Between Two Fires by Christopher Buehlman

"The pestilence cooked away pretense and showed people's souls, as surely as it eventually showed their bones." 

While the Black Death stalks Europe, a disgraced knight joins a strange young girl and a wine-sodden priest on a heaven-sent quest. I found this an immensely satisfying read, well-told and moving. The characters are well-developed, the plot compelling, and the writing of the interstitial parts with their Biblical overtone evocative. 

When it begins, you can't tell if the horrors our characters start to hear about are exaggerated Dark Age superstition or supernatural forces until an actual river monster appears, followed soon after by a visitation from a wheezing, bleeding Saint Sebastian. Each chapter is progressively more harrowing as our characters meet a succession of demonic forces and witness the devastation of a plague that makes 2020 seem positively cozy by comparison. 

In a way, the book felt like an Odyssey-inspired video game set in the medieval times, a hellish road trip story with rest stops designed by Hieronymus Bosch. 

-Michael G.