Between Two Fires

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 ageone 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 cataclysmthat 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. Review ''Having made a huge bloody splash with Those across the River , Buehlman returns with a book set in 1348 Europe . . . It's intriguing that Buehlman has leapt so far from the mid-century Southern setting of his first novel, just as intriguing that he's also an award-winning poet. Expect demand.'' -- Library Journal About the Author CHRISTOPHER BUEHLMAN is a writer and performer from St. Petersburg, Florida. The winner of the 2007 Bridport Prize for poetry, he is also the author of several plays and the acclaimed horror novel Those Across the River . He lives with his wife and his rescued dog, Duck. “Buehlman...slips effortlessly into a different kind of literary sensibility, one that doesn’t scrimp on earthy humor and lyrical writing in the face of unspeakable horrors.”* The year is 1348. Thomas, a disgraced knight, has found an orphan of the Black Death in a Norman village. An almost unnerving picture of innocence, she tells Thomas that the plague is only part of a larger cataclysm—that the fallen angels under Lucifer are rising in a second war on Heaven. But is it delirium or is it faith? She believes she has seen the angels of God. She believes the dead speak to her in dreams. And now she has convinced the faithless Thomas to shepherd her across an apocalyptic landscape to Avignon. There, she tells Thomas, she will fulfill her mission. There her true nature will be revealed. And there Thomas will confront an evil wrestling for the throne of Heaven, and which has poisoned his own soul. *Kirkus Reviews In 1348, after a young girl left orphaned by the Black Death predicts a coming apocalypse, Thomas, a disgraced knight, finds himself in the middle of a second war on heaven as angels fight demons