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? “Vintage Anne Rice—a lushly written, gothic … metaphysical tale. This time, with werewolves.” — The Wall Street Journal “I want to howl at the moon over this. . . . Rice’s style [is] as solid and engaging as anything she has written since her early vampire chronicle fiction.” —Alan Cheuse, The Boston Globe “A fast-paced, heady romp that ranks with [Rice’s] best…. Feisty and terrific fun.” —Joy Tipping, Dallas Morning News “Intoxicating.” — USA Today “A delectable cocktail of old-fashioned lost-race adventure, shape-shifting and suspense, brightened by enticing hints of a secret history.” —Elizabeth Hand, The Washington Post “One part Beauty and the Beast love story, one part meditation on morality and immortality, and one part superman tale…. Rice deepens and gives nuance to classic werewolf lore.” — The Times-Picayune (New Orleans) “An entertaining tale of good vs. evil.” — St. Louis Post-Dispatch “Evolves from a fantastical romp into an engrossing thriller.” — San Francisco Chronicle “Rice’s classic concerns regarding good and evil and shifting views of reality play out wonderfully in what will surely please fans and newcomers alike.” — Publishers Weekly “The strange history of the Nideck family will jump off the page and enter the readers’ nightmares as Rice has found a new gothic saga to sink her teeth into.” — Bookreporter “The queen of gothic lit, the maestro of the monstrous and the diva of the devious . . . has returned to her roots.” — The Philadelphia Inquirer “The best Rice has written since … Interview with the Vampire . . . . Brilliant. . . .Wit-filled, languid and vibrant, brainy and snarling.” — The Globe and Mail (Toronto) “Highly entertaining.” — The Washington Times “Written with compelling modernity . . . The Wolf Gift is a strong—and welcome—return to the monster mythology that made Anne Rice famous.” — Shelf Awareness ANNE RICE is the author of thirty-seven books. She died in 2021. I Reuben was a tall man, well over six feet, with brown curly hair and deep-set blue eyes. “Sunshine Boy” was his nickname and he hated it; so he tended to repress what the world called an irresistible smile. But he was a little too happy right now to put on his studious expression, and try to look older than his twenty-three years. He was walking up a steep hill in the fierce ocean wind with an exotic and elegant older woman named Marchent Nideck and he really loved all she was saying about the big house on the cliff. She was lean with a narrow beautifully sculpted face, and that kind of yellow hair that never fades. She wore it straight back from her forehead in a soft wavy swinging bob that curled under just above her shoulders. He loved the picture she made in her long brown knit dress and high polished brown boots. He was doing a story for the San Francisco Observer on the giant house and her hopes of selling it now that the estate had at last been settled, and her great-uncle Felix Nideck had been declared officially dead. The man had been gone for twenty years, but his will had only just been opened, and the house had been left to Marchent, his niece. They’d been walking the forested slopes of the property since Reuben arrived, visiting a ramshackle old guesthouse and the ruin of a barn. They’d followed old roads and old paths lost in the brush, and now and then come out on a rocky ledge above the cold iron-colored Pacific, only to duck back quickly into the sheltered and damp world of gnarled oak and bracken. Reuben wasn’t dressed for this, really. He’d driven north in his usual “uniform” of worsted-wool blue blazer over a thin cashmere sweater, and gray slacks. But at least he had a scarf for his neck that he’d pulled from the glove compartment. And he really didn’t mind the biting cold. The huge old house was wintry with deep slate roofs and diamond-pane windows. It was built of rough-faced stone, and had countless chimneys rising from its steep gables, and a sprawling conservatory on the west side, all white iron and glass. Reuben loved it. He’d loved it in the photographs online but nothing had prepared him for its solemn grandeur. He’d grown up in an old house on San Francisco’s