Cover Text:

"On a rainswept night alive with lightning and thunder, a doctor staggers, drunken, through the streets, and slips a wedding ring on the finger of a bewitching statue...
On the morning after his wedding, Dr. Michael Crawford awakens to a bed soaked by carnage... and the impossibly savaged body of his bride. Already marked with guilt for the accidental deaths of his previous wife and his younger brother, Crawford flees England to escape the hangman's noose. His only hope lies with England's greatest, and most notorious, poets - Lord Byron, Percy Shelley and John Keats - who bring Crawford to a terrible understanding of the strange force that damns him as surely as it protects him from harm.
For Crawford has another, secret bride, one who rules the hours of his sleep; it is she whom Keats called la belle dame sans merce, the poet's muse. She is as beautiful as she is evil, an eons-old power that has sparked a hundred myths, and now threatens to ravage the lives of each of her lovers..."

Published by:

Ace Books, 1989
HarperCollins, London, 1991

Opinion:

I find this to be Powers' most ambitious work. If not the most intricately plotted (that honor must go to The Anubis Gates), let's call it the most carefully blended mix of history and mythology and one of the most deeply researched. I can't disagree with anyone who calls this a "horror story" - it is that and much more. The demons that haunt these characters are certainly horrific and merciless in their actions, but Powers gives them a rich history and even allows us to understand their motivations much more deeply than a simple "malicious evil" would suggest.

The creatures in question have been described as lamia, succubi, the poet's muse, and even vampires - only after finishing the book and reading about it elsewhere did I fully realize all the myths and legends they are intended to represent. Especially striking is the scene in which the three mythological Fates with only a single eye among them appear and toss their "focus" to one another in order to observe the protagonist.

Michael Crawford, possibly more than any other Powers protagonist, is drawn helplessly along through a series of bizarre and supernatural misfortunes. He is mentally and physically battered by ancient forces as well as being hounded by contemporary characters. He also fits right in with Byron, Shelley, and Keats as the morbid group gathers on the Italian coast in the summer of 1815.

Bottom line: One of my personal top four. It's deep, it's dark, and it's heavily layered with history and horror. Wait until you're in the mood for this sort of thing to read it, and you'll find it to be worth the effort.

- ccb 3/16/99

Awards

Locus Poll Award (Fantasy - #2) 1990
Mythopoeic Award 1990
World Fantasy Award 1990

Reviews

• A page of reviews by Allan Toombs
• Reviewed by Howard Mittlemark in Washington Post Book World
• Reviewed by Sue Martin in The Los Angeles Times Book Review
• Amazon.com reader reviews