Mark Alder

The story of Julie D'Aubigny is well known. Her tumultuous childhood, her powerful lovers, her celebrated voice. Connected to most of the nobility of 17th century Paris, feted for her performance, unwilling to live by the rules of her society, she took female lovers, fought duels with noblemen and fled from city to country and back again. But now the real truth can be told. She also made a deal with the devil. He gave her no powers or help, but he kept her alive for only one reason. To take revenge...

The Devil's Blade

Eryn Bradshaw

They say the Devil made her, but I know better.

~ Mark Alder, The Devil's Blade

On All Hallow's Eve, thirteen noblemen gather together to summon the Devil. A virgin sacrifice is required, and who better to sacrifice than a 16-year-old girl who sings like an angel in the streets. Panicked by the revelation that Julie d'Aubigny was to be murdered before she could achieve her goals of singing in the opera, she reveals that not only is she not a virgin, but thoroughly enjoys participating in the act regularly. Attempting to save herself, Julie challenges a nobleman to a duel. While talented, she loses to the nobleman who punishes her by piercing her throat to prevent her from ever singing again, if she doesn’t die from the blood loss. The noblemen flee the scene, leaving her to die, but little do they know they had caught the attention of the Devil himself. Julie begs the Devil to help exact revenge against these men and a pact is struck. Kill all thirteen noblemen in one year, giving their souls to the Devil, however, if she cannot complete the task in the given year, the Devil will take her to Hell.

The Devil’s Blade by Mark Alder is a historical fiction novel based on a real person, Julie d'Aubigny. She was born around 1673 and was, in fact, a famous opera singer and had many flirtations with men and women both in and out of the French court. Alder does note at the end that he attempted to make the book historically accurate, but was lax in moving dates and key events in order to make the novel flow. Although I don’t know much about Julie and have not done extensive research, I’d say this is a far shot from being historically accurate. Julie in real life was an opera singer with an amazing voice, often dressed as a man, loved men and women, was excellent at swordplay, harmed and/or killed men in duels, and was pardoned by the King’s brother, I have not read anywhere she may have made a deal with the devil and went on to kill many men for that cause. Trust me, I love crossroad deals with devils and rumors that might spring up, but in the few places I’ve read about Julie, nothing about the devil has sprung up. Now, I could be wrong and there may be these rumors which would fuel this fun novel, so take my words with a grain of salt here. People in the novel are real, and Julie’s interactions with them have some basis in reality, but the novel as a whole doesn’t really represent her life for a year.

HOWEVER, all of that aside, the premise for The Devil’s Blade was really fun! Revenge stories on a timer are always a blast to read and are usually really quick to get through because they tend to be very fast-paced. It’s not really a character-driven novel and there’s no world-building that needs to be done, so it’s a nice, easy read. But there are some hang-ups in the way it’s written that made my stumble through it.

The Devil’s Blade is in present tense, and while I am not a huge fan of present tense, it definitely fits the narrative. It lent way to feeling like there was a rush and a pressure against the clock for Julie to accomplish her goals. The whole novel does take place within the span of a year and there are parts of that year that are completely skipped over, so things can feel very rushed in general, though I don’t think it’s a novel that would suit a series. It’s best as a standalone novel.

A fair warning to anyone interested in picking this book up, it is very crude. While it isn’t exactly up there in the “men writing women poorly” section, it’s definitely on the edge. Julie has a nervous tick of swearing profusely. There’s a lot of talk about “spunking a cock.” And just a lot of descriptions of men’s tiny dicks when framed next to their large stomachs. Julie, in the novel, is quite promiscuous, continually using her feminine wiles to take advantage of different men. All of this didn’t necessarily put me off the novel, but there were plenty of times when it felt like it didn’t add to it.

I was fortunate enough to read this as an ARC, so there were a few hiccups I noticed that I hope were fixed in the release of the novel. My biggest issue, which I don’t think were mistakes, but was Alder’s style of writing that did come across as mistakes and absolutely drove me crazy, was the number of times phrases and words were repeated. The number of times phrases and words were repeated. See? Doesn’t that seem like a typo? I think it was Alder’s way of adding emphasis to what a character had said or what Julie was thinking, but it really made the writing feel clumsy.

And the last thing that really annoyed me was the phrases some of the characters used. The novel takes place in the late 1600s. While I’m not opposed to modern language in historical novels for the sake of the reader, there were some phrases that really threw me off. Phrases like “Crikey, blimey, blinking flip” and “Zookers.” These phrases were mainly used by a woman of nobility. which really didn’t fit the scene that was set.

There isn’t a lot to say about the characters of the novel since the novel was so plot-driven. So if you like character development, maybe give this one a miss. The two major characters, the Devil and Julie don’t really change throughout the novel. You wouldn’t expect development from the Devil and since Julie is driven solely by revenge, she isn’t interested in developing herself aside from her swordplay and singing. I didn’t feel anything if a character died, whether for revenge or was a character Julie was friends with. It just happened and that was that.

The Devil’s Blade isn’t a standout novel for me. It’s not bad, but it’s also not good. It was okay. I enjoyed it while I was reading it, but as apparent by my inability to remember it a year and a half later shows that it just wasn’t that memorable as a book. There are novels I can distinctly remember the main points of that I’ve thoroughly enjoyed years later. This isn’t that novel for me. I give The Devil’s Blade a 3-star rating. Again, it was okay. Some people may really enjoy it, but I know there will be people who don’t. Because the whole plot is kill a nobleman, find another one, kill that one, find another, etc, it gets dull. I’m really glad it was a standalone novel because I would not read it if it was a series. I feel that would drag on for ages and would not be worth it at all.

Orion Publishing Group, Gollancz provided a copy of The Devil's Blade through Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. Thank you for allowing me to read this book!

Check out more of my reviews on my blog: https://erynbradshaw.wordpress.com

The Devil's Blade

Reviews