Book Review: Our Lady of Holy Slaughter

Naturally, when I think of the Crusades, I think of the dry desertous Holy Land. I think of Jerusalem, Baibars, Saladin, and Richard the Lionheart. I think of the red and white crosses of the Knights Templar, or the Black and white heraldry of the Knights Hospitaller. I do not think of swamps, the Baltics, pagans, or Germany. But that's where this short story occurs. Our Lady of Holy Slaughter by S.J Shank is a medieval horror tale that takes us to a lesser known, to me at least, aspect of the Crusade time period. We readers find ourselves in Germany in 1236, following a ragtag band of knights known as the Livonian Brothers of the Sword in the aftermath of their loss to the Semigallians, a Baltic tribe that lived in what is now known as Lithuania, in the Battle of Saule. Shank's tale follows Gaidis, a Semigallian turned squire for the Livonian Brothers of the Sword. We find this band of not very good brothers on the brink of dehydration, trapped in a swamp, covered in mud, muck, and…