Regeane is a fatherless royal relation who happens to be a werewolf. Her guardian, Gundabald, and his venal son Hugo plan to recoup their fortunes by marrying Regeane to a wealthy bridegroom, even though she might inadvertently make him into a bedtime snack. Gundabald forces her into apparent compliance by threatening to reveal her secret to the Church, which would burn her at the stake. As the bridegroom, Maeniel, journeys to Rome to claim her, Regeane discovers allies in her quest to defeat Gundabald's machinations, including some very strong, funny, and levelheaded women. Unfortunately for Regeane, she also has more powerful enemies than Gundabald.

Alice Borchardt brings 8th-century Rome vividly to life. Her language is earthy and sensuously descriptive: "The wolf visited Regeane's eyes and ears. The girl staggered slightly with the shock. The light in the square became intense. Smells an overwhelming experience: wet stone, damp air, musty clothing, perspirations shading from ancient sticky filth to fresh acrid adrenal alarm."

Borchardt is Anne Rice's sister, but she writes a very different sort of tale. Ghosts, the dead, and supernatural forces are here, but so is laugh-out-loud humor and a happy ending. --Nona Vero


From Publishers Weekly
Borchardt spices her usual recipe for breathy historical romance (Devoted, etc.) with a generous pinch of the supernatural. Regeane is a secretive shapeshifter living in Rome at the end of the Empire's decline. Distantly related to Charlemagne, she becomes a pawn between the French and Italy's scrappy Lombards when she is betrothed to Maeniel, guardian of a passage through the Alps who is sympathetic to the French king. Intrigues and counterplots abound as Maeniel speeds his way to retrieve his reluctant bride and Regeane lends her supernatural powers to curing the leprous Antonius, whom the Lombards hope to use to discredit his father, Pope Hadrian, and turn the Roman citizens against Charlemagne's advancing Catholic army. In Regeane, whose woman and wolf selves often spar contentiously with one another, Borchardt finds the perfect metaphor for the once opulent Roman civilization, now hostage to its bestial appetites. She elaborates the decadent excesses of the time with gleefully vivid descriptions of gluttonous banquets, grotesque leper colonies and violent lusts sated both on the battlefield and in the bridal bed. Readers who like their fantasy dusted with gritty realism and who can forgive anachronistic modern dialogue in a period melodrama will find themselves indulged with more than a few twists to this werewolf tale. (July) FYI: The galley to Silver Wolf carries a note to "Dear Reader" from Borchardt's sister, Anne Rice, stating that "it is with immense joy that I introduce to you a daring and vibrant new voice on the female literary frontier"?although the novel is Borchardt's third.Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From Library Journal
As Charlemagne consolidates his empire through a combination of wars and strategic marriages, a young girl who possesses the power to transform herself into a silver wolf becomes a reluctant pawn in a game of politics and survival. Against the decadent and barbaric backdrop of Rome in the Dark Ages, the author of Beguiled (Dutton, 1997) spins a love-story tinged with the supernatural. Borchardt's sensual prose and period detail provide a lush setting for her tale of a woman struggling to reconcile her human and wolf natures. Fans of Anne Rice (the author's sister) and Tanith Lee should enjoy this historic fantasy. For most libraries. Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From Kirkus Reviews
The third and best yet by Anne Rice's older sister, following the two-volume, ninth-century saga of Devoted (1995) and Beguiled (1997). This time, however, Borchardt enters bona fide Rice territory, centering her tale on the rise of a werewolf clan during the last gasp of the Roman empire and the rise of Charlemagne. (Recall that sister Anne's current bestseller, Pandora, is a vampire historical also set in Rome.) Borchardt's version of the immortal city includes sewage systems, glass factories, thieves' markets, and much more. Adding an extra fillip to her tale, Borchardt's teenage female werewolf, Regeane, has an animal nature perpetually simmering at the surface of her character (like many an adolescent) while she goes about her daily life in human form. Young Regeane is the daughter of a warrior werewolf who was killed by a crossbolt when he was a man. Adopted by her uncle Gundabald, the girl is kept in a tower under strict lock and key, since each and every night she is transformed into a silver wolf. Gundabald wants to marry her off to royalty, for Regeane can claim royal blood on her mother Gisela's side. But, actually, Gundabald and his sister Gisela had themselves murdered Regeane's father. Regeane does, at the command of Charlemagne, become engaged to wealthy barbarian lord Maeniel, but before she marries she escapes from the clutches of her uncle. A series of adventures leads her through episodes involving lepers, a young slave girl, the Pope Hadrian, and the courtesan Lucilla. Lucilla, who has eyes for the virgin, also has some secrets of her own: She, too, is a werewolf--and the mother of Maeniel. Borchardt reaches descriptive and dramatic peaks with Regeane's vulpine supersenses as she noses about Rome by night, reading the dead citys skin and air. Top-flight fantasy. -- Copyright ©1998, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.


Review
"A daring and vibrant new voice on the female literary frontier . . . The Silver Wolf is a stunning initiation into a dark and dazzling realm."
--Anne Rice

"A fascinating tale--brutal, ribald, engrossing, poignantly beautiful."
--Johanna Lindsay, New York Times bestselling author

"Mesmerizing . . . Astounding . . . A lush, richly crafted tale . . .With intricate detailing and hypnotic prose, Alice Borchardt unleashes a new world to readers."
--Romantic Times


Review
"A daring and vibrant new voice on the female literary frontier . . . The Silver Wolf is a stunning initiation into a dark and dazzling realm."
--Anne Rice

"A fascinating tale--brutal, ribald, engrossing, poignantly beautiful."
--Johanna Lindsay, New York Times bestselling author

"Mesmerizing . . . Astounding . . . A lush, richly crafted tale . . .With intricate detailing and hypnotic prose, Alice Borchardt unleashes a new world to readers."
--Romantic Times


Book Description
Into decadent Rome of the Dark Ages comes Regeane, an enigmatic young woman distantly related to Charlemagne. But the blood she has inherited from her murdered father makes her much more than a child of royalty. Regeane is a shapeshifter--woman and wolf, hunter and hunted--possessed of preternatural agility and strength, primal memories extending back thousands of years, and senses so keen they can pierce the veil of death itself.Betrothed to a barbarian lord she has never seen, Regeane is surrounded by enemies. But outside the gates of Rome, baying at the moon, there is a mysterious dark wolf whose scent awakens the animal in Regeane. Now, as deadly plots tighten like a noose around her neck, Regeane must fight to live with dignity as the proud creature she is: civilized and savage, partaking of both, yet infinitely more than either . . .



From the Publisher
I first met Alice at a restaurant in Houston. She was accompanied by her husband, a tall distinguished looking man with silver hair and a goatee. At first she was nervous, a little shy but quickly she warmed and began telling tales from her childhood in New Orleans including several interesting anecdotes about her famous sister, Anne Rice.

I had read the manuscript for The Silver Wolf and been captivated by the story and the extraordinary characters but particularly by the vivid sensory descriptions. Alice lets you see with a wolf's eyes, smell with a wolf's nose. And she transports you back to a fascinating historical setting from the time of Rome's decline. The manuscript quickly made the rounds among the staff at Del Rey, the hallmark of an exceptional book. The word most frequently used to describe it was "lush."

Talking with Alice, you quickly realize that she is a natural teller of tales and it's no surprise that she wrote the delightfully rich story of The Silver Wolf. It's a luscious treat!
                                                --Tim Kochuba, General Manager

"A fascinating tale -- brutal, ribald, engrossing, poignantly beautiful."

                        --Johanna Lindsay (the HUGE NYT bestselling author)


From the Inside Flap
Into decadent Rome of the Dark Ages comes Regeane, an enigmatic young woman distantly related to Charlemagne. But the blood she has inherited from her murdered father makes her much more than a child of royalty. Regeane is a shapeshifter--woman and wolf, hunter and hunted--possessed of preternatural agility and strength, primal memories extending back thousands of years, and senses so keen they can pierce the veil of death itself.

Betrothed to a barbarian lord she has never seen, Regeane is surrounded by enemies. But outside the gates of Rome, baying at the moon, there is a mysterious dark wolf whose scent awakens the animal in Regeane. Now, as deadly plots tighten like a noose around her neck, Regeane must fight to live with dignity as the proud creature she is: civilized and savage, partaking of both, yet infinitely more than either . . .


From the Back Cover
"A daring and vibrant new voice on the female literary frontier . . . The Silver Wolf is a stunning initiation into a dark and dazzling realm."
--Anne Rice"A fascinating tale--brutal, ribald, engrossing, poignantly beautiful."
--Johanna Lindsay, New York Times bestselling author"Mesmerizing . . . Astounding . . . A lush, richly crafted tale . . .With intricate detailing and hypnotic prose, Alice Borchardt unleashes a new world to readers."
--Romantic Times


About the Author
Alice Borchardt shared a childhood of storytelling with her sister, Anne Rice, in New Orleans. A professional nurse, she has also nurtured a profound interest in little-known periods of history. She is the author of Devoted and Beguiled. She lives in Houston.


Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
The sun was going down.  The fiery circle shone past the acanthus-crowned columns of a ruined temple.  They cut the incandescent ball into slices of red radiance.  Almost night, the girl thought.  She shivered in the chill autumn air gusting through the unglazed casement window.

It was barred--heavily barred.  One set of bars ran horizontally, the other vertically.  They were bolted into the stone walls of the tiny room.

She knew she should close the window.  She should reach out through the bars, pull the heavy shutters shut, and seal them with the iron bolt.  But she pushed the idea out of her mind with a sort of blind obstinacy.  The sight of freedom, even an unattainable freedom, was too sweet to give up.

Not yet, she told herself, only a little longer.  Not yet.

The air that raised goosflesh on her arms was sweet to her nostrils.  Oh no, more than sweet.  Each vagrant increase in flow, each slight change in direction, each passing movement sent images to the deepest part of her mind.

She could sense the fragrance of thyme.  The delicate scent was mixed with the heavy smell of wet marble and granite.  These scents and others stood out against the tapestry of odors given off by the flowers and greenery that cloaked the ruined palaces and temples of the ancient emporium.  

The vast restless spirit of this place, the greatest of all empires, seemed at last brought to rest at the soft hand of the great green mother herself.

Regeane hadn't known what to expect of the once-proud mistress of the world when she'd come to Rome.  She didn't expect what she found.

The inhabitants, descendants of a race of conquerors, lived like rats squabbling and polluting the ruins of an abandoned palace.  Oblivious to the evidence of grandeur all around them, they fought viciously among themselves for what resources remained.  Indeed, little was left of the once-vast river of gold that flowed into the eternal city.  The gold that trickled in these days gilded the altars of the churches and the palms of papal officials.

Regeane's mother, desperate to save her daughter's soul, pawned what few jewels she had left.  The money paid the bribes necessary to obtain a papal audience and finance the equally expensive papal blessing.

Regeane had gone into the awesome presence, her body drenched in a sweat of terror.  If her ailing mother said the wrong words to the church's leading prelate, she might find herself being burned or stoned as a witch.  But, as she approached the supreme pontiff, she realized just how foolish her fears had been.

The man before her was a ruin.  Ready to be taken by age and sorrow.  She doubted if he understood much of anything said to him.  Weeping, her mother implored the intercession of God's chief minister on earth with the Almighty.  As the ever-dutiful Regeane knelt, she kissed the silken slipper and felt the withered hands pressed against her hair.  

In addition to the thick smell of incense and Greek perfume that pervaded the room, she detected the musty, dry smell of aging flesh and human decay.

God, it was powerful.  He is ready to die, she thought.  He will go to speak on Mother's behalf to God in person very soon. However, she knew this blessing, as all other blessings her mother, Gisela, had traveled so far and squandered so much of her wealth to gain, would do no good.

This was the end.  Regeane knew it.  She was frightened.  If the pope himself could not lift this strange curse from her and let her live as a woman, to which earthly power could she turn?  More to the point, to which power could her mother turn?

Gisela was fading as quickly as the only-too-human man on Saint Peter's throne.  Though a comparatively young woman, Gisela was worn down by the fruitless journeys she had taken with Regeane and by a secret sorrow that seemed to fill her mind and heart with a bottomless wellspring of grief.  

Regeane lied.  Her mother believed.  And for the first time in many years, Regeane felt the tiny woman who had traveled so far and borne so many burdens was at peace.  Regeane's lie carried Gisela through till the end.

Three days after the papal audience she had gone to awaken her mother and found Gisela would never wake again--not in this world.

Regeane was alone, staring through the bars.

She watched with greedy eyes as the sun became a half circle that faded into a glow silhouetting the tall cypresses of the Appian Way.  The deep blue autumn twilight emerged.  Then, and only then, did she turn from the window and wrap herself in an old woolen mantle and return to her pallet bed.  With the exception of the low bed and a small, covered, brown terra-cotta pot in the corner, the room was bare.  

Regeane sat on the bed, her shoulders against the stone wall, her legs dangling, head thrown back, eyes closed.  She waited silently for moonrise.  The silver disc would be lifting itself above the seven hills now.  Soon, very soon, its journey across the sky would bring it to her window where it would throw a pool of silver light on the floor.  Ignoring the cross-hatched black lines of bars, she could drink at that pool, allowed once more to breathe in the air of freedom.

The door to the outer room slammed shut.  Damnation. The girl on the bed scoured her mind for oaths.  No...curses.  As a young girl, she was never allowed to speak them, but she could think the words.  And she often did.  Oh, how she did when those two were present. There were worse things than loneliness.  Overall, Regeane felt she preferred silence and emptiness to the presence of either her Uncle Gundabald or Hugo, his son.

"I pissed blood again this morning," Hugo whined.  "Are all the whores in this city diseased?"

Gundabald laughed uproariously.  "All the ones you find seem to be.  It's as I told you.  Pay a litte extra.  Get yourself something young and clean.  At least young--so all the itching and burning a few days later are worth it.  That last you bought was so old, she had to ply her trade by starlight.  What you save on whores goes out in medicines for crotch rot."

"True enough," Hugo said irritably.  "You always seem to do better."

Gundabald sighed.  "I'm sick of instrucing you.  Next time, retain a bit of sobriety and get a look at her in a good light."

"Christ, it's cold in here," Hugo said angrily.  A moment later Regeane heard him shouting down the stairs for the landlord to bring a braizer to warm the room.

"It's no use, my boy," Gundabald told him.  "She's left the window open again."

"How can you stand it?"  Hugo grumbled.  "She makes my skin crawl."

Gundabald laughed again.  "There's nothing to worry about.  Those planks are an inch thick.  She can't get out."

"Has she ever..." Hugo asked fearfully.

"Oh, once or twice, I believe, when she was much younger.  Then I took matters in hand.  Gisela was too soft.  That sister of mine was a fine woman--she always did as she was told--but she was weak, my boy, weak. Consider the way she wept over that first husband of hers when the marriage was so abruptly...terminated."

"She divorced him?"  Hugo asked.

"Ah, yes," Gundabald sounded uneasy.  "To be sure, we told her to divorce him.  She had no choice in the matter.  Even then, everyone could see Charles' mother was becoming a power at court.  There were many well-endowed suitors for Gisela's hand.  The second marriage was much better--it made us all wealthy."

"Now all that's gone," Hugo said bitterly.  "Between you and Gisela, if our coffers have a miserable copper in them we're lucky.  You always wanted to rub shoulders with the great magnates of the Frankish realm.  In order to do that, your shoulders had to be covered with velvet and brocade.  And, oh yes, the magnates wanted to feast.  Worse than a horde of vultures, they swarmed over your household devouring everything in sight.  And like vultures after the carcass was picked clean, they departed in a cloud of stink and were never seen again.

"Whatever they missed, Gisela laid hands on, squandering it on relics, shrines, blessings, and pilgrimages, trying to lift the curse from that wretched brat of hers.  You told me to get myself something younger.  I've a good mind to pay that cousin of mine a visit...by day of course and--" Hugo screamed.  "Father, you're hurting me."

Gundabald's reply was a snarl of fury.  "You so much as touch that girl and I'll save us both a lot of trouble and expense.  I'll slice off your prick and balls.  You'll be the smoothest eunuch between here and Constantinople.  I swear it.  She's the one and only asset we have left and she--must --marry.  Hear me!"

Hugo howled again.  "Yes, yes, yes.  You're breaking my arm.  Oh, God. Stop!"

Hugo's howling ceased.  When he did speak, he sniveled sarcastically. "Who would marry that...girl?"

Gundabald laughed.  "I can name a dozen right now, who would kill to marry her.  The most royal blood of Franca flows through her veins.  Both her father and mother were cousins of the great king himself."

"And those same ones who'd kill to marry her will run a sword through both you and the girl the moment they find out what she is."

"I don't understand how you are the fruit of my loins,"  Gundabald snarled.  "But then your mother was a brainless little twit.  Perhaps you take after her."

Despite the sadistic nastiness of Gundabald's voice, Hugo didn't rise to the bait.  Most of the people around Gundabald quickly learned to fear him.  Hugo was no exception.

Gundabald continued, "You liked the way we lived well enough when we were in funds.  Vultures, eh!  That's the pot calling the kettle black.  You fucked all night, fed all day, and drank the clock 'round with the best of them.  Shut up!  Leave things you don't understand to your elders and betters.  And send for some food and wine--a lot of wine.  I want my supper, and I want to forget what's in the next room."

"It was a mistake to bring her here," Hugo said.  His voice was high and nervous.  "She's worse than ever."

"Christ Jesus!  God!"  Gundabald roared.  "Even a dumb animal has the sense to do what it's told.  Dolt with the brains of a cobblestone!  Shut up and at least get the wine.  My God!  I'm dying of thirst."

Marry, she thought listlessly.  How could she marry?  She didn't believe even a snake like Gundabald would connive at something so dangerous, or succeed if he tried.  Her mother still had a little land left in Franca, a few run-down villas.  They generated only enough money to feed and clothe the three of them.  But nothing she was heir to would be enough to attract the attention of any of the great magnates of the Frankish realm.

    As for her relationship to Charles--a rather distant connection to his mother--a king beginning already to be called the great.  The dear lady, Bertrada, had never even for one moment acknowledged Regeane's existence.  In fact, one of the things that endeared Bertrada to King Peppin the Short was that she was followed by a whole tribe of relations. They approached the court ready to swing their swords for church and king.  However, their odd wagon load of loot managed not to fall into the king's treasury.

Regeane was not distinguished--she had nothing to offer.  She was a woman--poor and not beautiful.  She didn't think there would be many seeking her hand in marriage.  Yet if Gundabald could find some poor mope to swindle, she had no doubt he would auction her off without the slightest compunction and then leave her to her fate.  Regeane just didn't think he would find anyone.  Besides, Gundabald had, as they said, a hot throat and a cold prick.  He wanted to cool the one and heat the other as frequently as possible.  To indulge himself he needed what little money came in from her estates.  He would certainly sell her, but not cheaply. It remained to be seen if he could get his price.  At the moment, she couldn't bring herself to care much one way or the other.

When the papal blessing proved fruitless, the thread of hope that had drawn her across the Alps and sustained her in the difficult journey to Rome...failed.  

Gisela's death had been the final blow.  She had been her daughter's only protection against a world that would destroy Regeane in an instant if it so much as guessed the girl's secret--and against the worst excesses of Gundabald's greed.  She had been Regeane's only confidant and companion. Regeane had no other friends, no other loves.  She was now abandoned and utterly alone.

Dry-eyed, Regeane had followed her mother's body to the grave.  She was overcome by a despair so black, it seemed to turn that bright day into bitter night.  



Now a faint silver shadow appeared against the blackness of the floor.

There is nothing left but moonlight, Regeane thought. Drink it, drown in it.  She will never reproach me.  I will never see her tears again or suffer because of them.  Whatever may become of me, I am alone.

She stood, stripped off her dress and shift, and turned toward the silver haze.

The gust from the window was icy, but pleasure wouldn't exist without the sharp bite of pain.  Even the brief flash of orgasm is too intense to be absolutely pleasurable.  The cold caress was seduction, the quick cruel touch that precedes pleasure.

Regeane went forward boldly, knowing that in a moment she would be warm. Naked, she stepped into the silver haze.

The wolf stood there.

Regeane was, as wolves go, a large wolf.  She had the same weight as the girl, over a hundred pounds.  She was much stronger than in her human state--lean, quick, and powerful.  Her coat was smooth and thick.  The pelt glowed silver as it caught the moonlight on its long guard hairs.  

The wolf's heart overflowed with joy and gratitude.  Regeane would never have admitted it in her human state, but she loved the wolf and, papal blessing or not, she would never let her go.

From the bottom of her heart, she reveled in the change.  Sometimes, while in her human state, she wondered who was wiser, she or the wolf.  The wolf knew.  Growing more beautiful and stronger year after year, the wolf waited for Regeane to be ready to receive her teaching and understand it.  

The silver wolf lifted herself on her hind legs and, placing her forepaws on the window sill, peered out.  She saw not just with eyes as these maimed humans did, but with sensitive ears and nose.

The world humans saw was like a fresco--dimensionless as a picture painted on a wall.  To be believed in by the wolf, a thing had to have not only image, but smell, texture, and taste.

Ah God...how beautiful.  The world was filled with wonder.

The rain must have come in the evening.  The wolf could smell the damp, black earth under the green verdure as well as mud churned up by horses' hooves in a nearby lane.

The woman hadn't noticed it.  She'd spent the day wallowing in her grief, mourning her mother.  For this she earned a brief flash of contempt from the wolf.  But the wolf was too much a creature of the present to dwell on what was past.  She was grateful for each moment.  And this was a fine one.

Usually in Rome, the scent of man overpowered everything else.  The effluvia of stale perspiration, the fetid raw sewage floating in the Tiber, the stench of human excrement which--even by comparison to that of other animals--is utterly vile.  All these filled the air and pressed in around her.  Overlaying them all were the musty omnipresent evidence of human dwellings--stale wood smoke, damp timber, and stone.

But not so tonight.  The sharp wind blew from the open fields beyond the city, redolent of dry grass and the sweetness of wild herbs growing on the hillsides near the sea.

Sometimes the fragrant winds from the Campagna carried the clean barnyard smells of pig and cattle, and faintly, the enticing musk of deer.

The night below was alive with movement.  The cats that made their homes among the ruins sang their ancient songs of anger and passion among forgotten monuments.  Here and there the slinking shape of a stray dog met her eye; occasionally, even furtive human movement.  Thieves and footpads haunted the district, ready to prey on the unwary.  

Her ears pricked forward and netted what her eyes could not see--the barely perceptible thump of a barn owl's wings in flight, the high, thin cries of bats swooping, darting, foraging for insects in the chill night air.

The rush and whisper of the hunters and the hunted, silent until the end. The agonized death cry of a bird, taken in sleep on the nest by a marauding cat, rent the air.  The chopped-off shriek of a rabbit dying in the talons of an owl followed.

Those sounds and smells, and many others, were woven together by her wolf senses into a rich fabric of unending variety and everlasting delight.

The silver wolf dropped her forepaws to the floor with a soft, nearly inaudible cry of longing.  Then her lips drew back from her teeth in a snarl at the sound of voices in the other room.

Hugo and Gundabald ate.  The wolf's belly rumbled with hunger at the smell of roast meat.  She was hungry and thirsty, longing for clean water and food.

The woman warned her night side to rein in her desires.  She would get nothing.

The wolf replied.  For a moment they were both gone--the woman from her prison, the wolf from her cage.  The wolf stood beside a clear mountain lake.  The full moon glowed silver in the water.  All around the lake, black trees were silhouetted against mountains glittering white with unending snow.

The memory faded.  The wolf and woman stared at the locked door.

The wolf and woman both understood imprisonment.  Regeane had spent most of her life behind locked doors.  Long ago, she'd learned the punishing futility of assaults on oak and iron.  She ignored what she couldn't change and bided her time.

They were speaking of her.

"Did you hear that?"  Hugo asked fearfully.  Hugo's hearing was better than Gundabald's.  He must have heard her soft cry of protest.

"No," Gundabald mumbled through a mouthful of food.  "I didn't and you didn't either.  You only imagined you did.  She seldom makes any noise. That's one thing for which we can be grateful.  At least she doesn't spend her nights howling as a real wolf would."

"We shouldn't have brought her here,"  Hugo moaned.

"Must you start that again?"  Gundabald sighed wearily.

"It's true," Hugo replied with drunken insistence.  "The founders of this city were suckled at the tits of a mother wolf.  Once they called themselves sons of the wolf.  Ever since I found out about her I've often thought of that story.  A real wolf couldn't raise human children, but a creature like her..."

Gundabald laughed raucously.  "A fairly tale made up by some strumpet to explain a clutch of bastard brats.  She wasn't the first and won't be the last to spin a yarn to protect herself."

"You won't listen to anything."  Hugo said petulantly.  "She's gotten worse since we came here.  Even while her own mother was dying she..."

The silver wolf's lips drew back.  Her teeth gleamed in the moonlight like ivory knives.  Even in the wolf's heart, Hugo's words rankled.

The smoldering anger and the brief, sad rebellion were pointless.  The locked door stood between her and her tormentors.  The barred window remained between the magnificent creature and freedom.

She began to pace as any caged beast will, obeying the wordless command: Stay strong.  Stay healthy.  Stay alert.  Fear not, your time will come.

FROM OUR EDITORS

The Barnes & Noble Review
Alice Borchardt turns away from her romantic fiction and takes a cue from her sibling Anne Rice in her wickedly delightful werewolf fantasy tale, The Silver Wolf. Carnage, romance, a cast of thousands, and lots of fur — what more could you possibly want in a fantasy novel? Author Douglas Clegg takes a look at this wild genre-breaker, which may be the breakout Borchardt has long deserved.

Alice Borchardt has written some lyrical fiction in her novels Beguiled and Devoted, but with this new novel, she has what is often called in the trade a breakout book. This usually means a book that is the best, biggest, most expansive novel from a writer who has yet to break into the bestseller lists. With The Silver Wolf, Borchardt has, I believe, just reached critical mass with her fiction.

The Silver Wolf is a richly textured, lush epic of history, romance, and fantasy, all interwoven like a beautiful tapestry. This is a novel not to be missed, particularly if you're a fan of Borchardt's sister, Anne Rice. Although Borchardt definitely has a voice distinct from — and less horrifying than — that of her more famous sibling, The Silver Wolf is a novel that, like The Vampire Lestat or Rice's recent Pandora, is ripe and delicious in its panoramic view of history and the fantastic beings who inhabit it. A thread of strong romance flows through The Silver Wolf, despite its supernatural trappings. For lovers of romantic paranormal fiction, werewolf lore, and ancient history toldwith bravado, Borchardthas written a winner.

The Rome of the Dark Ages is gorgeous in its decay and dying glamour. Regeane, a stunning waif, has a blood legacy of both royalty and supernatural darkness. Her parents were cousins to the Emperor Charlemagne, which is as much a curse for her as it is a blessing. There are those who will use her for political means by forcing a marriage that she does not want. But a lycanthropic tendency also runs in her blood: Regeane is a werewolf. Her uncle, Gundabald, who had a hand in murdering Regeane's werewolf father, treats her as a prisoner in order to ensure that she will marry according to the royal decree. Gundabald's brutality toward her is matched by that of the Roman world Regeane finds herself in after her protective mother's death. But even on this journey and struggle that becomes her life, as she learns both the good of her wolf self and the evil of the human world, she can't deny the strong chemistry she feels with the barbarian she is meant to marry.

Lest you think that The Silver Wolf then descends into scenes of carnage, rest assured, it is first and foremost a fantasy tinged with romance in a historical setting. A great many scenes of life in the raw do occur in this story, but the nobility of the human and animal spirits that emerges lifts the reader from the darkness of Regeane's life. Regeane is torn by loyalties, both to family and within her own soul, but what takes over this novel is its baroque atmosphere and the passion and obligation that pull at Regeane. True love among her own kind is her only possibility for happiness and finding her place in the world.

A cast of thousands populates this epic novel, and Borchardt lovingly sketches the dozen or so of the most fascinating of them. The outcasts who befriend Regeane, including Antonius, the leper, and Elfgifa, the young Saxon child Regeane cares for, enrich this tale. But the character that comes most brilliantly to life is Maeniel, the barbarian lord who must accept the marriage with the penniless Regeane for his own political purposes.

This is fantasy at its best, and storytelling that is vivid and engaging. I loved this book, and for those who relish a swashbuckling story of the supernatural, Alice Borchardt delivers. Her history is colorful and lively, and her supernatural love story is enchanting. Highly recommended.
— Douglas Clegg

Douglas Clegg is the author of numerous horror and suspense novels, including Dark Of The Eye and The Children's Hour. His recent critically acclaimed short story "O, Rare and Most Exquisite" can be found in the anthologyThe Year's Best Fantasy And Horror: Volume 10.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

Into decadent Rome of the Dark Ages comes Regeane, an enigmatic young woman distantly related to Charlemagne. But the blood she has inherited from her murdered father makes her much more than a child of royalty. Regeane is a shapeshifter—woman and wolf, hunter and hunted—possessed of preternatural agility and strength, primal memories extending back thousands of years, and senses so keen they can pierce the veil of death itself.

Betrothed to a barbarian lord she has never seen, Regeane is surrounded by enemies. But outside the gates of Rome, baying at the moon, there is a mysterious dark wolf whose scent awakens the animal in Regeane. Now, as deadly plots tighten like a noose around her neck, Regeane must fight to live with dignity as the proud creature she is: civilized and savage, partaking of both, yet infinitely more than either . . .

SYNOPSIS

In this new historical romantic fantasy of stunning originality and scope, Alice Borchardt breathes life into a bygone age, brilliantly recreating a sensuous, violent world--and the men and women whose grand ambitions, betrayals, and passions shape the era in which they live and die.

FROM THE CRITICS

Publishers Weekly

Borchardt spices her usual recipe for breathy historical romance (Devoted, etc.) with a generous pinch of the supernatural. Regeane is a secretive shapeshifter living in Rome at the end of the Empire's decline. Distantly related to Charlemagne, she becomes a pawn between the French and Italy's scrappy Lombards when she is betrothed to Maeniel, guardian of a passage through the Alps who is sympathetic to the French king. Intrigues and counterplots abound as Maeniel speeds his way to retrieve his reluctant bride and Regeane lends her supernatural powers to curing the leprous Antonius, whom the Lombards hope to use to discredit his father, Pope Hadrian, and turn the Roman citizens against Charlemagne's advancing Catholic army. In Regeane, whose woman and wolf selves often spar contentiously with one another, Borchardt finds the perfect metaphor for the once opulent Roman civilization, now hostage to its bestial appetites. She elaborates the decadent excesses of the time with gleefully vivid descriptions of gluttonous banquets, grotesque leper colonies and violent lusts sated both on the battlefield and in the bridal bed. Readers who like their fantasy dusted with gritty realism and who can forgive anachronistic modern dialogue in a period melodrama will find themselves indulged with more than a few twists to this werewolf tale. (July) FYI: The galley to Silver Wolf carries a note to "Dear Reader" from Borchardt's sister, Anne Rice, stating that "it is with immense joy that I introduce to you a daring and vibrant new voice on the female literary frontier"--although the novel is Borchardt's third.

VOYA - Mary Arnold

The Dark Ages were truly dark for women, whose lives were inextricably bound by custom and law to the control of a male-whether it be a husband, father, or master. In an epic blend of history and fantasy, Borchardt explores the decadence and splendor of ancient Rome through the eyes of teenage female werewolf Regeane. Betrothed by command of the high king Charlemagne to a barbarian lord she has never seen; betrayed and held captive by a brutal and ruthlessly ambitious uncle; and living in fear that that most high authority, Holy Mother Church, will burn her at the stake if her secret is revealed, Regeane must wend her way through the dangers of plots and counterplots. And always, the siren song of the wolfish blood boils just below the surface of everyday actions, animal instincts that make her vulnerable to the lure of a mysterious dark wolf that haunts the borders of Regeane's "civilized" world. Similar in feel to Klause's Blood and Chocolate (Delacorte, 1997/VOYA August 1997), with its theme of the many hidden faces and sudden changes common to adolescence and its exploration of female self-knowledge and power, this book gets off to a much slower start that may have teen readers restless to see a werewolf or two before the first hundred pages. The story has an intellectual rather than emotional tone, and the intricate weaving of historical detail is reminiscent of Chelsea Quinn Yarbro's historical vampire stories or Borchardt's sister Anne Rice's recent Pandora: New Tales of the Vampires (Knopf, 1998). The cover art, with its glowing golden eyes, may draw in die-hard werewolf fans but reluctant teen readers may find this book hard going, and the supernatural impact subdued. VOYA Codes: 4Q 4P S (Better than most, marred only by occasional lapses, Broad general YA appeal, Senior High-defined as grades 10 to 12).

Library Journal

This wolf is a werewolf, running loose in Rome at the time of the Dark Ages. What's more, this wolf is a woman, possessed of royal blood and in need of her wits as she evades diabolical plans to marry her off or turn her over to the Church for burning. Expect lots of publicity on this one.

Library Journal

This wolf is a werewolf, running loose in Rome at the time of the Dark Ages. What's more, this wolf is a woman, possessed of royal blood and in need of her wits as she evades diabolical plans to marry her off or turn her over to the Church for burning. Expect lots of publicity on this one.

Kirkus Reviews

The third and best yet by Anne Rice's older sister, following the two-volume, ninth-century saga of Devoted (1995) and Beguiled (1997). This time, however, Borchardt enters bona fide Rice territory, centering her tale on the rise of a werewolf clan during the last gasp of the Roman empire and the rise of Charlemagne. (Recall that sister Anne's current bestseller, Pandora, is a vampire historical also set in Rome.) Borchardt's version of the immortal city includes sewage systems, glass factories, thieves' markets, and much more. Adding an extra fillip to her tale, Borchardt's teenage female werewolf, Regeane, has an animal nature perpetually simmering at the surface of her character (like many an adolescent) while she goes about her daily life in human form. Young Regeane is the daughter of a warrior werewolf who was killed by a crossbolt when he was a man. Adopted by her uncle Gundabald, the girl is kept in a tower under strict lock and key, since each and every night she is transformed into a silver wolf. Gundabald wants to marry her off to royalty, for Regeane can claim royal blood on her mother Gisela's side. But, actually, Gundabald and his sister Gisela had themselves murdered Regeane's father. Regeane does, at the command of Charlemagne, become engaged to wealthy barbarian lord Maeniel, but before she marries she escapes from the clutches of her uncle. A series of adventures leads her through episodes involving lepers, a young slave girl, the Pope Hadrian, and the courtesan Lucilla. Lucilla, who has eyes for the virgin, also has some secrets of her own: She, too, is a werewolf—and the mother of Maeniel. Borchardt reaches descriptive and dramaticpeaks with Regeane's vulpine supersenses as she noses about Rome by night, reading the dead city's skin and air. Top-flight fantasy.