What do you get when you mix a down on his luck musician, Norse mythology, and a small town drug ring? A modern day tale of Krampus, of course!

I have to admit, the beginning of the book did not catch my attention. It was difficult to empathize with Jesse’s situation, and it was difficult to empathize with the Yule Lord. His character is sort of in La-La Land for the 1st part of the book. He just seems like he stepped out of a very different time period. He just drones on and on about his origins, and Jesse kind of is like cool who cares, which is quite funny. I actually looked up the Norse mythology to fact check the stuff Krampus starts lecturing about and it all definitely checks out. Brom did a nice job of that but its a bit of a boring part of the book when Krampus keeps ignoring everything around him just to fill this “informational” part in.

We are left in the dark whether Santa Claus is a bad guy or not and is Krampus really evil. As the story unfolds, we really see that Krampus’s story checks out, but maybe things aren’t as good vs bad as they seem, even Santa Claus is quoted saying “You should understand then…that there are things that have to be done, no matter how horrible.” In addition, as much as Krampus seems to be the ‘bad guy’ he actually never beats any children, and only leaves gold coins and tales of his own existence.

As I am Hungarian and born there, St. Nicholas day on Dec 6th is when either St Nick would visit and leave you chocolates (gold coins) in your boots or Krampus would come and beat you with tree branches. But it seems that many different regions of Eastern Europe have different traditions. And after reading this, I started looking up different Krampus traditions.

I really do hope this character becomes more widely spread in the coming years as Santa Claus is quite boring at this point. I guess he has always just been associated with giving gifts and very G-rated holiday movies/events. So much so that for me the book took a turn when Krampus finally cuts off Santa’s head. After that, the story picked up quite a bit. I was more enthralled.

As the story moves along, we begin to realize that Krampus might actually be a low-key environmentalist, “Mankind has lost its connection to the land, to the earth, to the beasts and spirits. They gather their food not from the forest and fields, but from plastic bins and ice boxes. Their lives are no longer tied to the cycles of the seasons and the harvest, no longer do they need the Yule Lord to chase away the winter darkness and usher in the light of spring. Man has only himself to fear now…he has become his own worst devil.”

The magical Santa sack was a very nice touch by the author. Very creative touch. The book also had a lot of heartfelt moments showing the reality of a poverty-stricken community with drugs ruining the lives of its citizens. I believe the author used this specific Boone County in Virginia for a reason.

It turns out that these creatures, Santa and Krampus, seem to have a history of feuding that goes back to their family history from a long time ago. And we see each character is an immortal timeless character, as hard as they try to get rid of one another, they both somehow keep popping back up.

My biggest issue with this book is the God part. God finds Santa amusing, so he sends him back to Earth to continue spreading joy? What? The author made such a production out of his 6 wives collecting his body and cleaning it that I thought they were low-key witches of some kind. Then his head just disappears from where Krampus displayed it and the next thing we know he shows up with two angels to do his dirty business for him. This entire part was not great. I understand why Brom wrote it this way, but I don’t have to agree with it.