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Tanith Lee
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The Book of the Dead (The Secret Books of Paradys) Kindle Edition

by Tanith Lee (Author) Format: Kindle Edition
3.9 3.9 out of 5 stars 19 ratings
A macabre dark fantasy of enchantment, misfortune, corruption, and death

The unnerving third volume of the Secret Books of Paradys begins with a fable of two doomed weddings. In “The Weasel Bride,” a white weasel transforms into a fair maiden under the light of a full moon. A local trapper releases the animal from its curse by marrying it, but on their wedding day, the weasel inflicts the groom with a fatal wound. This tale flows into the story of a bride who is brutally strangled in the nuptial bed after giving her husband a small nibble on the hand. Decades later, his motive comes to light when the woman’s unearthed tomb reveals a ghastly truth.
 
In the second narrative, “The Nightmare’s Tale,” Jean de St. Jean is an orphan of the Revolution who grows up with a deep yearning for revenge. Determined to kill the man responsible for his parents’ death, he sets off for the colonial island of Black Haissa. But he arrives on distant shores only to find that his adversary is already dead and that the isle is a country of wild nightmares, supernatural possession, and petrifying beasts. And in “Beautiful Lady,” small, shabby Julie d’Is lives in a tiny apartment near Temple Church that no one ever visits. Some refer to Julie as Bella Donna, but she has other nicknames—for wherever she goes, the Grim Reaper follows close behind.
 
Five additional fantasies entrance the reader with the gothic and tortured plights of the citizens of Paradys—a mythic city where vampire owls, occult conjurors, and femmes fatales abound.
 
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  1. Book 3 of 4
    The Secret Books of Paradys
  2. Print length
    301 pages
  3. Language
    English
  4. Publisher
    Open Road Media Sci-Fi & Fantasy
  5. Publication date
    February 2, 2016
  6. File size
    3.4 MB
  7. Page Flip
    Enabled
  8. Word Wise
    Enabled
  9. Enhanced typesetting
    Enabled
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Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The ambience of fin de siecle France imbues these eight gothic tales in the third volume in Lee's Secret Books of Paradys tetralogy, tracing the tortured lives once led by those buried in the crypts and cemeteries of the mythical (or forgotten) city of Paradys. "The Weasel Bride" twists a folktale about a man who marries an enchanted weasel and dies of her bite into an account of a young husband who kills his beloved bride on their wedding night and takes her dreadful secret to the gallows. The artist in "The Glass Dagger," who normally saves her emotion for her art, is consumed by jealous rage and turns to supernatural revenge when a jaded aristocrat tries an old stratagem to win her love. In "The Moon Is a Mask" a drudge who creates a world of beauty in her garret room steals to buy a mask that turns her into a vampire owl. The miasma of corruption and death, combined with vivid and at times elegiac writing will engross readers who fancy this dark shade of fantasy writing.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Kirkus Reviews

Third of Lee's hitherto impressive Secret Books of Paradys: eight odd tales set in a forgotten French city where magic works and horrid things lurk in dark corners. Here, alas, the atmospheric backdrop of dread and sexual tension has gone missing, leaving only a few ghoulish scraps. Even more sadly, the stories vary widely in quality--indeed some are structurally perfunctory, held together only by Lee's still rich, evocative, limpid prose. The absence of a unifying theme doesn't help. Thus: a vagina with teeth; voodoo; a Typhoid Mary variant; a curse exposed as mere superstition; a supernatural conjuror; and, in a somewhat more satisfying vein, an intriguing Lost World variant, a vengeful woman artist, and a vampire-harpy betrayed by her lover. Slight and disappointingly mediocre fare after splendid work (The Book of the Beast, 1991) last time out. -- Copyright ©1992, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Product details

  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ B019ESGNIG
  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Open Road Media Sci-Fi & Fantasy (February 2, 2016)
  • Publication date ‏ : ‎ February 2, 2016
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • File size ‏ : ‎ 3.4 MB
  • Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
  • Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
  • Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Print length ‏ : ‎ 301 pages
  • Customer Reviews:
    3.9 3.9 out of 5 stars 19 ratings

About the author

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Tanith Lee

Tanith Lee

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Tanith Lee (19 September 1947 – 24 May 2015) was a British writer of science fiction, horror, and fantasy. She was the author of over 90 novels and 300 short stories, a children's picture book (Animal Castle), and many poems. She also wrote two episodes of the BBC science fiction series Blake's 7. She was the first woman to win the British Fantasy Award best novel award (also known as the August Derleth Award), for her book Death's Master (1980).

Bio from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Photo by Danie Ware (Flickr) [CC BY 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons.

Customer reviews

3.9 out of 5 stars
19 global ratings

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Top reviews from the United States

  • DSMom
    5.0 out of 5 stars book of the dead
    Reviewed in the United States on June 25, 2016
    Verified Purchase
    Great read! Tanith Lee @ her best. Must read for the rest of the series.
    One person found this helpful
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  • FoxFyre
    4.0 out of 5 stars I love Tanith Lee and was expecting to have my socks ...
    Reviewed in the United States on September 13, 2016
    Verified Purchase
    I love Tanith Lee and was expecting to have my socks knocked off again, but it was not to be. As usual, her writing is excellent and creative, but it lacked the old oomph that I remember. Perhaps because it is short stories rather than a novel. However, I still highly recommend it. After all, the author is Tanith Lee.
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  • Kindle Customer
    3.0 out of 5 stars Not Free SF Reader
    Reviewed in the United States on September 3, 2007
    The Book of the Dead is basically a horror short story collection. There is nothing particularly memorable about any of them, although the story about the girl getting the ability to go owl-woman isn't bad. Vampire owls though? That is a little on the whacky side.

    For those that are pretty keen, only, although it is not bad.
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  • lily_dragon_2007
    5.0 out of 5 stars Just a great book overall
    Reviewed in the United States on April 24, 2011
    i got this book actually about 8 or so years ago and have enjoyed reading it over and over again.. i love this book. a great edition to anyones collection
    One person found this helpful
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  • Dai-keag-ity
    5.0 out of 5 stars Truth Is NOT Stranger Than Fiction
    Reviewed in the United States on August 18, 2005
    Imagine Anne Rice in her prime writing the best dark fantasy ever done, and you might get some idea of what Tanith Lee accomplished in these two books that take place in her mythical French city of Paradys. Short stories and two novellas set over the course of many centuries in the same darkly dangerous and strange French city, Paradys, take one along on a ride that begins where the Twilight Zone ends and proceeds straight out the other side of disbelief and non-reality.
    3 people found this helpful
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  • Herman Padilla
    2.0 out of 5 stars I really like this author
    Reviewed in the United States on March 19, 2018
    Disappointing: I really like this author, and I picked this book based on the title and my enjoyment of other books I've read of hers. Unfortunately this is not one of the good ones, the writing is as usual rather interesting, creative, a sort of romantic picture writing but the plots ranged from uninteresting and shallow, to mildly entertaining but ponderous they all take place in an imagined city like Paris a generic romantic old European city set somewhere between the 1880's and the 1920's that is the only common thread between the collection of not so short stories which sometimes ends and begin in abrupt fashion. Overall this is a book that I could have easily gone without reading and when I was reading it I more than a few times thought I should file it on the can not finish shelf but I just was stubborn and didn't want to give up on it so I stuck it out but it never got better.
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