“The Crimson Road” by A. G. Slatter

Yet another wonderful Gothic fantasy from A. G. (aka Angela) Slatter.

As with the other books in Slatter’s Sourdough universe, this one doesn’t require you to have read anything else. Unlike All the Murmuring Bones, The Path of Thorns, and The Briar Book of the Dead, however, I would strongly recommend against starting with this one.

Our protagonist this time is Violet Zennor. She’s been trained since childhood by her horribly abusive father, given all sorts of skills in combat and infiltration (among other things) to prepare for a mission into the Darklands where the Leech Lords (vampires by another name) rule. She thinks she’s gotten out of this when her father dies at the beginning of the book, but for various reasons she ends up going on the mission anyway.

Which brings me to why I recommend against starting with this one, whereas I’ve always felt with the prior three it didn’t matter. Along the way Violet meets Mirin O’Malley, Asher Todd, and Ellie Briar. And while you don’t need to know their respective stories to follow this one, you’re certainly going to get a much, much less rich experience. This is true of her short fiction as well; there are many things from the Sourdough universe short stories that come up in here; for one example, the destruction of the abbey of the Little Sisters of St Florian. I know those are out of print and hard to find - I was able to read them because a friend let me borrow his copies - but good news! Slatter has a compendium of her short fiction coming out soon.

I’ve seen complaints that Mirin, Asher, and Ellie’s appearances were shoehorned fanservice. They kind of are, but here’s the thing about shoehorning: a shoehorn is used to get your foot into your shoe, which is exactly where your foot is supposed to go. It’s obvious that Slatter wanted to include the three of them, and made it happen; that doesn’t mean it’s inappropriate. Their roles in this story fit in perfectly, as far as I’m concerned. And if it’s fanservice, this fan definitely loved the service. I was delighted to see the three of them.

The story was a masterpiece in rising tension. Violet has heard the name “Anchorhold” about some kind of a fiefdom at the far northern end of the Darklands, but knows almost nothing about it. As she travels north, she learns more and more, and the tension rises beautifully. I was holding my breath more and more as things went along. It was a masterpiece as far as I’m concerned.