panels still scarred by the design of the beer bottle caps that she had found embedded in them on the day she moved in three months before. It was just eight p.m. Snowflakes were falling past the window, casting their shadows on the cinder-block wall on April's side of the room. Now that the roar of her nightmare had retreated, she was once again aware of the persistent and grating combustion of Stockton Hall, a four-story beehive of disconnected adolescents announcing their new collegiate identities with stereos turned up too loudly, wailing over the difficulty of their first midterms, their conversations ending in punch lines followed by explosions of forced laughter. Next door, the sounds of Shaft gave way to the earnest tones of television actors...Kathryn didn't know how she had managed to sleep through it all.

Randall's story had caused her nightmare. She reached for it on her desk.

The town of Drywater, Texas, exists because a woman named

Elena Sanchez was killed by a train...

Elena's only son, Ricky, didn't find this out until he was fifteen.

~~~

A bolt of silence struck. Eric fought the urge to ask
Randall if that was what he truly wanted--for Eric to
leave his wife of almost twenty years. But that question
would bring on a cascade of others and Randall
wouldn't be able to tolerate the answers, despite his
adult composure. The result would be the destruction
of the private world they had created in this darkened
bedroom, a world that allowed Eric to satisfy a thirst
that had gone unquenched for two decades.
~~~

"Where are you going?" Eric asked, suddenly aware that the idea of Randall leaving him alone again twisted something tight in his stomach.

"A party."

"So I was just a pit stop?"

Randall turned from the window. "Are you asking me to spend the night?"

"She not coming back."

"I know." Randall returned his attention to the flakes falling with determined force past the window.

"Sometimes I think she might never come back," Eric added, unnerved by Randall's silence.

"That would be easy, wouldn't it?"

"What do you mean?"

"I mean it would be easier than leaving her."

~~~

It wasn't very long before Eric's wife was killed when she was on her way to her sister's home, but instead crashed over a cliff...

Of course, that type of accident would cause an eruption of news and rumors all over campus. The first of which was if it truly was an accident or was it murder. No matter what was happening officially, Randall could not stop thinking of some of their conversations. He began his own investigation...

In the meantime, Kathryn had become interested in the grad student to Professor Eberman. The secrets started to fall apart, as part of the overall gossip, especially from one student who was working for the college newspaper. He and Randall had hooked up earlier in the year and now Randall had approached him, using their past relationship, to get him to help in his investigation.

Sooooo much more is happening on that campus and/or in the lives of those in that somewhat small circle of characters. It was only when the talk about the possible homicide that Professor Eberman was placed in a position of his secrets coming out... And that involved more than Randall...

Enough, I've shared only about the characters, since the novel is definitely character-driven. But the actual mystery and suspense is for readers to discover on their own! It's  Literally  Unbelievable... Readers will move into horror scenes that will in the end explain the title of the book, in a most decidedly unique, macabre manner that will chill and totally surprise all! At least for me, that is... Let me know if you even began to glimpse the ending for this one! The intricacy of his story is pure genius. For those mystery and suspense fans, I believe you will find, like me, that it is far superior to many tales of mystery and will doubtless be timeless in its top place in great suspense novels.

A masterpiece everybody should consider. In additional to other materials, the author has included his first ending which the publishers rejected... I'll agree that I prefer the revised, but I would have totally accepted the original as quite appropriate with the ending theme... Brilliant!

GABixlerReviews

By the age of 30, Christopher Rice had published four New York Times bestselling thrillers, received a Lambda Literary Award and been declared one of People Magazine's Sexiest Men Alive. His first work of supernatural suspense, THE HEAVENS RISE, was a finalist for the Bram Stoker Award. His debut, A DENSITY OF SOULS, was published when the author was just 22 years old. A controversial and overnight bestseller, it was greeted with a landslide of media attention, much of it devoted to the fact that Christopher is the son of legendary vampire chronicler, Anne Rice. Bestselling thriller writer (and Jack Reacher creator) Lee Child hailed Christopher's novel LIGHT BEFORE DAY as a "book of the year". Together with his best friend, New York Times bestselling novelist Eric Shaw Quinn, Christopher launched his own Internet radio show. THE DINNER PARTY SHOW WITH CHRISTOPHER RICE & ERIC SHAW QUINN is always playing at TheDinnerPartyShow.com and every episode is available for free download from the site's show archive or on iTunes. 

47North, the science fiction, fantasy and horror imprint of Amazon Publishing, recently published Rice's supernatural thriller, THE VINES. Rice's first erotic romance, THE FLAME: A Desire Exchange Novella, will also be published on November 11th as part of the 1,001 DARK NIGHTS series. Thomas & Mercer, the crime fiction imprint of Amazon Publishing will release new editions of his previous bestsellers A DENSITY OF SOULS, THE SNOW GARDEN and LIGHT BEFORE DAY on December 9th, 2014.

A Density of Souls, by Christopher Rice Now Newly Released, Undoubtedly Will Continue as Timeless Best Seller!

Stephen felt a hand brush his shoulder.
"Fear cannot touch me..." a voice
whispered, speaking to Stephen from
across eight years... They held each
other for the rest of the vigil. The
news cameras craned over them and
the surrounding mourners saw them
as a girl and a boy grieving for the
murdered men. Meredith and Stephen
also cried for four kids on bicycles,
illuminated in their memory by a
slanting run, and now gone forever.
!!!

Beneath a sky thickening with summer thunderheads, they rode their bikes to Lafayette Cemetery, where the dead are buried above ground. The four of them flew down Chestnut Street, their wheels bouncing over flagstones wrenched by the gnarled roots of oak trees. They passed high wrought-iron fences beyond which Doric and Ionic columns held up the facades of Greek Revival mansions, their screen porches shrouded in tangles of vines.

The canopy of oak branches began at Jackson Avenue, by the bell tower of Bishop Polk Cathedral, which rose thirty feet into the air, its ceramic tiled portico crowned by  a blinding gold-plated crucifix. The neighborhood, with its sprawl of raised Creole cottages and classical 
mansions, stretched for blocks. Their ride to the cemetery o Washington Avenue took them through sunlight dappled across the uneven asphalt of the floor-rimmed streets of the Garden District. The greatest fear of their thirteenth summer was the appearance of cars. 

      Meredith would never be able to forget the day the gate was locked and the rain fell...

A Density of Souls

By Christopher Rice

During their ritual afternoon game of hide-and-seek, the century-old tomb of the fireman of the Chalmette Station was always Base...

When the rain began, Meredith burrowed between the back walls of two mausoleums. Stone angels kept their backs to her as she crouched, her sneakers wedged on the platforms of the opposite tombs, craning her neck to catch a glimpse of Stephen's slender back and shock of blond hair as he stared down at his father's name.

A sheet of raindrops hit the roofs of the tombs, and a thick mist gradually filled the alley. When the first roll of thunder crackled, Meredith saw Stephen suddenly life his head. His blue eyes widened and he screamed.

He was lost to Meredith with a quick pump of his skinny, pale legs. Greg barreled through the mud in pursuit. Meredith pressed herself against on of the walls as she heard Stephen let out a defeated wail. Thunder and rain muffled the sound of what had to be two bodies slamming into the mud...

Meredith, Greg, and Brandon had pieced together the story of Stephen's father from snippets of overheard conversation and cryptic remarks from their own parents. The three of them sometimes talked about it when Stephen was out of earshot, but whenever he mentioned Jeremy Conlin, they all fell into an awkward, frightened silence...

"It's a poem...It's about being afraid," Stephen went on, his voice rising now over the cacophony of rain and wind. Meredith though Jeremy Conlin must have known a lot about not being afraid. It took a lot of guts to shoot yourself.

Stephen clasped Meredith's hand in his own thin fingers. 
~~~

One by one, the four children joined hands, Brandon stomping his foot in disgust before he did. and Stephen began:

Fear cannot touch me...

It can only taunt me, it cannot take me,

just tell me where to go...

I can either follow, or stay in my bed...

I can hold on to the things that I know...

The dead stay dead, they cannot walk.

The shadows are darkness...

"It's not that hard," Stephen finally said. "Say it with me this time."

Their voices followed Stephen's--Meredith's and then Greg's and finally Brandon...

She walked toward the cast-iron gate. The caretaker unlocked the gate and it opened on its hinges with a metallic shine, stirring the three boys from beneath the still-dripping oak. The felt foolish for having been afraid of the rain the in the first place...

She knew that Stephen would pay for his whispers, his ability to draw from the sacred strength of his dead father's poetry...

~~~

The panic she had felt only seconds earlier turned
from an icy gnaw inside her chest to a hot rush
like the onset of nausea. Her first thought was that
one of them had been hurt. But some instinct
wouldn't allow her to believe this, so she remained
unable to call out to them. She watched Greg
lower his face over Stephen and watched Stephen's
blue eyes widen as the tip of Greg's nose grazed his.
Greg and Stephen locked eyes with an intensity that
told Meredith they were part of a world she had been
denied access to. It had to be a world known only to
boys.
~~~

I've spent quite a bit of time on the Prologue which took place in 1992. It's only a few pages, but it holds the key to the entire story in my opinion.


Four neighborhood children, 3 boys and 1 girl,had grown up in the same area of Louisiana and become friends. At least they often played together, especially riding their bikes to the Lafayette cemetery during summer months...

When the children visited the cemetery on that particular day when it rained, if brought about, perhaps, the end of their childhood and the beginning of the future that was to come... Meredith had seen something that should have been a private time between two of the boys. Perhaps the other boy had seen also, because when Stephen seemed to take authority and control to get them out of the rain, it was not well received by the fourth friend...

Death, tragedy--whatever you wanted
to call it--gave human beings the
opportunity to absorb the world's true
nature. Many people ignored this
chance. Most people opted for denial
and despair. Stephen had chosen
neither, and in a subtle way he was
asking Meredith to do the same.
Meredith vowed to herself that she
would. They talked for hours, the only
voices among the city of the dead.
~~~

Meredith pivoted away from the arguing boys. She looked up at the bifurcated edges of the clouds as they passed over the skyline of stone Virgin Marys and angels. Were the clouds really as close to the earth as they seemed?

Stephen heard her first sob.

Furious, Brandon hurled his bike into a nearby mausoleum. He sank to his knees next to it and then glared at the other three as if to challenge them to contradict his anger. But Stephen had already had one arm around Meredith's shoulder. She went rigid beneath it, ashamed.

"Omigod, Mer!" Brandon sneered.

Lightning struck again, this time closer.

"Get away from the gate. It's metal!" Greg barked.

"Fuck! Brandon yelled before rising to his feet and charging the padlocked fence. He landed against it with both hands, grabbing the tines and shaking them.

"Come on." Stephen's voice was low with authority. Meredith raised her head. It took her a moment to realize he was walking her back into the cemetery to where the dripping branches of the oak tree over the fireman's tomb were rocking in the wind, driven by torrents of rain whipping through the alleyways.

"Where are you going?" Greg yelled.

"Come on..." Stephen called back over his shoulder.

Stephen propped Meredith against the oak's trunk. Greg approached them tentatively, shooting glances over his shoulder at Brandoon, who lagged farther behind, his fists shoved into his pockets. The rain had soaked through Brandon's T-shirt, revealing hints of muscles developing across his shoulders. Meredith saw how Greg's arms looked broader beneath the soaked sleeves of his polo shirt.

When Meredith looked at Stephen, she realized how pale his skin was, how deliately his limbs connected to his frame...

~~~

It was when they began Cannon School that the four realized it was going to be different... Greg and Brandon were going out for football and were clearly the pair to watch as new players... Stephen had always been close friends with Meredith, so he was waiting for her at her locker...

Meredith was already uptight because she had fought with her mother and wore a halter top the first day, only to soon realize she was totally wrong in wearing it... Then she saw Greg and Brandon. Meredith knew immediately that they had bonded tightly during the football training.

But the terrible thing that faced her was that she knew she would have to choose between her friends... She chose to walk on to Greg and Brandon and ignore Stephen... 

Something dark uncurled inside of him...

On the first day of being in a new school, Stephen found himself totally alone, without his friends... Worse, Greg and Brandon, within the football crowd, began to bully Stephen and refer to him as a fag. But what was worse, the one with whom he'd really been close had deserted him. Meredith had chosen to become part of the in-crowd!

It was in English class that his former friends declared the first battle of war--placing a paper with F A G on his book bag which he'd slung on after class and without his knowing it.

After he realized it, he'd ran and hid in the drama class storage room where the teacher found him and escorted him to the nurse's office.  But she'd made one mistake that day, when she'd thought that Jeff, another student who was just heading to class was participating in the ridicule of Stephen... But, in fact, his feelings were just the opposite...

That was the day that Stephen stole a picture from the hallway of a beautiful former student... He was going to take it home and began a dream fantasy with him... 

I admired him when he went into the drama group and began gaining real support from the instructor, being selected to sing the tenor part in The Mikado.

Fortunately, Stephen had a good relationship with his mother and she even took him on a trip to Rome after he'd been in the play... She also bought him a Jeep...

It was about that time also that Meredith started stealing and drinking heavily and started a journal of what terrible changes had been made and were happening. But she still didn't spend time with Stephen...

And the bullying became even worse when Stephen's new Jeep was totally trashed! Monica, his mother, did exactly what she should have done--I loved it!

In fact, even though the situation gets much worse as the novel continues, I did love the story. As we see the violence increasing within teenagers in the present, this book certainly spotlights the need for more and more action by parents, teachers and, of course, the authorities, to stop what is happening before it reaches the point that fictionally does happen in A Density of Souls... 

If you are a fan of Christopher Rice and missed reading his Debut, do take the time to get this one, with the additional material. The novel is suspenseful, but, more, it shares the results of children and young adults lives as they try to fit into the changing environmental, cultural and social issues we all face... At times, the emotions are raw and edgy, the reality hard to face... That's why it's such an important book, in my opinion...

Fear Cannot Touch Me...

It Cannot Take me...

You will know if this is a must-read for you. As a suspense novel, I highly recommend it for those who don't mind a dark plot to go with the suspense!

A Fantastic Debut! From a now New York Times Bestselling Author...

GABixlerReviews

 By the age of 30, Christopher Rice had published four New York Times bestselling thrillers, received a Lambda Literary Award and been declared one of People Magazine's Sexiest Men Alive. His first work of supernatural suspense, THE HEAVENS RISE, was a finalist for the Bram Stoker Award. His debut, A DENSITY OF SOULS, was published when the author was just 22 years old. A controversial and overnight bestseller, it was greeted with a landslide of media attention, much of it devoted to the fact that Christopher is the son of legendary vampire chronicler, Anne Rice. Bestselling thriller writer (and Jack Reacher creator) Lee Child hailed Christopher's novel LIGHT BEFORE DAY as a "book of the year". Together with his best friend, New York Times bestselling novelist Eric Shaw Quinn, Christopher launched his own Internet radio show. THE DINNER PARTY SHOW WITH CHRISTOPHER RICE & ERIC SHAW QUINN is always playing at TheDinnerPartyShow.com and every episode is available for free download from the site's show archive or on iTunes.

47 North, the science fiction, fantasy and horror imprint of Amazon Publishing, recently published Rice's supernatural thriller, THE VINES. Rice's first erotic romance, THE FLAME: A Desire Exchange Novella, was recently published as part of the 1,001 DARK NIGHTSseries. Thomas & Mercer, the crime fiction imprint of Amazon Publishing released new editions of his previous bestsellers A DENSITY OF SOULS, THE SNOW GARDEN and LIGHT BEFORE DAY on December 9th, 2014.