Lasher [Paperback]

"SEDUCTIVE MAGIC...SPELLBINDING...Rice stages her scenes in a wide variety of times and locales, tapping deeply into the richest veins of mythology and history."
--San Francisco Chronicle
"STEAMY...FAST-PACED AND HUGELY ENGROSSING...Rice's title character--a seductive, evil, highly sexual and ultimately tragic creature--is fascinating."
--The Miami Herald
"BEHIND ALL THE VELVET DRAPES AND GOSSAMER WINDING SHEETS, THIS IS AN OLD-FASHIONED FAMILY SAGA....Rice's descriptive writing is so opulent it almost begs to be read by candlelight."
--The Washington Post Book World
"RICE SEES THINGS ON A GRAND SCALE...There is a wide-screen historical sweep to the tale as it moves from one generation of witches to the other."
--The Boston Globe
"EROTIC...EERIE...HORRIFYING...A tight tale of the occult in present-day New Orleans...Anne Rice is a spellbinding novelist.... LASHER quenches."
--Denver Post
A MAIN SELECTION OF THE LITERARY GUILD(c)Anne Riceis the author of thirty-two books. She lives in Palm Desert, California.One
 
In the beginning was the voice of Father.
 
“Emaleth!” whispering close to her mother’s belly while her mother slept. And then singing to her, the long songs of the past. Songs of the Glen of Donnelaith and of the castle, and of where they would sometime come together, and how she would be born knowing all that Father knew. It is our way, he said to her in the fast language, which others could not understand.
 
To others it sounded like humming, or whistling. It was their secret tongue, for they could hear syllables which ran too fast for the others to grasp. They could sing out to each other. Emaleth could almost do it, almost speak—
 
“Emaleth, my darling, Emaleth, my daughter, Emaleth, my mate.” Father was waiting for her. She had to grow fast and grow strong for Father. When the time came, l“M