The Vines

by Christopher Rice

Overview

The dark history of Spring House, a beautifully restored plantation mansion on the outskirts of New Orleans, has long been forgotten. But something sinister lurks beneath the soil of the old estate.

After heiress and current owner Caitlin Chaisson is witness to her husband’s stunning betrayal at her birthday party, she tries to take her own life in the mansion’s cherished gazebo. Instead, the blood she spills awakens dark forces in the ground below. Chaos ensues and by morning her husband has vanished without a trace and his mistress has gone mad.

Nova, daughter to Spring House’s groundskeeper, has always suspected that something malevolent haunts the old place, and in the aftermath of the birthday party she enlists Caitlin’s estranged best friend, Blake, to help her get to the bottom of it. The pair soon realizes that the vengeance enacted by this sinister and otherworldly force comes at a terrible price.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781477826638
Publisher:	Amazon Publishing
Publication date:	10/21/2014
Pages:	216
Sales rank:	735,221
Product dimensions:	5.40(w) x 8.20(h) x 0.70(d)

About the Author

Christopher Rice published his bestselling debut novel, A Density of Souls, when he was twenty-two. By thirty, Rice had published four New York Times bestsellers, received a Lambda Literary Award, and been declared one of People magazine’s “Sexiest Men Alive.” His noir thriller Light Before Day was hailed as a “book of the year” by mega-bestselling author Lee Child. His most recent book, The Heavens Rise, was nominated for a Bram Stoker Award.

The son of legendary author Anne Rice, he has published short fiction in the anthologies Thriller and Los Angeles Noir. His writing has been featured in the Advocate, the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Review of Books, and on Salon.com. With his friend and cohost Eric Shaw Quinn, Rice recently launched his own internet radio broadcast, The Dinner Party Show (TheDinnerPartyShow.com). He also recently served on the board of directors of the West Hollywood Library Fund, which helped to secure funds for a new state-of-the-art library in the heart of the city he now calls home.

Editorial Reviews

07/27/2015
Revisiting the rich, supernaturally mysterious Louisiana of 2013's The Heavens Rise, Rice stumbles with this resoundingly inferior effort. Leadenly steadfast Blake Henderson is still grieving the loss of his lover, John, killed years earlier by gay-bashers. Then Blake's best friend, Caitlin Chaisson—the spoiled, unpardonably dull heir to Spring House, an antebellum mansion with a troubled history—attempts to kill herself when she learns that her husband, Troy, is unfaithful. Awkwardly purple prose dampens the suspense as Caitlin unleashes a supernatural force in the form of bloodsucking vines that consume Troy; soon it's revealed that she has control over carnivorous flowers and organized insects as well as a psychic link to Virginie, an enslaved woman who had attempted to control these forces over 150 years before. Absurd similes and overwrought dialog dissolve the tension as Blake's anger over new revelations about John's death becomes a fresh source of dark power, causing plants to behave homicidally and bugs to form battering rams. A police investigation subplot peters out, and the action clatters clumsily to a bewildering conclusion, with the denouement arriving so lazily as to suggest that even the author ran out of interest. Agent: Lynn Nesbit, Janklow & Nesbit. (Oct.)

Publishers Weekly

11/15/2014
Wealthy New Orleans heiress Caitlin Chaisson had no idea her husband was cheating until she caught him in the act during her lavish birthday party. Betrayed and despondent, Caitlin flees the house for the gazebo that sits on the estate's lush grounds and tries to slit her wrists. However, instead of her death, she unleashes a dark power tied to the bloody past of the former slave plantation. VERDICT As gothic as one could expect from the author (The Heavens Rise) and son of Anne Rice, this tale of evil vegetation that feeds on the blood of those seeking revenge for past wrongs is gruesome (and somewhat overwrought). While the racial tensions underlying the story could have been more nuanced, there are dark thrills for horror fans.

Library Journal

His best book yet.” —Geeks OUT

“Does not disappoint and grabs you from the opening chapter straight to the end with plot twists that are dark and thrilling…The transitions between modern-day and French colonial slavery are exquisite and leave the reader intrigued throughout the narrative. Rice also creates a beautiful mythology infused with a thriller that gives you many shocks and oh-my-God moments in every chapter.” —Buzzfeed

“As gothic as one could expect from the author (The Heavens Rise) and son of Anne Rice, this tale of evil vegetation that feeds on the blood of those seeking revenge for past wrongs is gruesome…There are dark thrills for horror fans.” —Library Journal

From the Publisher