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Between Two Fires - May 2026 Book Club Reading

Falselogic

Falselogic

Lapsed Threadcromancer
(they/them)
Between Two Fires is a work of historical horror fiction written by Christopher Buehlman in 2012. The book follows a disgraced knight and the mysterious girl he saves as they travel across France during the Black Death. They encounter demons, angels, and others in their journey to Avignon. The book is a mix of historical fiction, biblical fantasy, and grimdark horror.

Christopher Buehlman is an American novelist, comedian, playwright, and poet from Florida. He is a Bridport Prize winner and his work has been nominated for a World Fantasy Award and a Shirley Jackson Award. He spent 25 years touring Ren Faires as a performer, the character 'Christophe the Insultor," where attendees paid him to insult/roast their friends.
 
Did not realize how close we were to the end of the month, dang. I've put a hold on this, I am not a horror fan but will give this a try.
 
Even though this apparently came out in 2012, my library just bought copies 10 days ago. Realistically that means it probably won't be in for another couple of months; I'll put in a hold and hope for the best. Not sure if this is my thing either but I'll give it a shot.
 
I liked the other two Buehlman books I read, and I've been meaning to check this one out anyway. I guess I gotta finish my other book fast... Or just put it on hold for a bit.
 
lincolnic said:
Even though this apparently came out in 2012, my library just bought copies 10 days ago. Realistically that means it probably won't be in for another couple of months; I'll put in a hold and hope for the best. Not sure if this is my thing either but I'll give it a shot.
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This is likely because (coincidentally?) Between Two Fires was reissued earlier this year. The new edition has a brief foreword by Joe Hill.

I'm not much of a horror reader, either, but I've been enjoying how this year's books have expanded my horizons a bit, so I'll give it a good try. Have heard good things about this one, from "Willow Reads Books" among others.
 
IIRC some one recommended this book to me as 'you like Dark Souls? You should read this!'
 
Rosewood said:
This is likely because (coincidentally?) Between Two Fires was reissued earlier this year. The new edition has a brief foreword by Joe Hill.
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That'd explain it, then! Still, weird that they don't have any copies of the original.

Falselogic said:
IIRC some one recommended this book to me as 'you like Dark Souls? You should read this!'
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Okay, this piques my interest a bit more.
 
Yeah, my library has a single copy (of the reissue) and I'm 26th in line so maybe I'll get to this next year...
 
Started on the book this morning and am close to 50 pages in. Compared to the rather dense prose of The God of Small Things, this is quite a pacey read, almost light novel-like in the amount of dialogue.

When I hear that a book has witty banter, I'm ready to cringe, but this ain't bad at all. The thus-far unnamed child gives as good as she gets with her adult traveling companion, but she grew up literate and her dad was a lawyer, so I'll accept that.
 
Okay, I am now second in line for holds at the library on this one. It's looking promising that I'll get it before the long Memorial Day weekend and can join this month...
 
I'm near the end. The writing in here is quite catching at times. And almost every time the supernatural or paranormal is described here I find myself asking is from some real folklore or story? Or just from the author's office? The Middle Ages are wild enough and that tales that have come down to us from them can also be pretty crazy...
 
I bought the ebook but my kindle seems to have died. But also let's be real I'm shit at sitting down to read these days, so I'm gonna have to come back to this one when my brain isn't mush. But I will come back to it!
 
Violentvixen said:
Okay, I am now second in line for holds at the library on this one. It's looking promising that I'll get it before the long Memorial Day weekend and can join this month...
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Still second in line so nope. I'll come back here whenever it does show up.

I did go through and check my library for the rest of the books to get in line for any other popular ones, and everything except Chain Gang All-Stars didn't have anyone in line. I've already read it but would recommend others take a look at their library for that book and potentially get in line now.
 
Finito! Since most people here seem to not have been able to get hold of the book, I'll talk about it very generally.

Grimdark or horror is close to the bottom of genres I enjoy, and I ended up liking this quite a lot. The central trio were fun to follow, and their dialogue was snappy and insightful. Though thinking back on it, a couple of them were NPCs, more or less, in the sense of not being much different at the end of the story than they were when the reader first meets them.

The battles were great, with ridiculously high stakes, at times. On most occasions, I couldn't care less about battle scenes in pop media, so that's a huge mark in its favor.

In Terry Pratchett's Pyramids, I believe, the idea is brought forward that believing in (for example) a huge dung beetle rolling the sun across the sky is very different thing than such a thing existing visibly in the universe. This novel plays with that idea in that there's a literal war in progress between Hell and Heaven, and God has turned His back on His beloved creations, humans. Buehlman did a fantastic job showing how helpless humans would be in the face of that. The monster battle fairly early on was quite cool, too.

The second half was rather slow going, for me, between "things going on" at home and it mostly being setup for the final confrontation, but the denouement and epilogue had this ex-Catholic crying a couple of real tears.

There are a couple of elements I'd love to talk about more once others have finished the book.
 
My library and apps only have The Great Passage in Spanish, for some reason, but I was able to get it in ebook from Amazon for a modest price.
 
I finished it as well. I think my favorite vignette from the book is:
Paris and the statues of Saints and such from churches are strolling the streets at night abducting and murdering people. Truly horrifying and created such images in my head.

I really did end up enjoying Thomas, Delphine and Matthieu.
And found it quite sad when Matthieu passed. I thought all 3 of them would make it. The ending is great and such a different conclusion than they one you would assume, but is completely aligned with the themes of the book.
 
It's been a couple weeks since I read the part about Paris. I agree that was very cool.

The fight against the river monster, and the battle between the devils and the angel about midway through the book. I really felt that it was a battle between titanic forces that humans could only witness in awe and terror.

I didn't feel much when Matthieu died, tbh. Maybe because throughout, I got the impression that no one Thomas and Delphine met was safe, so it wasn't a shock. I also grumped about the only gay central character being the one who died, "kill your gays" style.

It was kind of cool that Mammon ended up being king of Hell, as the world makes its way closer to the Renaissance and the birth of capitalism. A bit on the nose, too.

Thomas being forgiven and saved from the jaws of Hell was powerful for me. It made it hit even more strongly that God, Heaven, Hell, miracles, and so on, were real, observable and terriffic in this version of our world, even if most of the people involved aside from Thomas were able to forget everything afterwards.
 
Finally got my copy from the library. I'm hoping to read it over the July 4th weekend and report back. I won't be able to renew since a ton of other people have it on hold too but seems like it's not a very slow read based on what people here are saying.
 
Ended up having a bit more free time than expected these last few days and finished it. I'm another person who is not a huge fan of horror so this wasn't something I'd normally pick up. I got a bit tired of all the gore and death but the setting and whole idea was really unique. Glad I read it, but it's still a genre I find tough to get into.

Falselogic said:
I finished it as well. I think my favorite vignette from the book is:
Paris and the statues of Saints and such from churches are strolling the streets at night abducting and murdering people. Truly horrifying and created such images in my head.
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Yeah this whole sequence was really well done, especially the "help my baby" creepiness
 
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