Immortality has a notable side effect. As the world changes, as empires rise and fall, immortals come to know one another, even cloaked in different names and faces. Spirits, angels and demons strive for power, taking it from one another since time immemorial. But what of the mortal world? And the mortal victims cut down by immortals’ endless rampage? It never goes well for them. It’s a tale as old as time and, in Cameron Sullivan’s atmospheric, dark and moving The Red Winter, red as blood.
Sebastian Grave is what you might call a specialist. A monster hunter, a magician and an expert in all types of spirits and entities that mortals cannot see, he really is the perfect person to receive a report that the Beast of Gévaudan has returned. The memory of his first encounter with the Beast 20 years prior haunts him still. The little village in Western France was stricken by the Beast’s onslaught, the winter snow red with its victims. Though the first hunt nearly killed him, Sebastian knows he now has to find a way to finish the Beast once and for all . . . especially since he is responsible for its return.
For all its gothic presence, its fascinating confluence of history and religion, and its clever framing, The Red Winter reads beautifully; Sullivan’s writing is consistently high caliber. He writes of malevolent spirits, violent gods, blood pacts, demonic possession and silver bullets with bountiful gravitas. Yes, this werewolf-hunting adventure story is horrific and brutal, but at no point will you want it to stop. It has a possessing quality, a plot that pulls you along as it jumps between time periods, slowly and patiently revealing more of Sebastian’s past. Also noteworthy are the often hilarious footnotes left by a future Sebastian as he compiles this tale into a memoir, which provide welcome moments of levity that keep the tone from becoming oppressive.
The Red Winter is sure to awaken a hunger in lovers of gothic horror or those looking for a darker shade of historical fantasy. This desire to consume should be a familiar one to rabid readers. We rush ever on, devouring pages and absorbing a story’s magic until it’s a part of us and, like Sebastian, it’s a labor of love.
