Anne Rice

It is the beginning of December. Oak fires are burning in the stately flickering hearths of Nideck Point. It is Yuletide. For Reuben Golding, now infused with the wolf gift and under the loving tutelage of the Morphenkinder, this Christmas promises to be like no other . . . as he soon becomes aware that the Morphenkinder, steeped in their own rituals, are also celebrating the Midwinter Yuletide festival deep within Nideck forest. From out of the shadows...

Toby O'Dare, a contract killer of underground fame is on assignment to kill once again. Into O'Dare's nightmarish world of lone and lethal missions comes a mysterious stranger, a seraph, who offers him a chance to save rather than destroy lives. O'Dare, who long ago dreamt of being a priest but instead came to embody danger and violence, seizes his chance.

In fifteenth century Rome, Toby O'Dare, a recently retired government assassin, receives a visit from the angel Malchiah. The heavenly figure instructs O'Dare to solve a grisly murder. But during the investigation, O'Dare discovers that the city is being haunted by an ancient demon and that solving the murder may have disastrous consequences for all of Rome.

Anne Rice's second book in her hugely ambitious and courageous life of Christ begins during his last winter before his baptism in the Jordan and concludes with the miracle at Cana.--From publisher description.

"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...