Between Two Fires by Christopher Buehlman

"And the dead stood with the living, and the living knew it not."

I heard Mr Buehlman being interviewed on our public radio station, WYSO's program "The Book Nook".  I don't think they were talking about this book - but then, I don't know which book they were discussing.  What I picked up on was that Buehlman wrote horror.  I read horror.  That was enough.  The host did mention this title, I know, because I wrote it down on a piece of paper I had in my car.  

"Daughter witch page saint prophet angel what are you what are you You

Delphine

'What are you?' he said.

'Two things, I think.  but soon I'll be just one.'"

This tale is the epitome of good vs evil in that the conflict is directed by fallen angels against god's creation of men on earth.  Monsters, demons, even wine making zombies at one point.  This immense and widely disseminated evil must be combatted by an excommunicated knight, a priest who lost his flock after falling in love with a young man, and an orphaned teenaged girl who might be an angel - all during the black plague in France.  I'm bouncing between listening to it on audio - which is a fabulous way to hear the names pronounced appropriately - you know, Frenchly - and reading a hardback copy.  I borrowed both from the library - though I will be buying a copy or three to share at Christmas.  (In the past I've suggested many reasons you might be pleased you've not married me - but it is a good thing to be my friend.)

"...she went to a corner and sobbed until she washed the whites out of her eyes."

Beyond amazing mosters and great sadness the book has humor...dark humor.

"His translation of news from home gave them a taste of Florentine dark humor; the mass graves, with their layers of bodies, lime, and dirt, had insired less reverential Tuscans to say the dead had 'gone to the lasagna.'"


"and ... drank the wine, sweet from its late harvest, and with just a hint of something

            dead feet corpses' feet

else."

 Though there is no laughing in Hell.

"They took his humor from him not because they themselves were humorless--they most certainly were not--but because it so offended them that man had been give laughter, too."

What a brilliant observation (or expectation?) of how fallen angels would treat souls in hell!  I love this pettiness.  It feels so right.



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