The Red Winter By Cameron Sullivan – Hard Cover

Description

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 Gvaudan 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 his indwelling demon, Sarmodel who takes payment in living hearts it nearly cost him his life to bring the monster down.

Now, two decades later, Sebastian has been recalled to the hunt by Antoine Avenel dOcerne, 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.

But Gvaudan is not as he remembers it, and Sebastians unfinished business is everywhere he looks. Years of misery have driven the people to desperation, and France teeters on the edge of revolution. Sebastians arcane activities not to mention his demonic counterpart have also attracted the inquisitorial eye of the French clergy. And the Beast is poised to close his jaws around them all and plunge the continent into war.

Debut author Cameron Sullivan tears the heart out of history with this darkly entertaining retelling of the hunt for the Beast of Gvaudan. Lifting the veil on the hidden world behind our own, it reimagines the story of Europe, from Imperial Rome to Saint Jehanne dArc, the madness of Gilles de Rais and the first flickers of the French Revolution.