An excellent historical fiction/horror novel in the vein of Between Two Fires.

This is my first time reading Giles Kristian's work, though he's been on my radar for a while. I'm not usually one to read short stories or novellas, I really prefer historical fiction and fantasy and they tend to be doorstoppers more often than not. But every once in a while I want to read something shorter, something I can get through in a day instead of a few weeks, and Hellmouth was excellent for that.

Hellmouth starts as a fairly standard medieval mercenary story, but Kristian subtly starts building tension about a third of the way through and by the climax of the novel it's full-blown horror. Books, as a rule, don't scare me, but this one did a great job building the tension and a real sense of uneasiness. I would definitely read a longer story set around these characters, and this story has made me want to take a deeper look at Giles Kristian.