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“Unique in premise, strikingly phrased, well executed and enjoyable to read.” Diana Gabaldon, New York Times bestselling author of the Outlander fantasy series. (Diana’s response to an earlier work by Mischa.)
Sexy New York professor of anthropology Elizabeth Chamberlain needs a whole lotta love. But she’s too shy to ask. At a gourmet diner evening with University colleagues, someone spikes her food. With horror, Elizabeth realizes she’s become the latest victim of notorious rogue, Russian diplomat Alexander Karlyuk.
Roused in ways she could never have imagined, Elizabeth embarks on a journey of sexual and spiritual intrigue. Still mourning the brutal death of her four-year-old daughter Jondi, Elizabeth loses her grief in esoterica and ritualistic sex: for not only is Karlyuk her overlord, he’s also the Dark Lord of a secret cult of fanatical panther worshippers.
With each new stage of her growing sexual wildness, Elizabeth experiences increasingly traumatic episodes of metamorphosis; until, in shock and in heat, her face, then her limbs, then her body, take on the form of a cruelly beautiful panther.
Fleeing from her unknowing boyfriend, bohemian lawyer Yehuda ben David, for fear of betraying her terrible secret, Elizabeth is drawn into Karlyuk’s world of debauchery, sex, and mysticism, all the while slipping between human and animal forms. Manipulated by Karlyuk into love-affairs with fellow female panther devotees, Elizabeth deflects Karlyuk’s controlling influence by using these liaisons to achieve new levels of empowerment and self-determination.
Following a spate of killings, including the murders of Elizabeth’s sister Celestine and panther high priestess, black Russian Natalya “Icon” Shimenova, Elizabeth knows she must eliminate Karlyuk to survive. But she also knows this can’t happen until she submits completely to his sexual demands. Pretending to love him, a series of volatile – but mystical and transcendental – sexual encounters ensues, transporting Elizabeth and Karlyuk to high worlds of cosmic voyaging.
Everything explodes when Elizabeth discovers Karlyuk’s complicity in the death of her daughter. Elizabeth is shocked into realizing her cult-induction was pre-planned so Karlyuk could claim a precious family heirloom which has been in Elizabeth’s family for generations: an ancient phial containing the rarest of devotional scents called “The Perfume of the Buddha.” Possessing this would bring Karlyuk the throne of the God of All Panthers, and universal supremacy over devotees and lost souls.
Elizabeth draws on all her human and animal powers to face Karlyuk in a final confrontation on New York’s East 112th Street. With the blood of human and animal, and everything to live and die for, Elizabeth’s panther spirit elevates her into becoming the ultimate high-powered human-animal combatant, as she meets Karlyuk in magnificent battle.
The duplicity in Karlyuk’s nature, however, which has caused him throughout to swing from cultured diplomat to cannibalistic murderer, makes him literally split into two separate characters at the high point of confrontation: Elizabeth must fight Karlyuk on a double war-front.
Yet Elizabeth herself is dual-natured, being simultaneously woman and panther. With a boost of animal power, and a superior moral force, she finally triumphs over her adversary – though not without the inevitable physical and emotional damage.
In the reflective aftermath of battle, Elizabeth finds she cannot return to her previous life of comfortable academia. Not even the flame of love for her loyal lover Yehuda can persuade her to stay in New York. Dragging herself away from Yehuda during an emotional farewell, Elizabeth walks toward a new life abroad, while a plane takes on passengers for Tokyo. As Elizabeth hurries toward her future she feels, rising up deep inside her, the power, the curse, the blessing, of her eternal damnation: the metamorphosis of woman into panther.