First in a series, this is a collection of three novellas, set in a mythical city called Paradys or Paradis, depending on the period in which they are set. The connection in each is a jewel of a particular colour - ruby, opal, sapphire - and a constant change of gender identity of various characters.

I found the first story pretty impenetrable. Andre, a poet, becomes fixated with an aloof woman called Antonina to the point of self sacrifice and yet only earns her hatred it seems. And then events continue when he and she swap gender roles. I won't say more to avoid spoilers but I didn't find the rambling ending at all convincing. This story appears to be set in a pseudo 18th or early 19th century.

The second story, which is set in the Middle Ages at a time of crusades and plague, has more plot and coherence. A young woman is raped by her step-father and runs away to the city to find her half-brother, only to be rejected by him and disbelieved. She finds refuge in a nunnery, thanks to the intercession of a mysterious dwarf man, and embarks on a career of cross dressing and taking on a man's role to wreck vengeance, not just on her brother, but on all and sundry, becoming what she sees as the quintessentially male character. But following a mysterious experience and an outbreak of plague, there is a further transformation. The end, in which we find out what the subject of her self-sacrifice goes on to do, seems to render it pointless and is a rather unsatisfactory tacked on coda.

The third story is much shorter than the other two and is set either in the late 19th or early 20th century in which phones and cars feature. A woman who earns her living by writing articles under a male pseudonym is approached by a man who says he has only a week to live. She becomes intrigued by his fate and investigates, finding a disturbing tale of reincarnated Egyptian priestesses, bloody murder and female impersonation. The ending is a bit anticlimatic but at least the plot can be followed.

Having read a lot of Lee's work over the years, her usual themes are here and yet are perhaps too graphically developed, with rape of various characters and other violent scenes. The purple prose becomes rather too much so on occasion and scenes are written for imagery and effect rather than for any narrative point. The characters are also thinly sketched and there is no real emotional involvement for the reader. Given that there is some plot in the last two stories, it has just about managed a 2-star rating for me. ( )

The first of Tanith Lee's "The Secret Books of Paradys" features three tales set in a shadow version of Paris across a span of several centuries; while no dates are referenced, the settings appear (by the furniture and references) to be post-revolution, early Renaissance and late 19th century respectively.


The prose is dense and rich (short of purple, but it did take me a few pages to adjust from the sparer writing I've grown used to), and the style in each section subtly different reflecting its era. As usual, Tanith Lee is firmly Gothic - both in the tradition of Radcliffe, Lewis, Poe and Chambers - as well as the fact is feels as though it should be accompanied music from the Sisters of Mercy and All About Eve.


The first-person narrators and supporting cast are those on the fringes of society - Stained in Crimson is told by a louche left-bank poet who stumbles into a game with a mysterious brother and sister, which may have been fated; in Malice in Saffron a country girl running from abuse by her step-father joins both a nunnery and street-gang, her double life allowing her to exact vengeance on those who have harmed her and wider society; and in Empires of Azure a journalist is pulled into the web of connections between a female impersonator and ancient magic.


This gender fluidity is, in fact, central to each of the tales, manifesting as either literal transformation or subterfuge. Likewise, the gender power relationships often flip unexpectedly - literary tropes of direct action by men and manipulation by women are introduced and reversed. Rape makes an uncomfortably frequent appearance, although it is not confined to female characters.


It must be said that few of the characters beyond the central ones are drawn as more than sketches, but this suits the mythic quality of the stories and is not really a weakness. The first two parts, Crimson and Saffron, are truly excellent, affecting tales, although Azure felt to me somehow unfinished; the writing felt rather less polished and the construction lacking, while the ending somewhat pointless, otherwise The Book of the Damned may well have been a five star book. ( )

Re-reading...

The Books of Paradys are a set of four collections of novellas all set in a dark and hallucinatory version of a former Paris. In part they're an homage to various 19th-century authors, especially the French symbolists, but they showcase Tanith Lee's unique and strikingly original vision to perfection. Some of the best writing, by one of my favorite authors. They can be read in any order, but The Book of the Damned was first published... and as the title suggests, it gives us a collection of characters who will find no redemption.

Stained with Crimson
A dissipated young man develops an obsession with a cold and enigmatic woman - a newcomer to Paradys, a foreigner who has quickly become known for running a salon. But his interest is unrequited, and it seems that there may be something unsavory and ominous about her household. After a death, and a fateful duel, there is an inexplicable/supernatural, but neatly balanced, reversal of the situation.
Lush yet subtle, the gender-twisting vampire tale brings to mind both Oscar Wilde and Bram Stoker.

Malice in Saffron
This is the 'pilgrim's progress' of Jehanine, a young farm girl. Assaulted by her stepfather, she flees to the city to find her beloved brother - who repudiates her as a harlot. From there, her journey will take her through the extremes of sin and saintliness, theft and sacrifice. She will act as male and female, depraved murderer and holy nun, until she and her brother come full circle and around again. If you try to extract a moral message from the tale, you are likely to be stymied - and that's exactly the point.

Empires of Azure
A multilayered ghost story, with similar themes echoing through different lives.
A journalist who writes under a male pseudonym is approached by a man who makes his living as a cross-dressing performer. He tells her that soon he will die. Investigating, she finds him missing, and discovers that he was living in a notorious house of scandal, scene of the death of a wild young woman. Both of them were obsessed with an ancient Egyptian princess, whose Cleopatra-like life story ended in tragedy... but the story stretches back even further, to an ancient sorcerer (or sorceress?) whose influence has stretched through the ages.
I read in this one a mirrored acknowledgement of how we might romanticize the Paris of the past (as Lee blatantly does in the books of Paradys) just as her 19th-century-esque characters (and those they're based on) romanticize ancient Egypt...

I've read this volume before, but many thanks to Open Road Media and NetGalley for providing an eBook copy. As always, my opinions are solely my own. ( )

http://speculiction.blogspot.com/2016/04/review-of-book-of-damned-by-tanith-lee.... ( )

This book is actually three novellas: that of a poet who may or may not tangle him or herself up with vampire(s), that of an abused peasant girl who runs away to Paradys and becomes nun by day, bullyboy by night, and a writer who investigates the strange deaths of two beauties in a single house. In all three tales, gender is fluid, sexualities are twisted, and inexplicable shadows loom.

I would rate the stories higher, but I found the writing almost impenetrable. I still don't know what the first tale was about, or how it was resolved. Here's a taste of Lee's style:
"And rising and sinking in the billows of shadow, the light was cleaved to crimson, crimson through and through, a dye never to be washed out, through the wounds of a redeemer might wash away all sins and stains. Crimson, crimson, the caves, the river, flowers and fruit and crystal and blood. Crimson the benediction; the waves, crimson, that never ended and were never begun, and were never begun or ended."
Very poetic but not particularly helpful in terms of exposition. ( )