Stalking Tender Prey

The Grigori Trilogy #1

by Storm Constantine

The Grigori Trilogy #1 The Grigori are an ancient race. Powerful people, possessing abilities and senses humans do not have. They live among us, their presence clear to those who have eyes to see... Owen and Lily Winter, twins, always knew they were different than the others who lived in the quiet hamlet of Little Moor. Their mother dead, never knowing who their father was, they lived alone in the large house. When Peverel Othman arived in Little Moor he was looking for something or someone, he really was not sure which. When he found the twins he knew his search was over. For Lily and Owen their lives would be forever changed. The quiet hamlet of Little Moor just became the new home of a Grigori.

Genres: Fantasy, Horror, Fiction, Dark Fantasy, Romance, LGBT, Queer

484 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1995

About the author

Storm Constantine was a British science fiction and fantasy author, primarily known for her Wraeththu series.

Since the late 1980s she wrote more than 20 novels, plus several non-fiction books. She is featured in the Goth Bible and is often included in discussions of alternative sexuality and gender in science fiction and fantasy; many of her novels include same-sex relationships or hermaphrodites or other twists of gender. Magic, mysticism and ancient legends (like the Grigori) also figure strongly in her works.

In 2003 she launched Immanion Press, based out of Stafford, England. The publishing company publishes not only her own works but those of new writers, as well as well-known genre writers, mainly from the UK.

Reviews

[Brandon Witt · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have never read any other book like Stalking Tender Prey, so there is really nothing I can compare it to. Truly original. There are only two downsides to this book, so I will start with those. It took me a long time to get through because it lost me in the beginning (the first 60 pages or so) and again at the end (the last 30). The rest more than made up for it. Completely sucked me in and left me panting for breath. The other semi-negative is that it doesn't really end, it just sets up for the next instalment. So really, it seems the story is just beginning. Now, the good: EVERYTHING else. The characters are engrossing on every level, very few are shallow or one-dimentional or simply good or bad. They feel so real and tangable. Even though their lives are something few of us can imagine, you can understand their feelings and reasonings because you get to know them so well and get inside their hearts and minds. Storm has the gift of words and description without a doubt. Everything was sensual, everything. It was also very sexual, and while very small amounts were explictly descriptive, it was the most arousing novel I have read. While, there are many scenes and themes revolving around homosexuality (some of the best I have read), it is by no-means simply a gay novel. It deals with sexuality on levels that the everyday person/writer shys away from. Storm manages to make every scene shocking yet comprehendable and honest. The story line goes all over the place, and at times scans centuries. Once you catch onto the overall flow of the story, it is easy to follow. I can not wait to read the second novel of this series, which is out of print, unfortunately, but I am sure it will be worth searching for. While not for the faint of heart or the easily offended, it is worth taking a chance on. Jump on for one intense, unparalled adventure!

[Bill · Rating 5 out of 5]

This novel has all of the characteristics that make Storm Constantine such a compelling author. The world she creates is conflated from the Sumarian creation myth of Enlil and Ninlil with the ancient Kabbalah and more recent Christian Cabbalistic apocryphal influences, especially the myths of Shemyaza and the Grigori and even Enochian magic. Without any knowledge of these myths, the world seems real and almost likely. It would make a great neo-pagan spiritual system! With basic knowledge of these myths it is an amazing accomplishment bringing them alive in modern Britain.

Her characters are delightful and most could easily find one or more to identify with. The prose or word-smithing it typical of Storm, that is flowing, exciting, well-paced and with enough esoterica to allow for googling and wiki-ing for those so inclined. It works on multiple levels and can be read as a great story, as a great story with allegorical themes or—This 1st book of this trilogy can open an entire new world for you to explore from our historical and mythic past, right back to the beginning of human writing. Best, IMO, to read it all all levels.

I had trouble genre-izing the novel. It typically falls into fantasy or dark or gothic fantasy. But I think it more than those so included it as mythic fantasy where I think it best fits. It is very much about our historical and mythic basis.

I'd suggest that at he very least one read a translation of Enlil and Ninlil— http://etcsl.orinst.ox.ac.uk/section1... —look up Grigori and Shemyaza

[Tom · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ludicrous but also very readable, akin to the English version of Anne Rice I guess. Some utterly daft sex scenes - everyone seems to shag everyone else - but notable for the fact that although the protagonist is a thoroughly unlikeable creature; the story follows his manipulations of all the other characters which creates an interesting narrative.

I'd read the rest of the trilogy.

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

Just plain delicious. Deals with the Grigori, children of the fallen angels, the Watchers, etc. Very very different take on angels - more like they're supposed to be rather than cutsey wutsey cherubs and all that hogwash.

Great character development; allusions to sexual acts - hetero/homo/bi - may turn some readers off BUT these instances are essential to the rapid pace of the story.

I definitely give it one of my highest ratings - but then again, you might suspect I'm a big fan of Storm Constantine's writings.

[Rukmini · Rating 3 out of 5]

Weirdly compelling, given how much of it reads like it was written in an ESL class by someone who’s never met a human being.

[Nolan · Rating 3 out of 5]

I’m picky about fiction featuring angels, kind of the same way I’m picky about vampire novels — they’re supernatural creatures that have been done to death, and there’s a lot of ways you can mess up when writing about them. That’s the thing about angels in fiction: they can be pretty boring, unimaginative. I’ve never understood why there are so many books and movies which portray angels as masculine men, except that male writers enjoy seeing themselves as divine, tortured heroes straying from the light of God.

I was pleased to see this was not the case with the Grigori Trilogy. Constantine’s angels are complex and mysterious, with a culture steeped in occult magic and a rich history spanning back before recorded human history. She makes references to folk beliefs predating Abrahamic religion, drawing links between the androgynous angels of Christian iconography and gods worshipped in Ancient Sumeria. It’s an imaginative feast for any occult scholar who has been fascinated by conspiracy theories involving the Anunnaki.

The first book of this series initially focuses on the quiet lives of people living in Little Moor. I appreciated the time spent getting to know them, seeing the ways they transform when their sleepy town is shaken up by the appearance of a stranger who seems more than human. Admittedly, at first, I rolled my eyes frequently at how quickly they fell under his spell, assuming that he was meant to be a bit of a Mary Sue, powerful and flawless. I nearly put down the book, struggling to keep turning the page because I assumed I’d guessed what was going to happen. This changed when I realized I didn’t know who was meant to be hero or villain. And baby, I’m all about characters with ambiguous morality.

Verity was by far my favorite in this book, if only for her pragmatism and overall disdain for everyone else (and her ability to see through bullshit) and I came to care about her by the last chapter.

[Alan Wake · Rating 3 out of 5]

A long and winding journey, and not one that made me want to reach for the sequels. Thankfully it comprised a complete tale and I was not left with a pile of unanswered questions. The Grigori protagonists are (intentionally) difficult to like, and their accessories are often left broken in their wake. It was an interesting story without being compelling, and the slow burn might put off some readers.

[MG · Rating 5 out of 5]

I know I'm supposed to review each book individually, but since I sort of inhaled the entire trilogy one after another, I'm going to have to review them all in one breath.

First of all, full dislosure, Storm Constantine has branded my reading/writing history almost as deeply as Tanith Lee has. So I'm naturally biased. I have a very one-track mind, and if I decide that I like someone's writing, I will like it until the universe burns down into a shriveled, black cinder (unless Author does something absolutely ridiculous and/or evil, like, say, murder baby orphan pandas). I just have this born inclination to be a fangirl. I don't like writing bad things about people or their books. (Though I do enjoy thinking about it sometimes, or swearing it out loud, when I'm sufficiently irritated.)

But even without that bias, I think I could safely say that I loved Stalking Tender Prey. I read it in the bus, in the jeepney, in the bathroom, at work, at the computer, before going to sleep, after waking up. It was an obsessive experience. Throughout, all I could think of was how different it was to read fantasy books written by someone who actually practices magic versus those written by your typical cultural Christian. It's like comparing an author's intimate memoir to the back-of-the-jacket author biographies written by someone who has met the author exactly once, and online.

If you didn't know this already, Storm Constantine is pagan. She has written and published several books on magical practices, check them out at Immanion Press.

Thing is, I didn't know that when I first read her Wraeththu books, and even then, I was impressed by how detailed everything was. (Alright, so mostly I was a teenaged girl impressed with all the sex, but stay with me, okay?) It's not so much the description, it's the casual assumptions that the text makes, the quiet hints of something deeper, the cool, clear, massive iceberg-ness of it. It impregnates everything -- like what happens when you leave a glass of water in a room full of roses, and the water tastes all perfumed and flowery afterwards.

In STP, when the town's mysterious bad boy takes his buddies and his sensitive psychic friend to enact ancient rites at the "high place", you know that there's a lot more going on there than your typical D&D-based magic system.

And, in STP anyway, this is all written in a way that doesn't overwhelm the rest of the story. Which is great, since it's an excellent, excellent story that had my nerves jangling and my concentration shot for about a week (and 200,000 words).

So there's this little town, see, where normal ordinary people go about their normal ordinary lives. The townspeople worry about things like their increasingly crazy family members and those crazy new folks who aren't very respectful of the town's ways. There are also those isolated orphan twins, Lily and Owen, who are disturbingly too close to each other, what's up with them? And there's that one guy who just came into town: that guy Pev, Peverel Othman. He's dangerously hot and dangerously dangerous, and everyone wants a piece of him. Except Owen, who can detect that something, somewhere, is just Not Right.

This is a town with secrets. And Pev's a guy with even more secrets. Add them together and you get awesome. Plus fallen angels. And, naturally, since this is Storm Constantine, sex magic. I rolled around in it up like a kitten in catmint, my friend, and I consider myself richer for having had the experience.

Also, I know I'm going to sound like one of those unimaginative book-blurbists here, but the plotting was masterful. There are huge mysteries lurking underneath everything, like big whales coasting along under the sea. With the precise timing of a sea goddess, Storm Constantine waits until the most propitious instant -- building tension to fever pitch -- and then she waves an arm and up those whales go, breaching through the leaden sea-surface with rainbow-colored droplets spraying outwards from their flanks! Okay, so maybe I'm taking this metaphor way too far, but seriously, this book is full of awe-inspiring photo-moments.

Like I've mentioned before, the Big Reveal was very predictable for me, because who else would Pev ultimately turn out to be? My kid sister could have figured it out from page one, on the very off chance I'd ever share a book involving orgies with her. That said, though, the execution was perfect and I couldn't think of anyone who could have played it out better.

Storm Constantine's characterization shines here too. I couldn't help but love each POV character, despite being convinced -- by the exquisite plot development -- that at least one of them would die a creatively grisly death around the end. The narrators are human and not always reliable, and even the most snotty and unlikable of them can't help but inspire a kind of sympathy. I certainly wouldn't like these people for neighbors, but I can see where they're coming from and often find myself emotionally involved with them (which I always stopped whenever I caught myself doing it while reading, since, hello, creatively grisly death for this character, no future there). (I also have to add that I was surprised by who actually does die, so points for that.)

So long and short of it, I have absolutely no complaints about STP. I consider it one of my all-time favorite books, and it will always have a special place in my heart next to Tanith Lee's Flat Earth, Constantine's own Wraeththu series, and my left lung.

But now here's the big But and it's all about Books 2 and 3, Scenting Hallowed Blood and Stealing Sacred Fire. Remember how I said that the iceberg-ish magic always informs but never overwhelms the story in STP? Well, in the later books it sort of does. And by sort of, I mean really.

I mean, intellectually, I know there was some sort of power struggle in Book 2, with all sorts of factions fighting over who gets to control their reborn god-equivalent Shemyaza. And there was some sort of going-back-to-Eden quest in Book 3, where Shemyaza outmaneuvers assassins and Babel-building tyrants in order to bring mankind to a new stage of spiritual enlightenment.

But the nail-biting suspense? The teasing revelations? The bringing up of magnificent whales from the dark of the sea?

I don't have anything against alternative beliefs, but I like my stories to focus on story (or character). Too many scenes of people having mystical vision-journeys, talking metaphysics, and recounting plot points we already know...? Well, it doesn't go over well with me.

And SPOILER, if you liked Lily and Owen and Verity and assumed that the story would continue to follow them? It doesn't. We get glimpses once in a while, but on the whole, they end up completely set aside in favor of new characters who spring up in Book 2 only to vanish tracelessly in Book 3.

Don't get me wrong, Storm Constantine still has that magic touch with characters and sympathy. But my sympathy was decidedly mucked up by the fact that the characters I really liked and had a history with were more or less edged out of the plot or reduced to cameos. For example, we're always told how Lily and Owen are important to Shemyaza, right? But they're decidedly not pivotal to the plot in Book 2, and Owen was just mentioned a couple of times in Book 3.

It's times like these when I start muttering for character sheets and trilogy outlines. Call me shallow, but if a body of work is a series and follows a certain Grand Narrative, I expect a certain degree of tightness. I expect the development of earlier plotlines, not the constant insertion of new ones. I expect at least an on-screen resolution for the characters I started out with. Maybe it's my expectations at fault, but I was very disappointed by SHB and SSF, and I really didn't want to be.

To summarize. Read Stalking Tender Prey. It's a perfectly delicious and chocolatey blend of horror, mystery, fantasy and dark romance. Read the other two only if you have a high tolerance for the stuff I mentioned above.

I might try re-reading the trilogy again, now that I know what to expect, but that might be far off in the future yet.


EDIT: Now that I re-read this, I think I'm being unfair to Books 2 and 3. After all, I did speed through them like a cat through a kennel. They were both still very involving, despite the loss of some of the elements I really, really liked. (Looking through my reading progress, in SHB, I even mentioned how I was biting my nails about what would happen to Lily and Owen. In my defense, though, I'm still rather justified in this review because nothing happened to them, in the end.) But on the whole, maybe I was just disappointed because the last two books were just averagely-good compared to the spectacularly good first book. Thought I should just mention this somewhere...

[Mariele · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is one of the best books I read all year (2012). Considering how many years it stood on my book shelf, ignored and seemingly unappealing, I was in for a stupendous surprise.
At a time when most fantasy literature seems to copy Tolkien or presents the umpteenth version of the vampire archetype, I was impressed by the truly original theme, which delves deep into ancient Mesopotamian myths, which, after all, predate the Old Testament and the Judeo-Christian definition of our world. I'm a person who enjoys a sprinkle of doubt and healthy superstition thrown into all kinds of conventional religions, so Storm Constantine and her pagan poetry is right up my street.

It is by and large an extremely engrossing and cleverly written story that is exquisitely multi-layered, going back and forth between different locations, countries, and millenia. It comes up with excellent dialogues and an overall vivid language, whereas its characters are intriguing and remarkably fleshed out. At 600+ pages (in my edition), story lines unfold slowly, but, as it turns out, with perfect pitch, until they amalgamate into the grand finale. Even though some plot devices were easy to see through, there are also plenty of subplots, plot twists and underrated settings or characters that finally, felicitously, come into their own.

The novel's main character, Peverel Othman (if there are any hidden meanings behind that name, I haven't seen through them), is a charismatic villain who is apparently so oversexed and irresistible that he has intercourse with pretty much every other character in the book. Hence the tale is peppered with a lot of erotic scenes.
For me, this was the only noteworthy downside of the book. I have to say that even though I don't mind erotic scenes, they are not my primary interest in a story line. Sometimes I could have done with less detail. And while I don't have a problem with homosexuality, I wonder why I should take any interest in succulently outlined consenting incest. (For instance, that is one of the characteristics that I found quite off-putting about Anne Rice's style after a few books.)

Nonetheless, I thought it was a delightful read.

[Diane · Rating 5 out of 5]

I thought this was an excellent read. I have read Storm Constantine's Wraethu books and wasn't sure I would like this series, but I was pleasantly surprised to find that they were just as good. This series has beings called Grigori that came to earth and settled and proceeded to help the human inhabitants of Earth develop into the society that we know today. These beings weren't supposed to mate with humans. But they did and created a race of hybrid humans. The Grigori generally thought that humans were just beings to be used by the Grigori to work for them. They thought of humans the same way that humans thought of animals.
This story centers around a Grigori called Pen Othman who is drawn to a town in England. He meets a pair of twins, Lily and Owen who don't know it, but are the result of a human and Grigori union. Othman causes trouble and death wherever he goes, and is being hunted by other Grigori. He wants to use the twins and some of the human inhabitants of the town to reach his goal of finding a mysterious "gate".
This was a very interesting story. I usually decide near the beginning of the book who I want to root for and who I dislike. In this book, I found it difficult to really like most of the characters. They all had good points and bad points. Even up until almost the end of the book, I wasn't sure what was going to happen that would make me happy with the ending of the book. However, almost everything was explained by the end of the book, at least up to a point, because this is the first book of a series. I thought the plotting was very exciting and not at all predictable. I thought the characters were very well done. I cared about all of them actually. I really liked the inclusion of the cat character and the fact that there were so many characters that I couldn't figure out if their function was for good or evil. I look forward to seeing what happens in the next book!

[Marie France · Rating 4 out of 5]

Though an avid reader, I haven't read that much fantasy. I am interested though,so over the years I kept sampling stuff here and there but found little to get excited about. So far only Rice, Feist and Carey could 'spellbind' me. But once in a while, one strikes gold!
In short, it is well written, highly original and groundbreaking.
This is why, in my opinion:
I'm not into fairies or too much hocus pocus so I was thrilled to be served a fast-paced portion of Goth/horror/cult (somewhat reminiscent of HP Lovecraft at times)that didn't shy away from (same)sex either.
In fantasy, I often stumble to get a grip on the 'nature' of the protagonists, what makes them so 'fantastical' and why that should be swallowable at all. No such qualms here: great characters and excellent dialogue made for a good read and left me craving for the second installment. Over time, I want to gobble up more by Storm Constantine.

Contentwise: In a contemporary England, the Grigori, fallen angels living under the radar are trying to catch up with a rogue/an Anakim among them. This Peverel Othman has an agenda of his own, involving the Winter twins, at odds with village society themselves.
The athmospheric but abandoned House of Long Eden is a central location throughout the book. Human villagers and outsiders, some 'aware', others not, are cought up in a cat and mouse game that ends in a climax both satisfactory and leftme craving for the second installment, which didn't dissapoint either.

[K.S. Trenten · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a book which enchanted me years ago, leading me to read parts of it over and over again. A brooding village full of secrets, residents smiling at each other while they schemed. The heirs to a mysterious legacy, one of them falling in love with a beautiful boy learning about his psychic powers while he explores his homoeroticism and past lives. Only to be chased up the stairs, into his room by a monster who’s decided to stalk him, a monster who was also an angel. This monster angel was at the heart of everything, a bad, yet beautiful man capable of healing and harming. Everyone who meets him wants him, is jealous of his attention while he plays with all of them, making them part of his escalating drama, an escalating drama which actually did lead somewhere legendary. I loved how layered his relationship became with everyone in this story, including the boy he chased up the stairs, intent upon making his prey. The dance of predator and prey was complex with everyone, often calling into question whom was the hunter and who was the hunted. Myth and magic is awakened in the village, its secrets rising from the ashes once the right heiress to those secrets awakens it, even if that heiress was at times one of the monster man’s smitten thralls.

I’ve read many a good story over the years by this author in particular. Some are better than others. I never thought this was among the best, but it’s still an amazing tale, one I count among my favorites.

[arjuna · Rating 2 out of 5]

For many years, writers I have respected have talked about Storm Constantine's work very fondly. I went into this with big expectations. Some were met - it's literate, well-thought out, drips with research, and introduces an intriguing universe - but sadly the context, a sort of wearily sex-laden sub-Ricean gothy obsessional riff on ManipulativeAngelBeings was... well, dull. I couldn't bring myself to care an awful lot about the obligatorily Strange And Pretty Teens at the core of the novel; the villain was a lot more interesting, started off brilliantly but was reduced to a 2d fiery penis fairly early on. Well-written, some interesting ideas, but I can't say I see the legend here. I'll try some of her others to be fair, but to my mind this wasn't a promising introduction.

[Julia Phillips · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely brilliant! I never thought I would like a book better than Storm's Wraethhu trilogy, but this did it for me. The story focuses around the nephelim, the offspring of angels and humans, and the angels who 'fell' from heaven. A really imaginative take on the apocryphal Book of Enoch.

The second two volumes in the trilogy easily match the high standard of this first book.

[Michael Feehan · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'm not taking issue with how well the book was written, Ms. Constantine, but my ratings of a book are my feelings about it, not a measure of their literary value and I'm not comfortable with sex under duress.

[Susan Baumgartner · Rating 3 out of 5]

My hubbie talked me into reading this because he liked Storm Constantine and is a big fan of lit that pushes the borders. Even he was disturbed by this one! The most unsettling book I've ever read.

[Anastasia · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was actually really good (much better than I expected), but I got distracted in the middle and didn't finish it.

[Fay]

I first discovered Storm Constantine many years ago, at a time when fantasy fiction badly needed a good boot up the backside. Still love this trilogy.

[Chichi · Rating 5 out of 5]

Mouthwatering...sinfully delicious.yes, I'm describing a book! Always liked tales of the Nephilim/Watchers. I'd definitely go look up more books of hers

[Lib299 · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this series because it is drenched with symbolism, interesting characters, and mythological history.

[Paula Gruben · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of the sexiest stories I've ever read.

[Libby · Rating 5 out of 5]

Dark, weird, sexy...what's not to like??