Imagine Europe, the shores of Italy, the Aegean Sea. Now imagine it full of monsters – dashing vampires and tattoed Nordic werewolves. Imagine its inhabitants practicing sorceries and Black magics, calling forth the elements and summoning the dead. Imagine elves hungry for human flesh held back by holy crusades, and a Savior who is the daughter of God, not the son, a humble shepherdess who died on the wheel, not the cross, for our sins.
In this version of Europe, Brother Diaz answers summons to the Holy City, where he is put in charge of a new flock – a group of monsters and Black Arts practitioners who are unshakably bound to serve the will of the ten-year-old Pope. Meanwhile, a thief and street urchin named Alex is discovered by a nobleman, who claims to be her uncle and believes her to be the long lost daughter of the deceased Empress of Troy. Convinced of her true identity, he is determined to see her on the Serpent Throne. Alex is examined and endorsed by the papacy, and found to be the true heir. It is up to Brother Diaz and his charges to transport Alex safely to Troy, where she may be crowned as the rightful ruler of the empire. As one character asks in disbelief, “A saint sent a set of devils to turn a thief into an Empress?” If only her cousins weren’t dead set on wearing the crown themselves. If only their mother (sister to and murderer of Alex’s mother the Empress) hadn’t equipped them so well with sorceress supporters and monstrosities borne of arcane experiments.
What this book does beautifully is present characters as the truest versions of themselves. Alex is a thief, a piece of shit in her own words, hardly fit for a crown. Yet she is also scrappy, determined, and willing to see past the monstrous in those around her. Brother Diaz’s new flock, the Chapel of the Holy Expediency, is full of mass murderers, who only help Alex because they are compelled by the Pope’s mystical binding to do so. Yet we learn to see the best in them. They are literal monsters, but we come to love each one, despite the horrors they wrought in their pasts, and the horrors they commit right on the page in front of us, fighting in Alex’s defense. Meanwhile, they are met with betrayal, callousness, and cruelty inflicted by regular humans, even members of the clergy, and we are left to wonder – what makes a monster? What makes a person worthy of redemption? How do we judge those who would utilize the talents of the irredeemable for their own causes?
This book is wild and exciting, witty and lewd, gory and bittersweet. The shifting third person point of view allows us to delve into the inner workings of each character in turn, and they cannot help being both intriguing and sympathetic. The book ask questions about what makes a person, what leads to redemption, who deserves redemption in the first place, how a just society should use criminals, and how those criminals should be treated. There is a fundamental lack of fairness in a world consumed by the ideas of sins and birthright, and that is not glossed over. The book, though a lengthy read, is also a thoroughly entertaining and thought-provoking one as well.
A warning – the ending, though wholly appropriate to the story being told and the themes explored, is bittersweet and for some could be seen as unsatisfying. Punches are not pulled. It will not seem fair. But that is, perhaps, the point. In this world of devils, not everyone gets a happy ending. To paraphrase one of the characters from the book, a happy ending is just a story that hasn’t ended yet. Still, this shouldn’t scare you off. The Devils is a thoroughly entertaining and worthwhile read.
Novel originally read and reviewed mid-April, 2026.
Leave a comment