Between Two Fires is a real achievement by Buehlman I’m definitely checking out his other novels now.His extraordinary debut, Those Across the River, was hailed as 'genre-bending Southern horror' (California Literary Review), 'graceful and] horrific' (Patricia Briggs). That is all He wants of you.Ībsolutely magnificent.

There’s a line towards the end of the book that made me put my copy down and clutch at my heart:įorget Hell and love one another. But there’s also a space for real grace and beauty and humanity in the story, too, which is what makes it so damned effective.

And it’s bleak and crude and unrepentantly earthy and does real justice to the apocalyptic environment in Europe in the grip of the Black Death it’s one of the most honest pieces of historical fiction I can remember reading in a long time. The cosmic stakes of Between Two Fires make it terrifying beyond anything–and you’ll probably find it the same if, like me, you were raised Catholic, because the villains of medieval theology that are at play here are the boogeymen they still use to scare the hell out of Catholic kids. The monsters in this book are monsters, the insane unthinkable creatures you might see populating the margins of a manuscript conjured up by some bored bloodthirsty scribe, except real. It takes a lot to make me genuinely freaked out these days, but last night, when I was halfway through the book, I was afraid to turn the lights off and go to bed. Making it to Avignon becomes her quest, and along the way, she picks up Thomas, a knight and a veteran of Crécy turned brigand, and Père Matthieu, a gay alcoholic priest, and the novel becomes a sort of Canterbury Tales-made-demonic-and-horrifying.Īnd I mean horrifying. They tell her that there is a new war between angels and devils afoot, and the corrupted heart of evil is in Avignon, the seat of the papacy post-Western Schism. It follows a peasant girl Delphine, who has shades of Joan of Arc she speaks to angels and angels speak to her. It’s the most mindbending piece of theological horror I’ve ever read, and I adore theological horror.

This book was absolutely demented and, as I gave it five stars, I clearly mean that in the best way possible.īetween Two Fires is set in 1348 in Black Death-ravaged France, but it’s not a straightforward historical. Book Review: Between Two Fires, by Christopher Buehlmanīetween Two Fires, by Christopher Buehlman

Between two fires horror