THE RED WINTER by Cameron Sullivan (BOOK REVIEW)
A devastating love story. A bewitching twist on history. A blood-drenched hunt for purpose, power and redemption.
In 1785, Professor Sebastian Grave receives the news he fears most: the terrible Beast of Gévaudan has returned, and the French countryside runs red in its wake. Sebastian knows the Beast. A monster-slayer with centuries of experience, he joined the hunt for the creature twenty years ago and watched it slaughter its way through a long and bloody winter. Even with the help of Sarmodel, the demon he plays host to, bringing the monster down nearly cost him his life.
Now, two decades later, Sebastian has been recalled to the hunt by Antoine Avenel d’Ocerne, an estranged lover who shares a dark history with the Beast and a terrible secret with Sebastian. Drawn by both the chance to finish the Beast for good and the promise of a reconciliation with Antoine, Sebastian cannot refuse.
Some monsters, it seems, simply won’t stay buried.
Historic fantasy may be my new favourite sub-genre. Combined with the glorious amount of gothic appearing recently, diving into a time when the worries of the world were somewhat simpler – disease, famine, big hungry monsters – makes for an interesting sort of escapism!If I were to pick one word to describe The Red Winter, it would be ‘sassy’. Protagonist Sebastian tells a delightful story that isn’t afraid to shy away from the dark reality of the world he’s living through, and the humorous footnotes scattered throughout are as laugh-out-loud-inspiring as Terry Pratchett.
However, this isn’t a comedy book – far from it. This is the tale of a semi-immortal man and his companion-demon remembering a time so far removed from the modern world that it might as well be a fantasy. Yet it all happened, lives were lost (perhaps unnecessarily) and guilt is hard to live with when you’re hundreds of years old.
Plunging us back into (just) pre-revolutionary France, we’re taken on a reluctant journey to discover the origins of the Beast of Gévaudan that’s terrorising the countryside. This is a real historical legend that’s being explored and it’s absolutely fascinating, while remaining very human.
The time-jumps in the story as Sebastian tells of his first encounter with the Beast while facing the second are seamless, flowing together beautifully. Together with interjections from a very different outside perspective, we gradually learn the full story, with all of its love, passion, anger and sorrow.
As well as monsters, the book has class politics, family disputes, religious dilemmas and the subsequent fading of magic from the world. There’s a thread of deep angst that runs through the tale as Sebastian mourns what is lost that could have been saved, were it not for the harshness of the world as it becomes more ‘civilised’. The ongoing battle between demons and angels affects us all, and not in the way that you might expect.
Everything is beautifully drawn, with many moments of genuine emotion and darkness gently offset by humour. A large book, this was nevertheless a real pleasure to read – and I was lucky enough to acquire the audio version as well, which means I’m revisiting it already, literally being narrated!
A definite recommend for those who enjoy epic fantasy that remembers what it is to be a human.
The Red Winter is out now from Tor, you can order your copy on Bookshop.org
