Buy The Red Winter
FORMAT/INFO: The Red Winter was published by Tor Books on February 24th, 2026. It is 544 pages long and available in hardcover, ebook, and audiobook formats.
OVERVIEW/ANALYSIS: Twenty years ago, Professor Sebastian Grave killed the Beast. At least, that's what he hoped. But when word arrives that the Beast is stalking the French countryside once more, Sebastian resigns himself to returning to Gevaudan to finish the Beast once and for all. Returning to Gevaudan means facing the ghosts of his past, but also the chance to reconnect with an estranged lover Sebastian hasn't seen in two decades. But as Sebastian draws near to his destination, he realizes the situation is far more complicated than he realizes. As Frances teeters on the brink of revolution, can he slay the Beast without plunging the country into war?
The Red Winter is a fantastic reimagining of the story of the Beast of Gevaudan, one sure to appeal to fans of European-style monster-slaying adventures. It is fantastically atmospheric and does a great job of envisioning a supernatural layer to the world, creating a version of Europe closer to The Witcher in feel than standard history. There are ghosts and small monsters alongside powerful forest spirits who can grant boons - or curses. There are immortal beings who play power games from the shadows, using humans as pawns. And at the center of it all is Sebastian Grave, a man caught up in these power games by a quirk of fate.
And it is Sebastian Grave that I wrestle with the most as I wrap my head around how I feel about this book as a whole. On the one hand, Sebastian is your classic grizzled monster hunter character, one who is exceedingly good at his job and does it all with the wry weariness of someone who has seen humans be idiots far too many times in his life. But he is also morally gray, someone who proves that just because you hunt monsters, you aren't automatically a good person.
Sebastian is driven by a quest for power and by complicated feelings for a man he, despite everything, still loves. But as the book came to a close, I struggled with whether this was enough to make me interested in the character's fate. Sebastian wants power...and then what? Does anything else drive this man? There are moments in the book that raise this very question and suggest the purposelessness is part of the struggle of the character...but towards the end I found myself not quite caring.
I will also admit that I occasionally found it easy to get muddled over what events happened in which timeline. Large parts of the book take place in the same area with some of the same characters, just twenty years apart. Unlike a visual medium like film, I didn't have a constant reminder that a character has visibly aged and therefore we're in 1785, not 1765, or vice versa. It's a small note, one that is admittedly more of a personal problem, but it happened often enough I wanted to mention it.
The Red Winter is a well-crafted dark fantasy tale. Although I'm not sure how I feel about lead character Sebastian Grave, the fact that I'm still thinking about him weeks after finishing the book is a testament to how much this story got inside my head.
The Red Winter is a fantastic reimagining of the story of the Beast of Gevaudan, one sure to appeal to fans of European-style monster-slaying adventures. It is fantastically atmospheric and does a great job of envisioning a supernatural layer to the world, creating a version of Europe closer to The Witcher in feel than standard history. There are ghosts and small monsters alongside powerful forest spirits who can grant boons - or curses. There are immortal beings who play power games from the shadows, using humans as pawns. And at the center of it all is Sebastian Grave, a man caught up in these power games by a quirk of fate.
And it is Sebastian Grave that I wrestle with the most as I wrap my head around how I feel about this book as a whole. On the one hand, Sebastian is your classic grizzled monster hunter character, one who is exceedingly good at his job and does it all with the wry weariness of someone who has seen humans be idiots far too many times in his life. But he is also morally gray, someone who proves that just because you hunt monsters, you aren't automatically a good person.
Sebastian is driven by a quest for power and by complicated feelings for a man he, despite everything, still loves. But as the book came to a close, I struggled with whether this was enough to make me interested in the character's fate. Sebastian wants power...and then what? Does anything else drive this man? There are moments in the book that raise this very question and suggest the purposelessness is part of the struggle of the character...but towards the end I found myself not quite caring.
I will also admit that I occasionally found it easy to get muddled over what events happened in which timeline. Large parts of the book take place in the same area with some of the same characters, just twenty years apart. Unlike a visual medium like film, I didn't have a constant reminder that a character has visibly aged and therefore we're in 1785, not 1765, or vice versa. It's a small note, one that is admittedly more of a personal problem, but it happened often enough I wanted to mention it.
The Red Winter is a well-crafted dark fantasy tale. Although I'm not sure how I feel about lead character Sebastian Grave, the fact that I'm still thinking about him weeks after finishing the book is a testament to how much this story got inside my head.
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