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Plaguewalker
by
Gemma Tarlach (Goodreads Author)
“I was born of the Devil. That is what they said. I was a conjure of night and fog, and the grave was the womb from which I emerged.”
Abandoned as a baby outside the cemetery gates and raised by the town’s executioner, Marcus grows into a giant as unfeeling as Death. Traveling fanatics arrive in his Bavarian town bringing not the Word of God, but the Great Dying. As plague...more
Abandoned as a baby outside the cemetery gates and raised by the town’s executioner, Marcus grows into a giant as unfeeling as Death. Traveling fanatics arrive in his Bavarian town bringing not the Word of God, but the Great Dying. As plague...more
Paperback, 180 pages
Published
May 17th 2012
by Grunaskhan Books
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This is a very dark story with a protagonist who should be completely unsympathetic. Marcus is the torturer and executioner for a small Bavarian town, a man without much in the way of feelings or conscience. His existence is that of a shunned outcast, and the people who share his miserable home are outcasts by virtue of being associated with him. When the plague arrives, he's the sole survivor, and sets out in search of his daughter, who'd run away earlier on discovering their relationship.
The s...more
The s...more
I enjoyed every minute of this story...far different in tone and plot than The Hangman's Daughter, and wonderful. Every character was very real. Amongst the plague, the isolation and the abundance of other struggles; the internal struggles of Marcus the main character was the loudest. His transformation in the story is satisfying, if not entirely realistic. The lifestyle of the executioner and his family is described in great detail, and the sights, sounds, and feelings of this story (some dist...more
Review: Five starsYou know what one of the most amazing things about Gemma Tarlach's Plaguewalker is? Besides the fact that it's a fantastically written piece of historical fiction about the Black Death, a period of time so fascinating to me I decided to get a degree in it. Nope, the coolest part is where the book was actually written. Imagine you've just finished the last page of Plaguewalker: you sigh with happiness that you've just read this superb little story about an executioner in Bavaria...more
A quick, but not necessarily easy read - by that I mean you'll find the protagonist, Marcus - an executioner in Bavaria escaping the plague - unlovable, unsympathetic and a tad inaccessible, but if you stick with him on his journey of redemption, it will be well worth it.
The writing is tight, painterly but not flowery (no flowers could grow in that snowy landscape hah!).
The writing is tight, painterly but not flowery (no flowers could grow in that snowy landscape hah!).
Definitely different. The author was able to convey the feeling of living in the middle ages. I enjoyed the story but don't think I will recommend it to my friends.
Excellent.
Well said Gemma Tarlach
A fascinating look into the Black Plague told from a unique perspective. This book feels like a Poe story from start to finish.
Mar 21, 2013
Adrienne
marked it as abandoned
Fifty pages in and I really don't like the main character, and neither the beautiful cover nor the Plague setting overcomes my distaste for multipage torture scenes.
Interesting concept. A little outside of the usual style of books I read, but I very much enjoyed it.
May 22, 2013
Krystle
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I have been, among other things, a journalist, a diplomat, and a pastry chef. I've lived on four continents and traveled through the other three. Wherever I wander, writing has been the one constant in my life.
I began researching the story that would ultimately become Plaguewalker while living in Bavaria in the early 1990s. It would be the first novel I wrote that was inspired by my travels. I am...more
More about Gemma Tarlach...
I began researching the story that would ultimately become Plaguewalker while living in Bavaria in the early 1990s. It would be the first novel I wrote that was inspired by my travels. I am...more
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