50 pages 1 hour read

Christopher Buehlman

Between Two Fires

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2012

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Part 1Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Part 1, Interlude Summary

Content Warning: This source material contains sexual assault and the threat of sexual assault on minors, as well as alcohol addiction and extreme instances of body horror. It also depicts societal anti-gay bias and antisemitism.

Heaven’s angels try to look after humanity while God is preoccupied elsewhere. Meanwhile, the fallen angels send a famine and war to Earth. When God does not intercede, they decide to try to take their power back from heaven. Lucifer sends a plague to wipe out humanity in 1348.

Part 1, Chapter 1 Summary: “Of the Donkey”

Four soldiers (later revealed to be thieves) rest in a barn, where they kill a donkey to eat. As they eat, a young girl tells them that they are eating her donkey, Parsnip. Godefroy, the leader of the group, tells her she can eat with them. The girl, named Delphine, knows that the soldiers may rape her, but an angel told her to come to the barn. She asks the men to help her bury her father. One of the soldiers, Thomas, tells her to go back to the house. Godefroy grabs Delphine, but Thomas steps in between them, and Delphine escapes. One of the other men, Jacquot, catches Delphine and carries her back to the barn.