Stalking Tender Prey

Storm Constantine 1995 Buy from Amazon.com

Stalking Tender Prey is the first novel in Storm Constantine’s Grigori Trilogy. It is a dark and erotic book, based on the idea that the Nephilim, hybrid offspring between angels and humans, are still living amongst us today. They call themselves Grigori, and they are tall, thin, serpent-like people who live far longer than humans and can access great magical power if they choose. Some of them don’t, some of them prefer to try to live as though they are humans, but it can never last for long. They are beautiful and perfect and they do not age.

We are introduced to this slowly, and when we first meet Peveral Othman, the character who is the fulcrum of the events of the story, we are presented with someone who is mysterious and a bit odd, but it takes a little while before we understand he is Grigori, and he just gets stranger as the novel progresses.

He is tall and handsome with blond hair and a disreputable air, and he arrives in the sleepy English town of Little Moore looking for something to spark his interest. He finds it in Lily and Owen Winter, twin orphans who are a little strange themselves. The town is full of secrets and Pev slowly peels back the layers, manipulating and seducing his way toward the truth.

Owen and Lily Winter are unaware that their mysterious father was Grigori, and that he was driven from Little Moore twenty years earlier by the Grigori Elders. While the twins have grown in ignorance, the village has protected them, knowing that the key to drawing back the Grigori, with their gifts of longevity and power, lies with the twins.

When Peveral decides to reawaken the flame of power beneath the village, change is inevitable, but not all are happy with the changes that he will bring.

This is a dark and seductive novel, with powerful and sympathetic characters drawn with consummate skill. Storm Constantine has created a novel in which all the dreams and legends of a higher race are realised, but with enough imagination to create Grigori that are not perfect, and not necessarily benign.

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