The Heavens Rise - Hardcover

Rice, Christopher

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1476716080 ISBN 13: 9781476716084

Publisher: Gallery Books, 2013

Synopsis

New York Times bestselling author Christopher Rice brilliantly conjures the shadowed terrors of the Louisiana bayou—where three friends confront a deadly, ancient evil rising to the surface—in this intense and atmospheric new supernatural thriller.

It’s been a decade since the Delongpre family vanished near Bayou Rabineaux, and still no one can explain the events of that dark and sweltering night. No one except Niquette Delongpre, the survivor who ran away from the mangled stretch of guardrail on Highway 22 where the impossible occurred…and kept on running. Who left behind her best friends, Ben and Anthem, to save them from her newfound capacity for destruction…and who alone knows the source of her very bizarre—and very deadly—abilities: an isolated strip of swampland called Elysium.

An accomplished surgeon, Niquette’s father dreamed of transforming the dense acreage surrounded by murky waters into a palatial compound befitting the name his beloved wife gave to it, Elysium: “the final resting place for the heroic and virtuous.” Then, ten years ago, construction workers dug into a long-hidden well, one that snaked down into the deep, black waters of the Louisiana swamp and stirred something that had been there for centuries—a microscopic parasite that perverts the mind and corrupts the body.

Niquette is living proof that things done can’t be undone. Nothing will put her family back together again. And nothing can save her. But as Niquette, Ben, and Anthem uncover the truth of a devastating parasite that has the potential to alter the future of humankind, Niquette grasps the most chilling truths of all: someone else has been infected too. And unlike her, this man is not content to live in the shadows. He is intent to use his newfound powers for one reason only: revenge.

About this title

About the Author

New York Times bestselling author Christopher Rice is the son of author Anne Rice and the late poet Stan Rice. He lives in Los Angeles.

Reviews

Starred Review. Although Rice (A Density of Souls) refers to his story as a €œchronicle of monsters and magic,€� it would be more accurate to describe it as a masterful coming-of-age novel. Set in a present-day New Orleans beset by natural disaster and human corruption, the story focuses on four young people: Niquette Delongpre, a child of privilege; her longtime best friend from childhood, Ben; her lover, Anthem; and Marshall, the outsider who plays the serpent in the others' adolescent Eden. Shortly after Niquette and Marshall are attacked by mysterious pool-dwelling organisms, Niquette and her family drive off the road. Marshall jumps through a 31st-story window, landing in a comatose state from which he can psychically cause acts of carnage. Chapters from different perspectives slowly reconstruct the tapestry of connections among Niquette, Anthem, and Ben, and poignantly captures the boys' inarticulate pain over Niquette's loss and their personal struggles. Rice's characters are complex and real, his dialogue pitch-perfect, and his writing intelligent and strong. He builds suspense beautifully as Marshall's malevolence reaches a crescendo of violence amid enduring philosophical questions about what it means to be human. (Oct.)

Creepy, chilling, and almost impossible to put down all describe the new novel by New York Times best-selling author Rice. In the swampy areas of New Orleans, Niquette Delongpre’s family discovers an old well on their property, whose contents have dark supernatural properties. During a clandestine meeting, Niquette and her high-school classmate, Marshall Ferriot, are immersed in the well water; within days, Niquette and her entire family are presumed dead and Marshall is in a vegetative state after throwing himself out a window in front of a hundred onlookers during a black-tie fundraising event. Years later, as Marshall sits in a coma in the hospital, things begin to die around him. Nurses first notice the dead birds and squirrels lined up outside his room; then a nurse, alone in his room, silently fillets herself with a surgical blade. This is only the start of what Marshall has planned. This is a horror novel, but in the telling of this page-turner, Rice also manages to deftly address issues of race and class in the Big Easy. --Alison Downs

Edition details

• Publisher: Gallery Books
• Publication date: 2013
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1476716080
• ISBN 13: 9781476716084
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 336