安妮•賴斯(Anne Rice，1941—)

吸血鬼之母，哥特文學女王，吸血鬼傢族在世間的代言人，她以一己之力復活瞭哥特文學類型，並將之推到瞭主流文學世界。同時，她也是美國基督教文學、恐怖與情欲小說的桂冠作傢。其作品全球總銷量超過1億冊，讓她成為美國曆史上最受歡迎的作傢之一。

賴斯的作品以其華麗、充滿感性的散文風格著稱，並加入瞭大量形而上的哲學思辨。小說的主題多為曆史背景下人的離群索居及對自我的追求，小說中的人物總是苦苦追求自我、追求美好，卻始終被社會排斥在外。《狼的恩賜》是繼《夜訪吸血鬼》後，安妮•賴斯對哥特文化的再一次大膽探索，是對狼人故事的重新定義，也是對生命本質與愛欲的探討。

想瞭解更多關於安妮•賴斯的信息，可關注她的官方網站：http://www.annerice.com/

A daring new departure from the inspired creator of The Vampire Chronicles (“unrelentingly erotic . . . unforgettable”— The Washington Post ), Lives of the Mayfair Witches (“Anne Rice will live on through the ages of literature”— San Francisco Chronicle ), and the angels of The Songs of the Seraphim (“remarkable”—Associated Press). A whole new world—modern, sleek, high-tech—and at its center, a story as old and compelling as history: the making of a werewolf, reimagined and reinvented as only Anne Rice, teller of mesmerizing tales, conjurer extraordinaire of other realms, could create.

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.

As he resists the paradoxical pleasure and enthrallment of his wolfen savagery and delights in the power and (surprising) capacity for good, he is caught up in a strange and dangerous rescue and is desperately hunted as “the Man Wolf” by authorities, the media, and scientists (evidence of DNA threatens to reveal his dual existence) . . . As a new and profound love enfolds him, questions emerge that propel him deeper into his mysterious new world: questions of why and how he has been given this gift; of its true nature and the curious but satisfying pull towards goodness; of the profound realization that there may be others like him who are watching—guardian creatures who have existed throughout time who possess ancient secrets and alchemical knowledge. And throughout it all, the search for salvation for a soul tormented by a new realm of temptations, and the fraught, exhilarating journey, still to come, of being and becoming, fully, both wolf and man.