Excerpt!
Early the next morning, Lilith slipped from out the mirror in the lobby and followed Anastasia into the hotel’s opulent honeysuckle garden. It would have been the perfect place to strangle her to death too—if Lilith had resolved to do such a thing. But how to murder an old friend?
The distant bells of Coventry Cathedral commenced a triumphal tune and then proceeded to count out the hour.
Anastasia turned back, breathing in as if she detected something in the current or perhaps even tasted something on her lips.
Lilith braced herself. Had the scent of Egyptian chamomile betrayed her presence? Even if it had, she kept quiet. For a while, she observed Anastasia. More than anything, Lilith marveled at how much the young lady’s blindness had come to complement her beauty. The blank dreamlike expression in her big blue eyes made her look like an angel—something incorruptible.
Had she pledged her body to the Lord above? Might that be the source of her power?
Over to the left, someone from the hotel staff opened one of the dining-hall windows looking out over the garden. Soon the air filled with the aroma of cottage pie and fairy cakes.
Tapping her walking stick, Anastasia stepped into the sunlight which suddenly played upon her golden hair. “Lilith, would that be you there?” Like a little girl, Anastasia scratched at a few of the freckles upon her nose. “Please say something.”
Lilith resolved to remain silent. Turning to the honeysuckle, she thought back to the beginning of time—the primordial garden where that servile woman brought Adam to ruin. How did she manage all that? One day she picked that forbidden apple. Lilith looked to the hem of her gown and then deep into Anastasia’s blind eyes. Why not find someone for her? Even if she had pledged her body to the Lord above, perhaps the proper gentleman could tempt her—and ruin her.
In the end, love itself would be her undoing.
Desperate to free herself of the dream fox residing in her womb, Anastasia travels off to the shores of the Red Sea and strikes a deal with Lilith: If Anastasia will fashion three mirrors for the primordial witch, so the sorceress will exorcise the evil spirit.
A poetic parable of the modern woman, the riddle of love, and the question of meaning in a seemingly-godless world.
A poetic parable of the modern woman, the riddle of love, and the question of meaning in a seemingly-godless world.
Check it out on Goodreads!
Nominate Lazlo Rappaport’s The Nameless Land HERE and you may win a free copy!
Nominate Lazlo Rappaport’s The Nameless Land HERE and you may win a free copy!
Author bio:
Lazlo Rappaport is the pseudonym of a very reclusive author from Ohio. He wrote the original draft of The Nameless Land while night-clerking at a series of Palestinian youth hostels in the Old City of Jerusalem, 1996-1999. Under his proper birth name, he holds an M.F.A. in poetry from Sarah Lawrence College.
Lazlo Rappaport is the pseudonym of a very reclusive author from Ohio. He wrote the original draft of The Nameless Land while night-clerking at a series of Palestinian youth hostels in the Old City of Jerusalem, 1996-1999. Under his proper birth name, he holds an M.F.A. in poetry from Sarah Lawrence College.
Giveaway!
Book sounds so good! Added to my TBR!
ReplyDeleteI love what I have read about this book! I am looking forward to reading it!!
ReplyDelete