finished reading

This book is not my usual fare.  I don't recall where the recommendation originated.  Historical horror, medieval quests, dark fantasy, I'm trying to think what other genres I would use.  The description was compelling, the writing is amazingly good, the story is gruesomely detailed, and I could not put it down!  But what the hell?  Or what the heaven?  (If you read it, you'll understand.)

Set during the Black Death in 14th-century France, where disgraced, excommunicated knight, Thomas, lives as a brigand, escorts a mysterious young girl, Delphine, across a plague-ridden landscape to Avignon as fallen angels wage a second war against Heaven. Along their journey, they are joined by Father Matthieu, a guilt-ridden, alcoholic priest who finds a renewed sense of purpose in protecting the girl.  The story blends medieval fiction with supernatural horror, following the travelers as they encounter demons, the undead, and other horrors, with the girl claiming divine guidance and the knight and priest seeking redemption. 

I may have a new favorite narrator: Steve West is amazing!

From the publisher:

The year is 1348. Thomas, a disgraced knight, has found a young girl alone in a dead Norman village. An orphan of the Black Death, and an almost unnerving picture of innocence, she tells Thomas that plague is only part of a larger cataclysm—that the fallen angels under Lucifer are rising in a second war on heaven, and that the world of men has fallen behind the lines of conflict.

Is it delirium or is it faith? She believes she has seen the angels of God. She believes the righteous dead speak to her in dreams. And now she has convinced the faithless Thomas to shepherd her across a depraved landscape to Avignon. There, she tells Thomas, she will fulfill her mission to confront the evil that has devastated the earth, and to restore to this betrayed, murderous knight the nobility and hope of salvation he long abandoned.

As hell unleashes its wrath, and as the true nature of the girl is revealed, Thomas will find himself on a macabre battleground of angels and demons, saints, and the risen dead, and in the midst of a desperate struggle for nothing less than the soul of man.