eBook, 438 pages
English language
Published April 2, 2020 by Amazon.com Services LLC.
His extraordinary debut, Those Across the River, was hailed as “genre-bending Southern horror” (California Literary Review), “graceful [and] horrific” (Patricia Briggs). Now Christopher Buehlman invites readers into an even darker age—one of temptation and corruption, of war in heaven, and of hell on earth…
And Lucifer said: “Let us rise against Him now in all our numbers, and pull the walls of heaven down…”
The year is 1348. Thomas, a disgraced knight, has found a young girl alone in a dead Norman village. An orphan of the Black Death, and an almost unnerving picture of innocence, she tells Thomas that plague is only part of a larger cataclysm—that the fallen angels under Lucifer are rising in a second war on heaven, and that the world of men has fallen behind the lines of conflict.
Is it delirium or is it faith? She believes she has seen the …
His extraordinary debut, Those Across the River, was hailed as “genre-bending Southern horror” (California Literary Review), “graceful [and] horrific” (Patricia Briggs). Now Christopher Buehlman invites readers into an even darker age—one of temptation and corruption, of war in heaven, and of hell on earth…
And Lucifer said: “Let us rise against Him now in all our numbers, and pull the walls of heaven down…”
The year is 1348. Thomas, a disgraced knight, has found a young girl alone in a dead Norman village. An orphan of the Black Death, and an almost unnerving picture of innocence, she tells Thomas that plague is only part of a larger cataclysm—that the fallen angels under Lucifer are rising in a second war on heaven, and that the world of men has fallen behind the lines of conflict.
Is it delirium or is it faith? She believes she has seen the angels of God. She believes the righteous dead speak to her in dreams. And now she has convinced the faithless Thomas to shepherd her across a depraved landscape to Avignon. There, she tells Thomas, she will fulfill her mission: to confront the evil that has devastated the earth, and to restore to this betrayed, murderous knight the nobility and hope of salvation he long abandoned.
As hell unleashes its wrath, and as the true nature of the girl is revealed, Thomas will find himself on a macabre battleground of angels and demons, saints, and the risen dead, and in the midst of a desperate struggle for nothing less than the soul of man.
3,5 I love religious themes The book is pretty fun even though the plot can get slow at times There were a couple of things that sit with me but in general it was okay
3,5 I love religious themes The book is pretty fun even though the plot can get slow at times There were a couple of things that sit with me but in general it was okay
I've enjoyed both of the other books I've read by this author, but left this one sitting quite a while. I wasn't sure I'd dig it, what with the clearly heavy religious themes. The first page or two was quite Bible-like, and I struggled a bit, but I was soon immersed in the story and raced through. Like his other books, quite graphic and at times pretty unsettling, with deft writing, flawed and compelling characters, and touches of black humor. The religious aspect, while of course Catholic in name (it's Black Plague era France, after all) is treated with a lens that sort of blurs together the sardonic and the creepily supernatural, which was fine by me. There's some queer content (His books typically have a straight protagonist, usually male, but women and queer people exist and are fully realized characters). A good read.
I've enjoyed both of the other books I've read by this author, but left this one sitting quite a while. I wasn't sure I'd dig it, what with the clearly heavy religious themes. The first page or two was quite Bible-like, and I struggled a bit, but I was soon immersed in the story and raced through. Like his other books, quite graphic and at times pretty unsettling, with deft writing, flawed and compelling characters, and touches of black humor. The religious aspect, while of course Catholic in name (it's Black Plague era France, after all) is treated with a lens that sort of blurs together the sardonic and the creepily supernatural, which was fine by me. There's some queer content (His books typically have a straight protagonist, usually male, but women and queer people exist and are fully realized characters). A good read.
Really enjoyed this book
Dark, creative fantasy/horror set in France during the height of the plague. Every chapter is a bounty of supernatural horror as well as the terrors of desperate people surviving in times of insane loss and death. Extremely well-crafted. The tight writing is lit up by sharp historical details and believable, relatable characters. Highly recommended for horror fans as well as fans of a high-resolution medieval set piece.
