A collection of the most fascinating essays, articles, and interpretations of bestselling author Anne Rice's complete works, by a variety of journalists and scholars. It includes a history of vampire literature, a professional dominatrix's examination of Rice's erotica, and a behind-the-scenes look at the making of the film version of Interview with the Vampire. From the adventures of the Vampire Lestat to those of the Mayfair Witches, from the evocative historical epic Cry to Heaven to the uninhibited erotica of Exit to Eden and the Sleeping Beauty trilogy, The Anne Rice Reader presents a captivating range of perspectives on the imagination of a writer who has enthralled her generation.

The gilded adventures of Ramses the Damned, iconic creation of the legendary bestselling author, continue in this breathtakingly suspenseful tale of a titanic supernatural power unleashed on the eve of war. A pharaoh made immortal by a mysterious and powerful elixir, Ramses the Great became counselor and lover to some of Egypt's greatest and most powerful rulers before he was awakened from centuries of slumber to the mystifying and dazzling world of Edwardian England. Having vanquished foes both human and supernatural, he's found love with the beautiful heiress Julie Stratford, daughter of Lawrence Stratford, the slain archeologist who discovered his tomb. Now, with the outbreak of a world war looming, Ramses and those immortals brought forth from the mists of history by his resurrection will face their greatest test yet. Russian assassins bearing weapons of immense power have assembled under one command: all those who loved Lawrence Stratford must die. From the glowing jewels at their necks comes an incredible supernatural force: the power to bring statues to life. As Ramses and his allies, including the immortal queens Cleopatra and Bektaten, gather together to battle these threats, Ramses reveals that the great weapon may have roots in an ancient Egyptian ritual designed to render pharaohs humble before Osiris, the god of the underworld. The resulting journey will take them across storm-tossed seas and into the forests of northern Russia, where they will confront a terrifying collision of tortured political ambitions and religious fervor held in thrall to a Godlike power. But the true answers they seek will lie beyond the border between life and death, within realms that defy the imagination of even an immortal such as Ramses the Great. In Ramses the Damned: The Reign of Osiris, Anne Rice, revered and beloved storyteller ("queen of gothic lit, the maestro of the monstrous and the diva of the devious" --The Philadelphia Inquirer), in collaboration with her son, acclaimed bestselling novelist Christopher Rice ("a magician; a master" --Peter Straub), bring us another thrilling, seductive tale of high adventure, romance, history, and suspense. AN ANCHOR ORIGINAL

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • “Vintage Anne Rice—a lushly written, gothic … metaphysical tale. This time, with werewolves.” —The Wall Street Journal When Reuben Golding, a young reporter on assignment, arrives at a secluded mansion on a bluff high above the Pacific, it’s at the behest of the home’s enigmatic female owner. She quickly seduces him, but their idyllic night is shattered by violence when the man is inexplicably attacked—bitten—by a beast he cannot see in the rural darkness. It will set in motion a terrifying yet seductive transformation that will propel Reuben into a mysterious new world and raise profound questions. Why has he been given the wolf gift? What is its true nature—good or evil? And are there others out there like him?

An intimate memoir of Anne Rice’s Catholic girlhood, her unmaking as a devout believer, and her return to the Church – what she calls a decision of the heart. Moving from her New Orleans childhood in the 1940s and ‘50s, with all its religious devotions, through how she slowly lost her belief in God, Called Out of Darkness also recounts Anne’s years in radical Berkeley, where she wrote Interview with the Vampire (a lament for her lost faith) and where she came to admire the principles of secular humanists. She writes about loss and alienation (her mother’s drinking, the deaths of her young daughter and later, her husband); about the birth of her son, Christopher; and about how, after 38 years as an atheist, she once again came to believe in Christ. Anne Rice makes a spiritual confession that is a celebration: a brilliant, subtle exploration of the journey through life that allows one to answer the call out of darkness.

The spellbinding classic that started it all, from the #1 New York Times bestselling author—the inspiration for the hit television series “A magnificent, compulsively readable thriller . . . Rice begins where Bram Stoker and the Hollywood versions leave off and penetrates directly to the true fascination of the myth—the education of the vampire.”—Chicago Tribune Here are the confessions of a vampire. Hypnotic, shocking, and chillingly sensual, this is a novel of mesmerizing beauty and astonishing force—a story of danger and flight, of love and loss, of suspense and resolution, and of the extraordinary power of the senses. It is a novel only Anne Rice could write.

An unforgettable coming-of-age story, Until We're Fishblends the romance, violence, mood, and ethos of the Cuban Revolution with a young man's hopeless and heroic first love. With the truth of experience and the lyricism of poetry, Rodríguez Drissi constructs an exquisite, gossamer tale of revolution and hearts set adrift. A Don Quixote for our times, Until We're Fish is an intimate exploration into the souls of people willing to sacrifice everything to be free.