Brimestones and blades

Vive La Maupin: A Book That Sings, Slays, and Sets Your Soul on Fire

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Some books cut. Others burn. But this one?

This one sings.

Like a sword through silk. Like a soprano’s final note echoing through a haunted opera house.

From the very first page, when I met sixteen-year-old Julie de Maupin (yes, based on the real, chaotic, opera-singing, gender-bending fencing legend) I knew I wasn’t just reading a story—I was being summoned into it.

Julie isn’t just a character. She’s a force of nature. A firestorm wrapped in lace and steel. With her sword in one hand and defiance in the other, she dances through a France crumbling under the weight of monarchy, magic, and madness.

And when tragedy hits?

When love is ripped from her hands and monsters crawl from the shadows?

She doesn’t shatter.

She becomes.

Maria Alexander doesn’t simply tell a story—she resurrects a myth, paints history with blades and blood and queer magic. The prose? Lush. The pacing? Brutal in the best way. And the found family? I'd die for every single one of them. (And I’d definitely come back swinging.)

This isn't just about necromancy and forbidden duels beneath the glittering rot of Versailles.

It’s about defiance, identity, the courage to love without apology, and the raw, burning audacity to exist loudly in a world that wants you silent.

Magic is outlawed. Dueling is forbidden.

But Julie de Maupin?

Oh, she was never one for rules.

 Get the book here:Brimstones and blades

(And prepare to lose sleep, your heart, and possibly your entire sense of literary calm.)

One of my favorite reads of the year.

One of my favorite heroines of all time.

And absolutely one of those rare, wild stories that doesn’t end when the last page turns—but lives in your chest long after.

Vive La Maupin.