Sophia Rousseau, a lamia (or snake-woman) who feeds on the creative energies of brilliant artists, plays the formidable femme fatale in this tepid revamp of Monteleone’s 1986 horror novel, Lyrica
. When workmen in Sicily accidentally release her from beneath the altar stone that’s imprisoned her for centuries, Sophia trades her snake skin for alluring human form and works her way to America, where she takes the modeling and theater worlds by storm and prepares an assault on Hollywood. Sophia’s supernatural seductions intertwine with accounts of her historical conquests (including Mozart, van Gogh, Keats and other doomed artists) and the research of Matthew Cavendish, a paranormal investigator who’s caught her scent and is determined to end her unholy life. Though Monteleone gives some depth to Sophia, virtually all of the book’s other characters are two-dimensional lamia fodder, especially Cavendish, who seems to exist largely to dispense information about Sophia’s nature and vulnerabilities. A jury-rigged finale and anticlimactic epilogue end the novel without really concluding it. (July)
