An Embarrassment of Riches

An Embarrassment of Riches

Chelsea Quinn Yarbro

Horror / Science Fiction & Fantasy / Mystery & Thrillers

More than two decades strong, the Saint-Germain cycle is one of the most compelling works of dark fantasy and horror of our age. Historically accurate, often involving key events or figures from throughout world history, these deeply emotional novels have a devoted readership. Each novel is written as a stand-alone and they are not chronologically consecutive, so readers may enter the saga with any book and move backward or forward in time as they choose, from Pharaonic Egypt to Paris in the 1700s, from the fall of the Roman Empire to World War II Europe.In An Embarrassment of Riches, the vampire Count finds himself a virtual prisoner in the Court of Kunigunde in Bohemia in the 1200s. Rakoczy Ferncsi, as Saint-Germain is known, passes his days making jewels to delight Queen Kunigunde and trying not to become involved in the Court\'s intrigues. In this, the vampire fails. Handsome, apparently wealthy, and obviously unmarried, he soon finds himself being sexually blackmailed by Rozsa, an ambitious lady-in-waiting. If he does not satisfy her, she will denounce him to the priests and he\'ll be burned at the stake, resulting in his True Death. Despite his care, the vampire makes more than one enemy at the Bohemian Court, and by the end of An Embarrassment of Riches, the Count can see only one road to freedom...through death.
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The Palace

The Palace

Chelsea Quinn Yarbro

Horror / Science Fiction & Fantasy / Mystery & Thrillers

Since 1978, Chelsea Quinn Yarbro has produced about two dozen novels and numerous short stories detailing the life of a character first introduced to the reading world as Le Comte de Saint‑Germain. We first meet him in Paris during the reign of Louis XV when he is, apparently, a wealthy, worldly, charismatic aristocrat, envied and desired by many but fully known to none. In fact, he is a vampire, born in the Carpathian Mountains in 2119 BCE, turned in his late thirties in 2080 BCE and destined to roam the world forever, watching and participating in history and, through the author, giving us an amazing perspective on the time tapestry of human civilization.In The Palace, Renaissance Florence provides the background for this story of the collapse of the artistic and literary life of the city after the death of San Germano’s friend, Lorenzo the Magnificent, followed by the rise of the fanatical Savonarola. --This text refers to the Paperback edition. --This text refers to the Paperback edition.
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Come Twilight

Come Twilight

Chelsea Quinn Yarbro

Horror / Science Fiction & Fantasy / Mystery & Thrillers

Beginning in the 600s, Spain\'s old blood rituals of animal sacrifice were replaced by the new gods of Christianity and Islam, who demanded no less obedience and allegiance. Saint-Germain becomes trapped in this cauldron of blood, fear, and faith when, he makes a vampire of the beautiful, haughty, tempestuous Csimenae. Csimenae kills without mercy. She makes vampires without a second thought; and they, For five hundred years, as waves of war and religion sweep over Spain, Csimenae hunts until her marauding, willful ways expose her vampiric nature. Saint-Germain\'s centuries of life have taught him that to fall out of step with history is to risk the True Death, a fate Saint-Germain wishes for none of his kind. He must try to save Csimenae-and her clan-but at what price?
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The Saint-Germain Chronicles

The Saint-Germain Chronicles

Chelsea Quinn Yarbro

Horror / Science Fiction & Fantasy / Mystery & Thrillers

Blending the dark eroticism of the vampire with high adventure in history\'s most compelling locales, the story of Saint-Germain is the enduring drama of a lonely hero who walks the earth throughout time, battling for honor...and love. To escape the horrors of the Spanish Civil War, Saint-Germain travels to San Francisco, where he reunites with Rowena Saxon, a past lover whose beauty and wisdom have matured with time. There he offers Rowena a choice: a natural death-or immortality as a vampire. But unknown to the noble exile, an assassin has followed him from Spain, torturing his friends and his associates at every step. The next target will be Rowena, unless the vampire recognizes the peril that both he and his lover face. Will his ignorance achieve what time itself cannot-the death of Saint-Germain?
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States of Grace

States of Grace

Chelsea Quinn Yarbro

Horror / Science Fiction & Fantasy / Mystery & Thrillers

It is the time of the Reformation. Henry VIII\'s England moves toward schism; Luther\'s precepts spread through Europe even as the Inquisition strives to wipe out any hint of heresy. Franzicco Ragoczy di Santo-Germano-the vampire Saint-Germain-is a successful merchant based in Venice. His lavish lifestyle and rumored cache of magnificent jewels have attracted the wrong sort of attention, and without Santo-Germano\'s noble-and papal-connections, he might be imprisoned, his property confiscated. Also under surveillance is his mistress, the lovely and talented musician Pier-Ariana Salier. In the Spanish Netherlands, Ragoczy\'s publishing business is being investigated by the Inquisition. Coming to the aid of his employees, Ragoczy becomes tarred with the brush of heresy, as does Erneste van Amsteljaxter, a writer whose intelligence Ragoczy finds attractive. Ragoczy does what he can to help her, but must return to Venice when he learns that his fortune there has been embezzled away and that Pier-Ariana has disappeared. In Venice, things are worse than Santo-Germano expected. Not only has his money disappeared, so has a young man who had been spying on the vampire and his mistress. Santo-Germano is accused of kidnapping and perhaps murder. Another spy has discovered Santo-Germano\'s true nature and intends to kill him before he can feast on all of Venice!
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Dark of the Sun

Dark of the Sun

Chelsea Quinn Yarbro

Horror / Science Fiction & Fantasy / Mystery & Thrillers

It is the 6th century of the common era. The vampire Saint-Germain, known in this time as Sangi-Ragozh, is peacefully doing business in Asia when, unknown to him-or anyone else in most of the world-Krakatoa explodes in a massive volcanic eruption. The island is nearly completely destroyed; tidal waves swamp harbors hundreds of miles away, ravaging trade ships and their cargoes; tons of ash and dirt are flung into the air. In the months to come, the world grows colder and darker as the massive cloud of dust and ash spreads across the globe, blocking sunlight. Sea trade is ravaged. Crops fail. Livestock, and then people, begin to starve. Disease spreads. Panic rises. What has caused the sun to go dark? With his scientific bent, Sangi-Ragozh suspects a natural cause, but most people assume a supernatural explanation-and begin to seek supernatural remedies. As always in times of trouble, foreigners-and the vampire is always a foreigner, wherever he travels-become targets. Fleeing toward the West, where he hopes to find safety and sanity, the vampire travels with a nomadic tribe led by Dukkai, a female shaman who soon becomes Sangi-Ragozh\'s lover-and main source of sustenance. But Sangi-Ragozh\'s problems are far from over. His vampire nature is discovered by an enemy; he is separated from Dukkai and begins to starve; he has lost everything, including his last sack of his native soil. With death no longer a distant possibility, Sangi-Ragozh desperately tries to reach sanctuary in the one place he truly belongs-his homeland, the country he first left centuries earlier. A land we now call Transylvania.
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A Mortal Glamour

A Mortal Glamour

Chelsea Quinn Yarbro

Horror / Science Fiction & Fantasy / Mystery & Thrillers

Amidst the many calamities of the late 14th century something sinister is at work among the sisters of la Tres Saunte Annunciacion, a force the women and the men around them seem powerless to fight. What is overwhelming both the holy and the damned? The true horrors of a dark age combine with ingenious imagination for a tumultuous tale of tragic love and disastrous desire.
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In the Face of Death

In the Face of Death

Chelsea Quinn Yarbro

Horror / Science Fiction & Fantasy / Mystery & Thrillers

Madeline de Montalia, the perpetually youthful and beautiful vampire, once beloved of the Count Saint-Germain, comes to America in the 1840\'s to live with and study the native tribes of America, desiring to document their culture and knowledge before these are changed forever and unalterably by contact with the White Man. She had not expected she would fall in love with San Francisco Banker and US Army officer William Tecumseh Sherman in the 1850\'s. Now, living among the Choctaw in Georgia in the 1860\'s, she knows that Sherman\'s armies are marching through; and what will she say when they meet again after these many years? And how will she survive through some of the most horrifying events of the Civil War?
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A Feast In Exile

A Feast In Exile

Chelsea Quinn Yarbro

Horror / Science Fiction & Fantasy / Mystery & Thrillers

A Feast in Exile draws readers back to the time when the Mongol hordes of Timur (known in the West as Tamerlane) swept across fourteenth-century India and Asia. Delhi\'s civilized veneer crumbles along with its walls. Foreigners, which the vampire Saint-Germain-here called Sanat Ji Mani-surely is, lose their positions, homes, wealth, and sometimes their lives, if they cannot escape the falling city. Before he can flee Delhi, Sanat Ji Mani must ensure the safety of Avasa Dani, his beautiful ward, who has been abandoned by her husband. Sanat Ji Mani\'s love has awakened Avasa Dani\'s every sense; even she will become a vampire upon her death, but she finds no terror in this fate. Avasa Dani and Rojire, Sanat Ji Mani\'s servant, successfully make their way out of Delhi, but Sanat Ji Mani himself is trapped. His life is bought by his skills with medicine, but, at Timur\'s command, he must travel-by day, and exposed to the sun-with the conqueror\'s army. Crippled and unable to escape, he knows that his vampire nature will soon be revealed, and then... Avasa Dani, with a worried Rojire at her side, considers her options as a woman without a visible male protector in a land and time ruled by men. While one of Sanat Ji Mani\'s allies searches desperately for the missing vampire, Saint-Germain and a young acrobat, with whom he has escaped from Timur\'s forces, make their slow and painful way to freedom. The journey changes them both forever.
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A Dangerous Climate

A Dangerous Climate

Chelsea Quinn Yarbro

Horror / Science Fiction & Fantasy / Mystery & Thrillers

The vampire Count Saint-Germain, disguised as a missing Hungarian nobleman, is on a spy mission in the heart of Czarist Russia. Almost by the power of his will alone, it seems, Peter the Great is wrestling the city that will one day be St. Petersburg out of swampland. Representatives of the heads of all European states are living in tiny, frigid, wooden homes as they jockey for power and influence over the Czar. When a man shows up claiming to be the Count Saint-Germain, the vampire must figure out how to protect his title and wealth without revealing either his true identity or his True Nature.
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Roman Dusk

Roman Dusk

Chelsea Quinn Yarbro

Horror / Science Fiction & Fantasy / Mystery & Thrillers

Rome is crumbling. The child-emperor, Heliogabalus, diverts the Roman populace with parties, circuses, and celebrations, while his mother and grandmother jockey for power behind the scenes. The government is riddled with scandal and no business is conducted without bribes which grow ever larger. Religions joust for prominence, with factions of Christians seeking to overthrow the ancient Roman pantheon. Courtesans, once honored for their skills and protected by special guards, have become targets of opprobrium. The vampire Ragoczy Germanius Sanct\' Franciscus, already subject to extra taxes and regulations because he is a foreigner, falls under the maleficent eye of Telemachus Batsho, a minor functionary who dreams of power and wealth. When Franciscus thwarts his attempts to extort ever-increasing sums from a young Roman of good birth, Batsho swears revenge. Franciscus finds his activities closely monitored and is accused of treason and conspiracy. His friends, threatened with similar scrutiny, abandon him to Batsho\'s mercies or urge him to leave the Eternal City.But Franciscus has many ties to Rome. He has taken under his protection a beautiful courtesan who was brutally beaten by the very men who should have been protecting her. She has been the vampire\'s sustenance for many months. Franciscus is also held in the city by the plight of the family Laelius. The Domina\'s health is failing despite the vampire\'s great medical skills; her son has converted to Christianity and rails against his mother\'s beliefs; her daughter Ignatia, who has sacrified her own life to care for her mother, realizes that when her mother dies, her fate will rest in the hands of her increasingly fanatical brother. Determined to claim pleasure for herself, Ignatia invites Franciscus\'s attentions, inflaming him with the power of her untapped sexuality. Unfortunately, they are not unobserved, and their simple yet powerful act of love sparks a conflagration that destroys Ignatia\'s family and nearly brings about the vampire\'s True Death.
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