Shadows [Hardcover]

Jonathan Nasaw (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 1, 1997

Sounding the forbidden depths of human obsession, Shadows evokes a world that exists at the margins of society. Moving from the peaceful hills of Northern California to the shadowy recesses of a London mansion, this spellbinding erotic thriller is a lush tale of sensual abandon and deadly deceit unfolding in a world of very contemporary witches and vampires.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

The events in this novel take place after those in Nasaw's The World on Blood (Dutton, 1996). Although the same irreverent tone is evident in both, this new work is grittier and darker and lacks the rollicking humor found in its predecessor. The focus here is on psychopathic hit man Aldo's attempt to destroy Jamey Whistler along with everything and everyone who ever meant anything to him. Jamey and Aldo are both vampires, which here means human beings capable of getting high on human blood. When drinking blood, these vampires are also slower to age, are immune to disease, and experience the greatest sex imaginable. Aldo, a former member of the Romanian secret police, almost succeeds in his task, but Jamey finds a savior in Selene, his lover and a High Priestess of Wicca. Nasaw tells a mesmerizing tale with credible, three-dimensional characters. For public libraries where Anne Rice is popular.?Patricia Altner, Information Seekers, Bowie, Md.
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Kirkus Reviews

Nasaw, who invented the San Francisco's Vampires Anonymous group for The World on Blood (1996), brings Jamey Whistler, his most presentable and epicurean vampire, back from that novel, this time plunging him into greater peril. The reformed Jamey, who has retired to the Caribbean and no longer kills for blood (preferring to drain bags purloined from a blood bank), has been targeted for murder by Aldo Striescu. Aldo, raised in one of Ceauescu's infamous Romanian orphanages, once mistook a picture of Maria Callas for his mother and is now fixated on Callas recordings. In the orphanage, he discovered both that he had a rare talent for homicide and that he could achieve orgasm by suffocating his fellow orphans or by starting fires. Later, he labored happily for the Third Branch of Romania's Secret Police. But since Ceauescu's fall, Aldo has gone freelance, working out of London. Now he's hired by Jamey's fabulously wealthy father, himself a vampire, to kill Jamey. This all has to do with a rather complicated will the old lecher's made out. Jamey's continued existence, it quickly becomes clear, depends on help from Selene, high priestess in a witches' coven in California's Mill Valley. Twenty years earlier, Selene and Jamey were, briefly, lovers, and now Selene has a precognitive dream foreseeing his danger. She flies down to Santa Luz to save him, only to discover that Jamey's Caribbean home has been torched by Aldo. Meanwhile, Selene, who has been losing her faith in witchery, falls in with a true herbalist crone on the island and learns much from her, including the use of a rare poison to fight Aldo. Eventually, Aldo kidnaps Jamey's daughter Martha and, thinking his son dead, is tricked by Selene into believing he can get control of the Whistler fortune. Not as original as The World on Blood, but swift-moving, with fitfully interesting characters. -- Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 384 pages
• Publisher: Dutton Adult (October 1, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0525940650
• ISBN-13: 978-0525940654
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,500,062 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Two human vampires -- in a chase to the death!, April 12, 1998

By 

Catherine B. Krusberg ([e-mail]) (Athens, Georgia, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Shadows (Hardcover)

A crisis of faith becomes a minor worry for wiccan high priestess Selene Weiss when she finds herself tracking -- and avoiding -- a killer. Aldo Striescu, pyromaniac, asphyxomaniac, and hired gun is working for a filthy rich client who wants Striescu to utterly destroy all traces of wealthy, worldly, charming James Whistler (no, not THAT one) -- including Whistler's friends, like Selene.

Besides being predator and prey, Striescu and Whistler share an unusual connection. They are both vampires: not the walking dead, but humans who acquire enhanced senses, speed, and strength by drinking blood. Whistler prefers consenting sources; Striescu usually kills hitchhikers for his "drug." Seeking Striescu and protecting herself, Selene travels to the Virgin Islands, England, and coast to coast in the U.S.A., in the process calling on help from old friends and all the witchly resources she can summon.

Although it is a sequel to THE WORLD ON BLOOD, SHADOWS stands well as an independent work, thick with double-crossing, kidnapping, arson, poison, and -- like THE WORLD ON BLOOD -- sex. An awful lot of sex. Unfortunately, wiccan practice is portrayed with stress on sexual activity and anti-Christian touches that reflect medieval anti-witch propaganda more than modern wiccan practice. SHADOWS is also marred by a protracted, almost dragging denouement that goes on for some fifty pages past what FEELS like the ending. The book's true end nonetheless has a satisfying rightness. Although lacking the freshness of THE WORLD ON BLOOD, SHADOWS is a gripping read, full of engaging characters and fast-paced adventure.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Kept me awake, June 28, 2000

By 

"justagrrl53" - See all my reviews

This review is from: Shadows (Paperback)

An amazing, kind of sequel to The World On Blood. I didn't really think of it as a sequel though. But I still found it thrillingly sexy, seductive and captivaing. It kept me awake until 5am because I couldn't dare tear my eyes away from the horrifingly spledid story! Completely wonderful, I loved it almost as much as I loved The World On Blood.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Did any of you actually read the first book?, October 29, 2005

By 

A. Clay "angelove" (Savannah, Ga) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Shadows (Paperback)

It amazes me to see so many highly rated reviews on here. I read this book and the world on blood and found many editorial mistakes. It was like reading a book that wasn't related at all to the first. There were flashbacks that mentioned things that never occured in the first book as well as mentioning that Selene didn't know Whistler's wife. I was really dissapointed in this book. An I also agree with the previous posting about his use of the Dianic name in his Witchcraft. As a practicing witch, I was rather offended by Nasaw's lack of research into the religion and the way he portrayed the rituals. I had high hopes after the world on blood but this book was just a let down.