The Secret Books of Paradys 3 4 Author:Tanith Lee This is two books in one: The Book of the Dead & The Book of the Mad — The Book of the Dead — The ambiance of fin de siecle France imbues these eight Gothic tales in the third volume in Lee's Secret Books of Paradys tetralogy, tracing the tortured lives once led by those buried in the crypts and cemeteries of the mythical (or forgotten) city of ... more »Paradys. "The Weasel Bride" twists a folktale about a man who marries an enchanted weasel and dies of her bite into an account of a young husband who kills his beloved bride on their wedding night and takes her dreadful secret to the gallows. The artist in "The Glass Dagger," who normally saves her emotion for her art, is consumed by jealous rage and turns to supernatural revenge when a jaded aristocrat tries an old stratagem to win her love. In "The Moon Is a Mask" a drudge who creates a world of beauty in her garret room steals to buy a mask that turns her into a vampire owl.
The Book of the Mad
Set in the ancient, decadent city of Paradys. This time, three interconnected narratives present three alternate versions of the city. In modernistic Paradis, the eccentric, misanthropic painter Leocadia is trapped in an insane asylum by relatives scheming to grab her wealth. In Victorian-style Paradys, a tragic obsession shatters the sheltered life of young, bourgeois Hilde. In nightmarish Paradise, bloodthirsty twins Felion and Smara believe themselves to be the only sane people in a city of lunatics.« less