Tanith Lee - Recommendations from Hell

Reigning Cats

Nightshades

and Dogs


The Book of the Dammed
	The Book of the Damned, traces the lives, loves, fortunes and fates of three citizens of Paradys, a thriving city which has survived through centuries of bizarre events. Each of these three citizens have their own sub-novel within the book. Lee is at her Gothic, haunting best, creating an atmosphere charged with horror, eroticism, and decadence. In this first volume of The Secret Books of Paradys, Lee begins the search for a demonic creature seemingly impervious to sword, conjuring, or prayer.

The Book of the Beast
	The second Book of Paradys. Like the first Book, it is told in several parts, which can stand alone as separate stories: they all tell the tale of an ancient amulet which curses the bearer to possession by a terrible bird-beast. From the ancient days of Roman Par Dis, to a young and innocent bride brought into the curse of an ancient and dying House, to a student who discovers horrors undreamed of. The stories are filled with the classic elements of gothic horror, and the modern gothic sensibilities of androgynous beauty, mystic occultism, and artistic decadence.

The Book of the Dead
	The third book in Lee's acclaimed Paradys series, The Book of the Dead is set in a thrillingly dark and decadent alternate world. The dark atmosphere is charged with hedonism, sexuality and death in eight interlocking short stories.

The Book of the Mad
	A seductive nightmare unfolds in three parallel versions of the city - Paradis, Paradys and Paradise. Connected by a labyrinth of ice whose dangers are amplified by the will and emotion of its lunatic travelers, whose cities provide the stage for a drama of mythical proportions, setting up a dazzling finish to 'The Secret Books of Paradys'.

The Unicorn Series

Black Unicorn

Tanaquil, the only daughter of a powerful sorceress, seems to have no magical talent of her own. Then she discovers the bones of a Unicorn buried in the vast desert surrounding her Mother's palace. After she puts together the bones, the Unicorn comes majestically back to life, Tanaquil is driven to follow the Unicorn into the desert and on to a fabulous adventure that will reveal the secrets of Tananquil's past - and the promise of her future.

Gold Unicorn

The sequel to Black Unicorn continues the story of young Tanaquil who, accompanied by an enchanted talking animal known as a eeve,finds her half sister, Lizra, and learns of her plans to conquer the world.

Red Unicorn

Third in the Unicorn series, Tanaquil is in the wrong place at the wrong time and recovers consciousness in an alternate world ruled by Sulkan Liliam (her sister Lizra's double), whose murder is being plotted by Princess Tanakil (Tanaquil's double).

The Blood Opera Sequence

Dark Dance
	The woman in the fog... Rachaela Day leads a grey, uneventful life in the London suburbs. She works in a bookshop for a pittance which barely pays the bills. But all that begins to change from the day she receives a mysterious letter from the Scarabae family. All she knows about them is that Adamus Scarabae deserted her mother before Rachaela’s birth. Recalling her mother’s warnings, she wants nothing to do with them, and finds their persistence ever more intrusive. What do they want? But on losing both her ill-paid job and her flat Rachaela finally agrees to their offer and goes to live with them in The House - a mysterious cliff-top mansion miles from anywhere.
The apparently ageless Scarabae are both intriguing and insidiously frightening. Gathered from all over the world, they spend their leisurely days hiding behind sinister stained-glass windows that transform the sun into rich pools of colour. Through this rambling mansion stalks an enormous cat, and everywhere Rachaela senses silently closing doors and watching eyes. Then, on a night of storm, there appears the tall, dark man of Rachaela’s smothered dreams and nightmares. He is young - the first young man she has seen in The House — although he claims to be older. What is he to her? A bond to chain her to the Scarabae, or the ultimate demon she must escape? Can Rachaela - and the daughter she will come to bear - ever contrive to fight against the overwhelming influence of The House?

Personal Darkness
	The House is destroyed, the Scarabae dead or scattered. And the youngest and most dangerous of them, voracious for destruction, is free. As Ruth, a mind as old as evil in the body of a teenage girl, unleashes blood and fire across southern England, the other survivors regroup their formidable resources.. Scarabae wealth and power can replicate The House and even withstand the sun, while help is summoned from others of their kind. But when Malach and Althene arrive, ageless and exotic, nothing transpires as Rachaela had supposed. For she and Ruth, the demon bred on her by Adamus - father and lover , now dead - are also Scarabae, and Scarabae cleave to their own.
Rachaela, irresistibly drawn to Althene’s mysterious web, must accept that her daughter belongs to dark, tormented Malach, and find new reasons for hope
Yet it is Camillo - malign, geriatric biker with the strength and soul of a child - and the women unwittingly entangled in his mischief, who will finally dispose Ruth’s fate, and play the wild card in the Scarabae’s endless game
Subtly blending the human menaces of London’s contemporary underworld with a dark vampiric seduction, Personal Darkness enmeshes the reader further in the insidious enchantment of the Scarabae.

Darkness, I
	Lapped in the luxury of Scarabae wealth, lulled by her relationship with Althene. Rachaela has given birth to her second child. A girl. A beautiful white-haired grey eyed girl. But something is wrong, for children do not mature as fast as this one. Her name is Anna, but other than that, little is known. Before Rachacla can decide who she is. or Malach - in self-imposed exile -can make up his mind, Anna is violently abducted: another victim in the global phenomenon of stolen children.
Cain - monster. blood-lusting genius and outcast of the Scarabae - has Anna now, and has every intention of keeping her. And there she will remain. unless Malach can reclaim her

Delusion's Master
	There were then five Lords of Darkness. Uhiume, Lord Death, was one, whose citadel stood at the Earth’s core, but who came and went in the world at random. Another was Wickedness, in the person of the Prince of Demons, Azhrarn the Beautiful, whose city of Druhim Vanashta lay also underground, and who came and went in the world only by night, since demonkind abjured the sun (wisely for it could burn them to smoke or cinders). The earth was flat, and marvelous, and had room then for such beings.
But it is not remembered where a certain third Lord of Darkness made his abode, nor perhaps had he much space for private life, for he must be always everywhere.
His name was Chuz, Prince Chuz. And who was Chuz? His other name was Madness.

Delirium's Mistress
	He had braved the Hounds of Night, Lord Azhrarn’s deadly hunters that harried unfortunate souls to horrifying dooms. He had found the isle of mist where the Lord of Night’s daughter languished, bespelled. Now, awaking her to the knowledge of her power, he cast himself upon her mercy. For only the Daughter of Night could summon the demon steed to carry both the lady and her rescuer to freedom and safety in the world of men. Yet quickly and secretly as they fled, the hunters still pursued them. Time was running out for the Daughter of Night and her Master of Delusion. Before them stood the gates dividing Underearth from the lands of men - gates that opened for none but Azhrarn, Lord of Night. Behind them raced the vengeful demon hordes. Now was the time for Azhrarn’s daughter to prove the strength of her power - or face a truly demonic doom!

Eva Fairdeath

In a future world polluted to the point of dissolution, the trees are dead, the sky is yellow, and no birds sing. Everyone and everything is tinged with madness. Foe Eva Belmort there seems to be no role except to become some man's plaything and drudge.

Then, one day, arrives the stranger with the gun - with blue eyes and hair as white as her own. Roaming the tortured landscape in his wagon, Steel is a seller of death... but for Eva he provides hope of escape from Foulmarsh.

Urged on by a power of love abd hate impossible to fathom, Eva's travels now take her to distant towns and villages full of danger and suprises - and arouse in her strong passiions she cannot harness

When the	Heart	The Gods
Lights Go Out	Beast	are Thirsty

Peculiar and shocking.	Wanted for murder, Daniel	A novel following the life
What really happens in seaside	Vehmund travels the world,	of Camille Desmoulins,
towns out of season,	lured by a brilliant diamond and damned	voice of the French Revolution,
when the lights go out.	by a curse that transforms him into a beast.	as Paris adjusts to a new era.

A Heroine of The World

Aradia is a young girl in a besieged war torn city.
When her parents are killed,she is taken under the protection of an enemy officer
in a retreat to his own country. When her protector
dies she gains power over her own life.

East of Midnight
	Dekteon is a slave on the run, exhauster, beaten, pursued by his master's dogs. When the eerie horse and cart appear through the trees, and it's hooded driver offers him shelter, he has no choice but to accept. But as the cart rolls slowly through the mist Dekteon becomes uneasy. Who would want to befriend a desperate fugitive? Surely only someone whose own future is even more dreadful than his own.