Tanith Lee 
Book of the Beast 

In a city imbued with dark fantasy and gothic horror, an ancient curse transforms the lives of all it touches The city known by three names—Paradys, Paradise, and Paradis—conceals many strange stories. In the second volume of the Secret Books of Paradys, young scholar Raoulin has just moved to Paradys to study at the university. He lodges at the once noble, now decrepit House d’Uscaret, a place he knows is haunted from the moment he arrives. There, Raoulin is frequented by the mysterious and beautiful phantom of a young bride with wide-set emerald eyes, and as he is drawn toward her, he realizes that his every action skirts the border of reality and dream. Soon, the voluptuous ghost has infected him with the curse of the Beast—a horrific amalgam of bird, lizard, and man that has preyed on the city’s inhabitants for centuries.   Past and present are irrevocably intertwined in this horrifyingly lush tome, in which author Tanith Lee plunges the reader into the lore and monstrosities of an alternate Paris: the lurid and infamous Paradys.