Between Two Fires

We Didn't Start The Fire, It Was Always Burning Since The World's Been Turning

Man, I love Halloween.

Not so much the spooky side, mind you, but the joyous.

You know, the candlelight, the air of celebration as we collectively revel in Autumn's harvest. All that good stuff.

Still, every once in awhile I've been known to pick up a "spooky book" but I'm notoriously picky in that regard.

You see, I'm not a fan of horror in general, but every now and then one comes along thats trying to be more than a nihilistic murder fantasy and what can I say? Sometimes when it's done right that just candies my corn.

I Can Hear This Image

So, is Between Two Fires one of those stories?

Uh...kinda?

I was immediately grabbed by the cover with its stark red background and Gothic lettering joined by a cryptic skeleton-knight and blackened edges on its pages. My curiosity was piqued still further by finding a scene of the danse macabre on the inside cover.

It billed itself as a medieval horror fantasy but what does that even mean?

Unsure, I managed to hold off on buying this one for several trips to Barnes and Noble but finally my curiosity got the better of me.

Book purchased. Game on.

Right off the bat I'll admit to being a sucker for this setting.

Landing smack dab in the middle of both the Hundred Years War and Black Death we find our thug-turned-hero, Thomas, who is revealed to have been at the battle of Crecy (a personal favorite of mine) and possesses a heart of gold. His gruff, jaded attitude is just what you'd expect given the setting and his history as a character, and when fate pairs him with a cryptic little girl and a priest of questionsble sobriety it all fits together as smoothly as a duck to water.

Ironically though it is this strong characterization that also starts causing trouble once the story gets going.

You see, the little girl is innocent. Precious. A flower as yet untouched by the filth surrounding her.

She can also peer into the hearts of men and view their sins as well as witnessing the very real war between heaven and hell that's actually causing the plague. Yes you read that right.

Now here's the kicker. Both Thomas and the priest are understandably skeptical of her repeated claims to see things that aren't there but they take FOREVER to finally understand that she actually CAN.

Like, look I get it. There's a war on. People were acting crazy BEFORE a devastating plague ravaged their lives. You've got a lot going on so maybe you do manage to write off her knowing people's names before they introduced themselves as just "odd."

The problem comes when increasingly weirder shit starts happening and you keep brushing off the blatantly supernatural as merely a wild dream- not out of denial or anything, but because you're apparently an idiot. Yet even the most thick headed morons can eventually surmise fire is hot. Repetition breeds understanding after all, but Thomas and the priest refuse to do so.

Dont get me wrong- if a little girl you'd never met told you that if you chose to walk out of the front door of your house instead of the garage a midget would whack you in the dick with a wiffle ball bat you'd be forgiven for being skeptical. Who wouldn't be? If it actually happened you'd probably have some questions, though, wouldn't you? Now imagine it happened three times in a row. At what point is the pain on you, you know? Like at some point no ones going to have sympathy for you after you drag your aching nuts to urgent care is all I'm saying.

And this happens at nauseum, dear reader.

Within the first 100 pages I had already burned through my apportioned suspension of disbelief.

Oh, no a scary scene! Oh, no another scary scene! Oh, no are we doing this again? Really? So soon?

Every night demons do some spooky bullshit that gets dispelled with the dawn to the point I wonder why our protagonists even bother doing anything at night. Or, if they do, why arent they on alert for said spooky bullshit?

As odd as it sounds you really can only meet someone you later find out was dead so many times before it becomes a little blasé.

This brings us to the pacing.

Oh, the pacing.

Again, we start out strong. There's intrigue and the setting is grim. Perfect.

Then we get to the rest of it.

The middle sags, plain and simple. There’s no sense of progression on where we are, how far we've come or how far left we have to go.

Then suddenly about three quarters of the way through the book an invisible switch is flipped and we are seemingly teleported through the countryside to speed run our third act.

Now I get that sounds like a recipe for an utter dog shit ending but oddly enough this was actually my favorite part of the book.

Yes spooky stuff is happening but whereas before it was just edgy window dressing here it's actually mixed in with the plot in a direct and meaningful sense. Without wishing to spoil: the ending actually pays off, we experience catharsis, and get a satisfying closure of the story.

So, is Between Two Fires good? I mean it's not bad.

I've seen people online stating this book changed their lives forever but I found it relatively bland to be honest. Yes it could be shocking at times but too often that shock value wore out it's welcome and I was left with characters being vulgar for vulgarities sake. And that's boring.

So, that all being said, do I recommend Between Two Fires?

Let me put it this way: no, but I wouldn't recommend you don't read it either.

It's got it's issues, sure, but it's also got its strengths.

I don't get the hype, understand the hate, and in the end I'm honestly just perplexed on how people managed to form such strong emotions for it either way.

To me, however, this book was what it's own characters experienced all too often, dear reader: a disturbing vision that couldn't survive the light of day.

Do with that information what you will, and have a Happy Halloween!

Until next time.