Less than 200 pages, The Monster of Elendhaven may give the illusion of being not enough, but in my opinion, it’s the perfect length. Johann and Florian are both looking for something and hoping that they’ll find it in each other. I found it difficult to put it down I never knew that horror could be written so beautifully, but the prose is lush and vivid, and the characters are complex and nuanced, even though they may not seem it. This gothic tale is violent and gory and disturbing and fascinating. I didn’t know what to expect, but it certainly wasn’t this tremendous journey of two lonely, twisted individuals. One night he tries to rob the wrong man and that’s how he meets Florian, the only remaining member of a once illustrious family a sorcerer with a haunted past, Florian employs Johann as his servant, using him to help achieve his twisted goal of vengeance.Īuthor Jennifer Giesbrecht, in her debut, has crafted a grimdark fantasy horror that lures you in by the throat and refuses to let you go. He is invisible in a city burdened by plague and economic collapse. The Monster of Elendhaven is the story of Johann, a self-proclaimed monster immortal and incapable of feeling pain, Johann crawled from the sea with no memory of anything and a seemingly insatiable lust for blood. Even those of us who have no taste for such things couldn’t help but be sucked into the story of a dreary, cursed town on the edge of the map and the relationship between the man who can’t die and the sorcerer who wants to burn down the world.

I’m usually not one for horror (I tend to avoid it at all costs) but there’s something about The Monster of Elendhaven that grips you right from the start.

The monster of elendhaven