Will I love Between Two Fires?

The only fantasy book on this list, Between Two Fires, is one of the most haunting and original novels I've ever read.

Set in plague-ravaged medieval France, it blends historical fiction, horror, and dark fantasy into a story that’s both epic and deeply personal. What stayed with me most was the unsettling atmosphere. Every ruined village, abandoned cathedral, and lonely stretch of road carries an almost unbearable sense of dread.

Yet amid the horrors, Christopher Buehlman crafts characters whose courage, sacrifice, and humanity shine through the darkness. The supernatural encounters are genuinely terrifying, but they're balanced by moments of hope,… show more.

Buehlman is an excellent writer - in my opinion he's a cut above the great majority of successful writers out there. I love his prose and the way he animates his story. He's an efficient writer who leans into (wonderful) dialogue to do a lot of the heavy lifting. He can do in 10 words what many writers will waffle for a paragraph to do half as well.

One of the most masterfully-wrought novels I’ve had the pleasure to read.

Here we follow a bitter, veteran knight, Thomas, wounded at the Battle of Crecy and divested of his landholdings, as he leaves behind a life of brigandage in order to deliver a young oddball girl to Avignon.

All the while France descends into chaos, not just because of the bubonic plague, but because the forces of heaven and hell are locked in a battle for the fate of humankind. Freighted with pathos and lyrical in its allegory, this is a novel that will both inspire and terrify you.

My God, this book. This book. It was so unsettling, so eerie, and yet so lyrically deft that I often found my jaw open in wonder. A mediaeval horror set in France during the Black Death, it tells of a young girl who believes she has seen the Angels of God. I picked it up expecting to drag my way through it and instead found it so absorbing and hallucinatory that I couldn’t read it fast enough. Worth noting also that it manages to be both apocalyptic and very funny which is quite a feat!