This was a great read based on a true historical event. The writing was great and drew me right into the story.

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 <strong>The Devil’s Blade</strong> 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.

The Devil’s Blade had got its inspiration from Mademoiselle Maupin, who lived in Paris at the time when Louis XIV was the king of France. She was a fencer and an opera singer. Author has used his creative licences to make the story more magical and more extraordinary.
In a way, Juliet with her balde and her fox was for me like Dumas’ Musketeers’ paranormal version, where instead of hero is a heroine and her friends are devil, fencing teacher, doctor, theater’s errand boy and her soft spot is a lady, who will be her ruin.
It’s a thrilling and brisk story, with humor and brilliant fantasy, which gives the historical characters fantastical abilities and offers readers excellent snaps of fencing lessons and duels. It’s a bloody story, our heroine is often injured, but it goes with the story.

Wonderful story, thrilling way to give history a new fantastical spin.

The premise of The Devil's Blade by Mark Alder is fantastic. The novel recounts the life of Julie D’Aubigny, a real-life firebrand who fought duels, pursued lesbian relationships and generally lived an adventuresome life. Throw in an appearance by the devil—Julie is given one year to kill the men who murdered her lover and took her voice, or she'll be consigned to hell—and you have a page-turning piece of alternative history.

What I loved most about the book was its depth of character. Julie is not your typical sweet female protagonist—she's remorseless about killing people, for instance, if that's what gets the job done—and the book benefits from this, becoming a refreshingly unsentimental adventure about real, three-dimensional person. The charming, sinister devil is also beautifully imagined, spurring the story along by granting Julie powers that enable her to rise to each challenge in ever more creative and exciting ways. The Devil's Blade is a fantastic read, recommended for all.

So: The Devil’s Blade is a story that builds on traditional tropes – it’s a revenge story – but combines reality with decidedly fictional elements.

Our lead character, Julie D’Aubigny, was a real person, whose antics in 17th century France were well known at the time. By most accounts she was a multi-talented polymath who could sing, sword-fight and, if that wasn’t exhausting enough, had a variety of lovers of both sexes. In short, a bisexual, duelling, feminist opera singer seems like someone that if you made up would seem too ridiculous, but I guess that sometimes truth is as strange as fiction.

With such a variety of talents, this suggests a character ripe for an adventure story that the author clearly takes advantage of. Mind you, where Mark takes her, I suspect, is not entirely true. The Devil’s Blade begins with a young Julie, a promising young singer, heading to a meeting with gentlemen of influence who can hopefully gain her access to the levels of society currently blocked to her. This is, however, a ruse, as the men are really a group known as The Tredecim, who actually wish to sacrifice her to the Devil for their own uses. Julie is attacked and left for dead, her throat is ruined and her lover killed, so she seeks revenge on the thirteen men who wronged her – by making a deal with the Devil, no less. Welcoming the chance to gain more souls in Hell, he/she/it agrees to give Julie about a year on which to wreak her revenge on the men. If she fails, of course, her soul is his.

The rest of the book follows Julie as she attempts to reach her goal. In a plot reminiscent of Arya Stark’s kill list, Julie begins to dispose of her victims, making sure that they renounce God before dispatching them. After each death, the Devil appears to take the recently deceased soul off to Hell and gives Julie the chance to have one duelling lesson before setting off towards the next victim.

Although her voice is ruined, working behind the scenes in the Paris Opera gives Julie the means of making connections beyond her station in French society and allows her to travel in order to catch up with her intended targets. She also begins a scandalous affair with Charlotte-Marie de la Porte Mazarin de la Meilleraye, one of the aristocracy. This all leads to a big showdown at the end between Julie, the last of her quarry and the Devil himself determined to make good on their deal.

It all reads as an enormous romp, a sort’ve female version of Faust or Daniel Webster meets The Scarlet Pimpernel, which makes it great fun. Julie is a fascinating character whose lack of manners and diplomacy cut through the decorum of French society whilst her duelling skills cut through her victims rather messily. The Devil is both charming and monstrous, mercurial in his/her/its manner, which reminded me a little of the part played by Tom Ellis in the Lucifer television series.

Having said that, some, but not all, readers will appreciate the frankness of the novel’s use of florid expletives, for example:

“ “If you think you can bargain your way out of this by offering your twat…” he says. She kicks him so hard in between the legs that it’s amazing his bollocks don’t pop out of his eyes.” (Page 96)

The book seems determined to be outrageous in both the actions of the characters and what they say, tapping firmly into that Grimdark style, even if at times they sound more contemporary than what I would expect from 17th century France. It is even quite amusing at the variety of ways the characters manage to use expletives towards each other, but I must say that by the end of the novel I felt that the constant badinage actually dulled the language’s impact.

More worryingly, my biggest niggle is that throughout there was the impression that the author feels the need to make points over and over, again and again. One example is the amount of shit France seems to have and to emphasise the point how much Julie and her fellow players seem to roll around in it – the streets of Paris are shitty, the carriages are covered in it, Julie seems to spent most of her time walking through it, fighting in it, even rolling in it. I got the point, but it is a point that is repeatedly made, when really once or twice would have been sufficient. The point is made, but then overdone. Like the swearing, there are times that its constant repetitive use becomes wearying.

The ending seems a little forced, as Julie has to fight a final duel in-between performing acts in an opera, which stretched the credulity a little. Disappointingly, the ending of the book leaves things open for sequels. This would, in my opinion, have been better for being a stand-alone tale, but I realise that future prospective sales may determine otherwise.

Despite all of this, I enjoyed The Devil’s Blade. It’s an impressive step-up of talent that certain readers will like. The setting of 17th century France made a nice change from the usual medieval-esque settings of Fantasy. It is dark, very violent, very sweary but at the same time quite good fun. Although there are moments of the “one bound and she was free” stuff going on here, and the author does overdo matters on occasion – some of the presumably intentional moments of farce didn’t really work for me, for example – this one was a good read.

Unfortunately I ended up not finishing this book (DNFing) fairly early on. As a queer woman, whenever I see a book featuring a queer female main character written by a man I get a little dubious - and my tolerance for bad portrayal is probably lower than most people. Within the first 15% of this book I knew this wasn't going to be a book for me, I didn't enjoy the prose and the fixation on sex felt voyeuristic and fetishising more than representative of a minority identity. I can't envision a world where this book got better at a later point and so decided to stop reading before I got too annoyed. Sadly not for me - and there are other queer historical books I would point people too first!

I received a review copy of The Devil's Blade in exchange for an honest review. I would like to thank Mark Alder and Gollancz for the opportunity.

This is the first time that I have read anything by Mark Alder. When Gollancz e-mailed me asking if I would be interested in reviewing The Devil's Blade I was won over completely by the striking cover and the intriguing premise so I opted to check the book out. I have started reading more historical fiction recently so this novel ticked the box for me to continue that trend. I knew nothing about The Devil's Blade's protagonist (Julie D'Aubigny), whose real life this story is loosely based on, so I decided this novel would be an interesting entry point to find out about her.

Set in 17th-century Paris, The Devil's Blade begins when Julie is invited to sing on All Hallows Eve in a foggy wood for thirteen masked men of influence who call themselves the Tredecim. She sings beautifully for the gentlemen with notes so pure, clear and delicious. At the conclusion of her performance, it transpires that she was invited by the group to be a sacrifice. They wished to spill the blood of a lady pure and beautiful so that they could call forth the Devil to do their bidding. Unfortunately, Julie is not a virgin, and after heated exchanges with the gentleman, her friend Paval is murdered and her throat is pierced by a rapier. Whilst Julie is lurking at death's door and about to pass, the Devil arrives at the scene as they were summoned. At this point, the men have left and because of their arrogance in raising them from the underworld, the Devil is a bit pissed off. Julie makes a deal with the Devil that if she lives she will murder the thirteen men, sending their souls to Lucifer. As some of the Tredecim will be notoriously difficult to kill, such as a three-fingered gentleman who is the self-proclaimed greatest swordsman in France, the Devil promises that in return for each soul they claim, they will reward Julie with one fencing lesson. If she is unable to present all thirteen souls to the Devil within one year then they will return and take her to Hell still living.

Written in the third-person present tense, The Devil's Blade follows Julie D'Aubigny through three acts and numerous scenes. Written this way it makes the reader think that they are part of the play, that events are happening in real-time, and it connects us closely with Julie through the year's events and the emotions that she feels. Each scene takes about ten to fifteen minutes to read so it is extremely easy to just read one more chapter.

I liked Julie's character quite a lot. After the ordeal at the beginning, she loses her beautiful singing voice and one of her only friends in Paval, so I sympathised with her a fair amount, even when she was plotting the demise of those that had wronged her. She is clever, crude, sweary, not afraid to use her sexuality to get what she wants, and is a master of disguise. Lucifer granted her ghost sight which is a useful ability, and after delivering one soul she is given a fox scarf called Furie who can come to life. She was an able fencer to begin with yet as the Devil teaches her moves and techniques when she crosses identities off her list, she becomes an excellent swordswoman, causing havoc around Paris and building up quite a reputation. A reputation that earns her the moniker The Devil's Blade.

The plot of the novel is straightforward in how Julie moves from one target to the next but I didn't find this tedious or repetitive. Some of the assassinations are excellently executed by the author (no pun intended) and thrilling to read. There isn't that much to distinguish the thirteen gentlemen from each other, they are just names on her list after all, and we don't find out that much about the majority of these characters other than that they are wealthy scumbags.

I always enjoyed the scenes where Lucifer popped up on the page. He/she/they are beautiful, charming, mischievous and notorious too. Other characters I enjoyed reading about were Julie's highborn love interest Charlotte-Marie who is kooky and out-there, and her father's sword-master Sérannes who is infatuated with Julie.

The Devil's Blade steadily builds up to a fitting, fulfilling and exciting culmination. Alder wraps up everything nicely and makes it clear that this is only one period in Julie's life and it would be easy for him to return to this imagined 17th-century France to detail more of her escapades. If he does, I am pretty certain I will check it out. At 370-pages this was a novel that I savoured rather than raced through, perhaps reading about the build-up to and then the act of one or two murders before then putting it down for a day or so before continuing. To conclude, I would describe The Devil's Blade as a fine revenge-driven historical fiction adventure that features a strong and intriguing female lead. It's full of love, infatuation, duels, deceit, disguise, murder, devilishness, and music with a lovingly crafted picturesque 17th-century Paris as the backdrop. The Devil's Blade isn't a perfect novel but I had a pleasant and entertaining time reading it and I give it a pretty solid 7/10.

SUMMARY: A group of men tried to sacrifice Julie in a ritual. However, things did not go as planned, and instead, young Julie ended up making a deal with the devil in order to take her revenge.

Today, she is famous as Julie d’Aubigny, opera singer, duelist, raging bisexual and woman who flaunted all convention of her time. But in this story, all she wants is to kill the men who tried to kill her, and fulfill the terms of her own deal with the devil.

OPINIONS: The devil is a woman! Or at least she presents herself as such in The Devil’s Blade which is a deliciously refreshing turn of events and one of my favourite twists. Cunning, deceptive and entirely devoid of emotion, Alder’s devil is not the dark and twisted creature of popular imagination, but an elegant and nuanced antagonist, fighting her battles with intelligence. I loved every bit of her scences.

The book is full of similarly surprising characters. Standing out, apart from Julie, are Monsieur, the King of France’s brother (Philippe, the Duke of Orléans), who prefers to dress as a woman, and Charlotte-Marie, Julie’s aristocratic lover, whom she meets while trying to enact her revenge on one of the men who tried to kill her. While the book is excellently researched in terms of historical detail, it is never overloaded with it, and uses that background as a playground for the breaking of gender-based stereotypes – there is a wonderful scene where Julie is in danger of being executed due to having broken dueling law. However, as the law states that men are prohibited from dueling, she ends up being set free on the technicality that she is, indeed, a woman wearing men’s clothes. While that is of course not historically accurate, it makes for great storytelling, which I believe is the most crucial quality of a novel.

The Devil’s Blade is smart, seductive and a treat of a novel. I wish these kinds of stories centering little-known historical women and giving them grand narratives were more common! Another aspect of the novel I thoroughly enjoyed was its framing in the format of a play in acts and scenes, with scene descriptions. This worked exceedingly well, especially given Julie’s operatic aspirations, and added an extra layer to the story. For those familiar with the classical three-act structure it adds expectations and anticipation about the coming scenes, which for me personally made the reading all the more delicious.

However, I need to end my review on bad news: while The Devil’s Blade very much reads like the first book in a series and ends on an epilogue that to me reads as “TO BE CONTINUED…”, Mark Alder has stated that, as of now, there are no plans for sequels. This leaves the story somewhat unfinished, and I do hope that there will eventually be a continuation.

DNF at 35%

The only thing in this book that slightly intrigued me was our main character Julie Daubigny but unfortunately not enough for me to continue reading. The plot failed to capture my attention, I found myself bored when reading it and the writing style just didn't work for me.

Even if I liked the style of writing and humour I couldn't connect the characters and the story fell flat.
Not my cup of tea.
Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this ARC, all opinions are mine.

I was apprehensive going into this book about how good the representation of a queer female main character would be, given that it's written by a man (and one whom I have never seen to talk about being queer). Unfortunately, all my worst fears were confirmed; it's massively sexualised, and Julie D'Aubigny - one of the most interesting historical figures - is reduced to a revenge cipher, with nothing in the way of character depth. She lurches from scene to scene without ever giving us a sense of her personality. She mostly exists to sneer at people's dicks (dear god, so many flaccid dicks) and stab things. Oh, and be hugely sexualised.

The writing style is so sparse as to be bare - you could really take each sentence as a bullet point, rather than fluid prose. There's no showing, only telling, which at least makes it swift to read, but makes it extremely hard to connect to in any way. It's also aggressively stuffed full of modern day swearing, which I assume was intended to add some 'spice' - I don't even mind modern-world swearing in historical/fantasy settings (sometimes you really do just need a perfectly placed F word after a heist goes wrong!) but the frequency and randomness of the swearing here meant this felt more like a boys' locker room than 17th century France. What may be intended as satirical comes off as try-hard and "edgy" - one of the final straws for me was the use of a David Bowie lyric in dialogue. It didn't make sense in context, and just destroyed any tiny amount of immersion I'd built up.

I persevered for as long as I could, but there is nothing about this book that worked for me. I'm gutted to see a plotline I was so excited for, about a historical figure I find fascinating, reduced to the maturity and depth of a teenage boy's drawn-in-Paint webcomic circa 2007. I couldn't bear to read on. DNFed at 33%.

I really enjoyed Mark Alder's other books and despite a pinch of reservation, I was keen to get my hands on this one. Unfortunately, It didn't work for me. It's a fantastical retelling of the infamous Julie d'Aubigny - an opera singer who was a skilled fencer among other things. Leaving aside the fact that d'Aubigny was an extraordinary person who probably didn't need fantastical elements added to her story, there were several facets of her life and character that were either left out or avoided. Admittedly this starts early on the time line. Julie is sixteen and bent on getting revenge against the 40 yr old man who wronged her (ok yes yuk but you could marry at 14 so you have to apply a little historical context.). I don't know if this is going to be part of a series but based on this I really hope not. The wronged woman seeking revenge against a man is tired tbh and there were far more interesting episodes of Julie's life to look at. How about the fact that she enjoyed cross dressing? That she challenged a man who went after one of her lovers to a duel, beat him and then they went drinking afterwards? Or the time when she became a nun in order to break her girlfriend out of a convent? How about the fact that she was infamous for having many lovers of both genders? Yes all that comes later in her life but why start the story here? And if your going to write a female led fantasy, why hang it on a historical figure and then not really explore her character? I like Alder's style, I enjoyed the wit and satire. I just wish he'd left Julie d'Aubigny alone.

The Devil’s Blade is a tale of a pact with the Devil (hence the title) and a tale of revenge. But it’s also vaguely satirical and irreverent. In short, the perfect mix.

The story purports to be the true beginnings of Julie d’Aubigny, a French opera singer known for her skill at fencing. When Julie is lured as a sacrifice to the Devil, and then left for dead when it goes wrong, she makes a pact with them herself. She will kill every one of the men who brought her there within the year, or her soul will be forfeit.

What I enjoyed about this book was that it focused on a woman getting revenge on the men who had wronged her. After the prologue, I was so invested in seeing her kill them all, and this book gave me what I wanted in that respect. I also appreciated the slightly satirical tone it took, because it made it clear that the men were not to be pitied as she did this.

The only problem was, the writing style got a bit tiring after a while. I don’t know what it was, but it started to feel a little forced and overdone. Not so much that I wholly stopped enjoying the book, but enough that it was noticeable. Almost as if it was trying to be too funny, in a way.

Add onto that the plot becoming repetitive (killing men is all well and good, but there wasn’t much more to it than, she kills this one, then she kills that one, now she kills that one), and you can see why I rated lower than I initially expected.

And then there’s the fact that Julie is sixteen. I tried to set it aside and take the book ignoring that, I really did. But I couldn’t. I couldn’t when the book sexualised her, I couldn’t when the book decided a couple of 40 year old men would fall in love with her. It just wasn’t possible. I mean, how hard would it be to just adjust her age ever so slightly, so she’s actually an adult?

Which is probably the main reason I couldn’t enjoy this book much more than I did.