Anne Rice wrote about Christmas with the werewolf

Author photo by Michael Lionstar

“It’s the first Christmas at Nideck Point for Reuben and his family and friends.”

In The Wolves of Midwinter, it’s winter at Nideck Point and for Reuben Golding, now infused with the Wolf Gift, this promises to be a season like no other.

Bestselling author Anne Rice (1941-2021) was known for her vampire series that started with Interview With the Vampire and for writing the Ramses the Damned mummy trilogy. She also wrote werewolf series The Wolf Gift Chronicles—and, as part of the wolf series, she wrote the Christmas novel The Wolves of Midwinter.

Oak fires burn in the stately flickering hearths, and the community organizes its annual celebration of music and pageantry. Reuben is preparing to honor an ancient Midwinter festival with his fellow Morphenkinder—a secret gathering that takes place deep within the verdant recesses of the surrounding forests.

However, Reuben is soon distracted by a ghost. Tormented, imploring, and unable to speak, it haunts the halls of the great mansion, drawing him toward a strange netherworld of new spirits, or “ageless ones.” And as the swirl of Nideck’s preparations reaches a fever pitch, they reveal their own dark magical powers.

“It was meant to be a Christmas book,” Rice told Smashing Interviews Magazine. “That’s really what it was all about. I was inspired by seeing … I was a Downton Abbey fan. They did Christmas at Downton Abbey, and I thought, 'I want to do that! I want to do Christmas with the werewolf.' And really, that’s what inspired it. So it’s not really a great advancement forward in a series so much as it’s the first Christmas at Nideck Point for Reuben and his family and friends.”

The Wolves of Midwinter
(The Wolf Gift Chronicles #2)
By Anne Rice
Categories: Gothic fiction, horror fiction, werewolf fiction

Vintage Anne Rice. . . . This time, with werewolves.” —The Wall Street Journal

“A lot of fun…. Rice creates yet another world . . . along the lines of her greatest achievements.”—NPR

“[Rice’s] books are scary and mysterious and mystical, filled with thrills and danger, frightening fun, and ardent passion.”—R. L. Stine

Buy The Wolves of Midwinter from Amazon (Amazon affiliate link)

Check out The Wolves of Midwinter Reader’s Guide (from Penguin Random House)

Anne Rice published more than thirty books, including the Vampire Chronicles, the Lives of the Mayfair Witches, and the Wolf Gift book series. Rice was born in New Orleans in 1941 and grew up there and in Texas. She lived in San Francisco with her husband, the poet and painter, Stan Rice until 1988, when they returned to New Orleans to live with their son, Christopher. In 2006, Rice moved to Rancho Mirage, California. She died in 2021.

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