An All Time Favorite Author - Christopher Rice

Christopher Rice is one of my favorite author.  I am still surprised when I tell people about him and they look at me like, "Who?!?".  He is the son of Vampire author  Anne Rice.  He has only written a handful of novels, but I am never disappointed.

One day while walking around my local Barnes and Noble (local then was Deptford, NJ) I was in search of a novel to ravish, devour, consume and fall in love with.  As I was searching through the stacks of books I come across a few by one author that jumps out, almost calling me in with its dark snowy cover.  I reached down for it - reading the inside of the jacket and as soon as I read the first couple of lines, I was hooked.  His writing drew me in, I quickly formed attachments to his characters and read the whole book in one sitting.

And after reading that book - THE SNOW GARDEN - I thought, maybe this is a fluke - can someone really write this well - draw me in - keep my attention... No I don't think so.  So I went back, and picked up the other book there and decided I was going to read the whole thing that night!  So I did. And I was hooked.

I keep going back - reading quickly through each book but careful to really pay attention to the character dynamics, intently picking up their interactions, the locations the stories took place and most of all losing myself in the pages.  He is one of my favorite writers and I am grateful to have found a great read in which to lose myself.

Here are the descriptions of the books he has publishes so far:


17. A DESTINY OF SOULS 

Amazon.com Review

Take the sensuous, fecund New Orleans setting, add a generous helping of tangled Southern family history, and season liberally with a sensitive teenage boy rejected by his friends and frightened of his own homoerotic impulses and you wouldn't be surprised to discover that the novel containing all of the above was written by someone named Rice. But a few paragraphs into the first page, it's clear that Anne Rice's son's first novel isn't about vampires or witches and does not otherwise read like one of her exceedingly popular books. The only family resemblance is in the setting, the sexual orientation of the lovingly described male characters, and the scent of overripe magnolias.There's murder, suicide, and madness at the heart of this rather clumsy coming-of-age story, which focuses on the youthful friendship of Stephen Conlin, Meredith Ducote, Greg Darby, and Brandon Charbonnet. This friendship is destroyed by a sexual incident that takes place just before the foursome enters Cannon, an exclusive prep school. There, Stephen is ostracized by his former friends, now the most popular kids on campus, who'd just as soon forget their own complicity in the event. Envy, passion, and rage drive the narrative, but the emotions are as juvenile as the characters, and the long passages depicting the rituals and cruelties of high school, from pep rallies to football games, slow down the pace without really illuminating character or motivation. The novel reads like a roman à clef. Rice might have been wiser to tell someone else's story rather than his own. --Jane Adams --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.


18. THE SNOW GARDEN

Synopsis

Atherton University, freshman year.
Kathryn, Randall, and Jesse come from different worlds, but find themselves drawn together in unexpected ways. For each of them, college promises a bright future and a way to disconnect from a dark, haunted past. But as winter sets in, their secret histories threaten to disrupt the layers of deceit that protect their fragile new lives.

One dark night a professor's wife is found drowned in an icy river, and rumors of murder threaten the safe haven of Atherton. Within days, Randall's illicit affair with the professor is about to be revealed in the local press. Then, an old mystery emerges from the shadows - the discovery of a co-ed's corpse in a frozen creek twenty years before makes these accidents of the past and the present look a little too closely connected. Gradually, the three friends find themselves snared in a web of lies, a web spun long before their days at Atherton. Snowbound on the university campus, they are unwitting captives of a malevolent force that drives them inexorably toward the "snow garden" of the title - a place of nightmares that is all too real, and all too near.

(From www.bn.com)

19. LIGHT BEFORE DAY

Synopsis

In West Hollywood, journalist Adam Murphy is abruptly fired while chasing a career-making story. A Marine pilot is killed when his helicopter spirals into the Pacific Ocean — and Adam suspects the death was not accidental. Battling his own demons in a city of temptations, Adam pursues the truth alongside his new boss, a famous curmudgeonly mystery writer, and discovers more than he planned about his recently estranged lover, a string of murders of other young men — and a conspiracy so extraordinary that it threatens his sanity and his life. With a talent for creating suspense-tinged fiction that is "chillingly perverse" (USA Today) and "vivid and intense" (The Boston Globe), Christopher Rice delivers a dark thriller of revenge and sexual obsession.

(from www.bn.com)

20. BLIND FALL

Amazon.com Review

From three-time New York Times bestselling author Christopher Rice--whose novels have been called "bold and ambitious" by The New York Times, "chillingly perverse" by USA Today, and "shocking, sexy...intricate" by Glamour--comes this startling psychological thriller about an Iraq War vet who seeks redemption and revenge when a fellow Marine he failed to protect during the war is brutally murdered.John Houck became a Marine to become a hero. But his life changed when he failed to notice an explosive device that ended up maiming the captain of his Force Recon Company, a respected Marine who nearly sacrificed himself to save John's life.
Home from Iraq, John pays a visit to his former captain, only to discover the captain has been gruesomely murdered. John pursues a strange man he sees running from the scene, but he discovers that Alex Martin is not the murderer. Alex is, in fact, the former captain's secret male lover and the killer's intended next victim.
When it becomes clear that local law enforcement has direct connections to the murder itself, John realizes that to repay his debt of honor, he must teach Alex Martin how to protect himself, even if that means teaching Alex to kill. In the process, John confronts the painful truth about the younger brother he was unable to protect and the older sister he always felt he failed.
Blind Fall is a story of honor and integrity, of turning failure into victory. It is a stunning departure for Christopher Rice: the story of two men, one a Marine, one gay, who must unite to avenge the death of the man they both loved--one as a brother-in-arms, one as a lover--and to survive.

 21.Moon Lit Earth

From Publishers Weekly

At the start of this compelling cat-and-mouse thriller from bestseller Rice (Blind Fall), 30-year-old Megan Reynolds has returned to her mother's house in posh Cathedral Beach near San Diego after being fired as head of a Northern California nonprofit organization for homeless kids that she tried to save using unorthodox methods. Megan soon faces a far greater challenge. Her beloved gay brother, Cameron, a handsome flight attendant for Peninsula Airlines, disappears with Majed, a suspicious Middle Easterner, in the wake of a terrorist bombing in Hong Kong that killed 60 people. When the FBI investigators point to Cameron as a suspect in the attack, Megan embarks on a dangerous mission to find her brother and help clear his name. Megan's journey will test her endurance and her faith in family in unexpected ways. Rice sensitively charts the relationship of two close-knit siblings. (Apr.)
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