• The Wolf Gift

  • The Wolf Gift Chronicles (1)
  • By: Anne Rice
  • Narrated by: Ron McLarty
  • Length: 17 hrs and 18 mins
  • 4.2 out of 5 stars (2,219 ratings)

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The Wolf Gift  By  cover art

The Wolf Gift

By: Anne Rice
Narrated by: Ron McLarty
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Publisher's summary

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • “Vintage Anne Rice—a lushly written, gothic … metaphysical tale. This time, with werewolves.” —The Wall Street Journal

A daring new departure from the inspired creator of The Vampire Chronicles (“unrelentingly erotic . . . unforgettable”—The Washington Post), Lives of the Mayfair Witches (“Anne Rice will live on through the ages of literature”—San Francisco Chronicle), and the angels of The Songs of the Seraphim (“remarkable”—Associated Press). A whole new world—modern, sleek, high-tech—and at its center, a story as old and compelling as history: the making of a werewolf, reimagined and reinvented as only Anne Rice, teller of mesmerizing tales, conjurer extraordinaire of other realms, could create.

The time is the present.

The place, the rugged coast of Northern California. A bluff high above the Pacific. A grand mansion full of beauty and tantalizing history set against a towering redwood forest.

A young reporter on assignment from the San Francisco Observer . . . An older woman welcoming him into her magnificent family home that he has been sent to write about and that she must sell with some urgency . . . A chance encounter between two unlikely people . . . An idyllic night—shattered by horrific unimaginable violence, the young man inexplicably attacked—bitten—by a beast he cannot see in the rural darkness . . . A violent episode that sets in motion a terrifying yet seductive transformation, as the young man, caught between ecstasy and horror, between embracing who he is evolving into and fearing what he will become, soon experiences the thrill of the wolf gift.

As he resists the paradoxical pleasure and enthrallment of his wolfen savagery and delights in the power and (surprising) capacity for good, he is caught up in a strange and dangerous rescue and is desperately hunted as “the Man Wolf” by authorities, the media, and scientists (evidence of DNA threatens to reveal his dual existence) . . . As a new and profound love enfolds him, questions emerge that propel him deeper into his mysterious new world: questions of why and how he has been given this gift; of its true nature and the curious but satisfying pull towards goodness; of the profound realization that there may be others like him who are watching—guardian creatures who have existed throughout time who possess ancient secrets and alchemical knowledge. And throughout it all, the search for salvation for a soul tormented by a new realm of temptations, and the fraught, exhilarating journey, still to come, of being and becoming, fully, both wolf and man.

©2012 Anne Rice (P)2012 Listening Library

Critic reviews

“Rice weaves her trademark meditations on the role of supernatural creatures in society into an often thrilling, page-turning yarn.” (Booklist)

The Wolf Gift is vintage Anne Rice—a lushly written, gothic…metaphysical tale. This time, with werewolves.” (The Wall Street Journal)

“Rice has never shied away from tackling Big Issues…The Wolf Gift marks a return to form while still giving a nod to spiritual matters…[A] delectable cocktail of old-fashioned lost-race adventure, shape-shifting and suspense.” (Elizabeth Hand, The Washington Post)

Featured Article: No Full Moon Needed—Here Are the 20 Best Werewolf Audiobooks to Listen to Right Now


Tired of listening to stories about humans? Consider the werewolf! Taking various forms over the course of centuries and mythologies, often as flesh-devourers, werewolves now commonly appear in fantasy and romance novels as shape-shifters. The shape-shifting element in werewolves' stories has almost humanized them, depicting the internal struggles we all face within ourselves, on some level or another.

What listeners say about The Wolf Gift

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Awesome

If you could sum up The Wolf Gift in three words, what would they be?

Intertaining , fun , mysterious

Who was your favorite character and why?

Felix , Mysterious , gentle & kind

What does Ron McLarty bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?

It was just nice to sit back close my eyes and drift along with the story.

Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?

helping for the defenceless

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3 people found this helpful

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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Classic Rice!!!

The audio version of The Wolf Gift prodives the listener with the unique talents of Ron McLarty and you're instantly transported deep into the story. I forgot where I was! After what was to me a brief stumbling start, the story takes off and had me hooked for two solid days with infrequent breaks. This is classic Ann Rice and the book leaves you just wanting more!

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3 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars
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    2 out of 5 stars

Dull Writing

Another fan of Anne Rice's vampire and witch series here. Despite the negative reviews, I wanted to give this new mythology a chance. The overarching story is interesting, but the writing was sooooo boring and drawn out. Tons of philosophizing and ruminating. While there were a few moments where the story picked up and got interesting, it would quickly descend back into yawnsville. I muscled through it, but it was a struggle. Too bad because I otherwise would be interested to know more about the older generation wolf men.

My two cents on a few things:
- Many reviews referenced that the entire book was overfilled with sex and food. I found this odd because it only mentions sex happening and food being eaten a few times and not in any detail.
- One reviewer mentioned how weird it was that the MC's car was constantly and only referred to as "the Porsche." This is completely true, totally weird, and kind of dbaggy.
- I personally wasn't a fan of the narrator. He has a nice enough, though slightly congested, voice but didn't feel like a good fit for most of the story (I believe he was in the late 60's at the recording). The book follows the MC, a 23 year old man, includes a lot of his inner dialogue, plus many of the characters are relatively young, so the narrator's old man, staid voice took me out of the story.

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2 people found this helpful

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    5 out of 5 stars
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Love Anne Rice

I have read this book half a dozen times and purchased this audio version. what can I say? Just wonderful.

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    4 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

A brief review, by a fan.

i think maybe my expectations were too high. don't misunderstand, i did enjoy this book. it started out great but then it fell for quite a while. this however won't deter me from buying the next book in this series and having high expectations once again. i love Ann Rice and have faith in her abilities as a writer to paint a beautiful and exciting world in which I can fall in love with her werewolves much as i did her vampires. All things considered, this was a good read.

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    2 out of 5 stars
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    1 out of 5 stars

Profundity missed

What disappointed you about The Wolf Gift?

Lofty philosophical dialogs were not engaging, somewhat pretentious.

What could Anne Rice have done to make this a more enjoyable book for you?

A better story line with more diverse action.

How did the narrator detract from the book?

Narrator was good.

If you could play editor, what scene or scenes would you have cut from The Wolf Gift?

Condensing much of the tedious and long winded passages would help.

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Surprisingly good !

I don't usually read books by Anne Rice because I'm not much into vampire readings. THIS book is VERY good ! Excellent job with story line as well as an extremely good narrator. Hard to put down so to speak but Ron McLarty had me listening well into the night. Would love to hear more of this story.

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Sumptuous!

My hunger for Rice's images - sights, sounds, smells - and characters of pure psycho emotional conflicted flesh, lured me to The Wolf's table starved, deprived. The Wolf Gift is a lavish feast for those of us who love her writing. This was my first Audible of a Rice novel and HEARING The Wolf Gift may have mutated my dorsal root gangilon. Needless to say I'm downloading her other Audible books starting now.

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    4 out of 5 stars
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First time reader surprised how good it turned out to be

This was my first Anne Rice book, recommended by a friend with no set up on what it might be like. Overall I was thrilled by the story. The author’s detailed descriptions get a little long winded sometimes, and her style is different than others I have read. Regardless I purchased the second book upon completing this one.

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    5 out of 5 stars
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Excellent listen

A much more visceral story by Anne Rice and I believe one of her more finer works because it pulls toward action and adventure yet leaves that area of intrigue. it opened a new kind of chapter into as some would call it her immortal universe. no mention of vampires or any other kind of mythical creature are stated in this book. I would have liked to hear that part where she at least mentioned that the vampires, which is, and any other type of undead are all tied in some strange way but I didn't hear that and in all honesty that would have to be the one and only disappointing factor in this book. overall though this was an excellent story and the one who read the story had the proper inflection of speech and was able to convey the story in a way that made it very enjoyable to listen to.

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