I really enjoyed this quick read. In a fairytale-like setting, our main character, Veris Thorn, the only person to have ever gone into the magical woods known as Elmever and was able to return with a child that had gone missing many years ago. The "Tyrant" who rules over these lands forces Veris to return to these woods when it is discovered his two children have gone missing. Veris must use the knowledge and cunning she has to navigate the woods and find the children in one day, for after that time, you are never able to leave the woods.
The world building was phenomenal and I found it easy to get completely immersed in the story. If you enjoy fairytales and folklorist type characters you will definitely enjoy this book.
For fans of Naiomi Novik and Katherine Arden.
Thank you to NetGalley for the opportunity to read this lovey dark story. ( )

The only woman who’s ever managed to come out of the forest alive is forced by the Tyrant (who killed her parents) to search for his children, who’ve gone missing in the same forest. It’s an interesting novella about survival and trying not to blame children for the crimes of a parent—even when you can see they’re being raised by that same parent. I think I would’ve liked it more with more story, but that’s the novella form for you. ( )

Originally posted on Just Geeking by.

Content warnings:
This book contains scenes of violence, the threat of violence, blackmail, animal death, animal abuse (whipping), decaying animals, blood, body horror, oppression, colonisation,

Topics discussed on page, although the events happen off page are; child death, death of a parent, child abuse (sexual), and parental neglect.

This book features a tyrant who rules through oppression, fear and brutality. Some scenes discuss what he has done to people (events off page), and this includes sexual assault, forced pregnancy, torture, executions, war, and mass murder.

Full disclosure, this was not a book that I requested and was sent to me by the publisher on Edelweiss. It sounded interesting, and I decided to give it a try, however, I wasn’t aware that it was a novella until I had finished it. I’m mentioning both of these facts as I feel they do affect my review of this book.

Lured in by the cover and the promise of a forbidden forest filled with unknown dangers, I have to admit that The Butcher of the Forest by Premee Mohamed was an interesting and thought-provoking read.

Veris is the only woman who has ever ventured into the north forest and returned alive. When the children of the Tyrant, the man who rules with fear and oppression, go missing, she is given an ultimatum; return to the forest and find them or her family will die. Unlike the children of the village, the Tyrant’s children have grown up sheltered and unaware of the dangers of the north forest. The chances of even finding them alive are slim, but Veris has to at least try.

Mohamed creates a haunting visual as Veris’ journeys through the otherworldly forest, a place that constantly changes as it tries to prevent her from finding the two children. Information about Veris and her world is woven through the journey, and it works with the dark world that Mohamed has built.

While I enjoyed The Butcher of the Forest, I didn’t feel that the story was concluded at the end of the book. Part of this could be attributed to me not realising this was a novella while reading it, however, I think that it’s also the way it ended. A few days before picking up The Butcher of the Forest, I read a review for another novella by Mohamed, where the reviewer mentioned that the novella had the feeling of a prequel. Incidentally, it turned out that it was a prequel, and a full novel is out later this year. I have no idea if that is the case for this novella, obviously, it just has that feeling to me.

This especially comes from The Butcher of the Forest not feeling like it is telling Veris’ story, despite being from her perspective and telling her journey. For me, it feels as though we’re being shown the impact that one person can have on someone’s early life. But at the same time, I almost feel as though that is Mohamed’s point. In another story, Veris would have a bit part to play. She wouldn’t be the hero, she would be one of many minor characters who were part of the main character’s backstory.

As I said, this is a thought-provoking read. I just like my stories to have a more satisfying ending and if they leave me hanging with more questions they are about the story or world-building, not whether the story has been completed. I’ve only read short stories by Mohamed before now so I don’t know whether this is her style or just the style used in this novella.

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Rating: 4.5* of five

The Publisher Says: A world-weary woman races against the clock to rescue the children of a wrathful tyrant from a dangerous, otherworldly forest.

At the northern edge of a land ruled by a monstrous, foreign tyrant lies the wild forest known as the Elmever. The villagers know better than to let their children go near—once someone goes in, they never come back out.

No one knows the strange and terrifying traps of the Elmever better than Veris Thorn, the only person to ever rescue a child from the forest many years ago. When the Tyrant’s two young children go missing, Veris is commanded to enter the forest once more and bring them home safe. If Veris fails, the Tyrant will kill her; if she remains in the forest for longer than a day, she will be trapped forevermore.

So Veris will travel deep into the Elmever to face traps, riddles, and monsters at the behest of another monster. One misstep will cost everything.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.

My Review: Being one who really internalized the truism "No good deed goes unpunished" and its corollary "Never reveal how competent you are because then you will always get the job," I was all set to like this iteration of these aperçus. I am happy to say, nothing in the read convinced me otherwise.

Veris, whose shocking, likely unique ability to survive a trip into Elmever forest has landed her the unenviable and possibly lethal job of rescuing kids lost in there, is a good person. Her exploit in Elmever was not last year, or even last decade...she is solidly in her middle years now. She would also like to enter cronehood, thank you very much, and that might not happen unless she gets the stupid kids out of this haunted, evil forest. The stupid kids that belong to the local wicked overlord. The foreign, wicked overlord.

Of course this woman of middle years and possessed of close loving ties to her community of friends and family will drop everything and rush off to rescue this awful man's kids at risk of disappearing into the horrors she overcame before. You just need to ask!

And threaten everyone she loves with horrible deaths.

Thus are the stakes established. This is going to be a Quest with a difference in dramatis personae. Since Quests are about inner discovery through outer-world problem-solving, we are accustomed to seeing them feature young people. This time Verity, who has already solved the puzzle of surviving a day in accursed Elmever forest, must return to figure out the mystery of the place. The difference? A puzzle has one correct answer, a mystery has many possible solutions, varying shades of Rightness.

Part fairy tale with its lessons quietly taught, part adventure horror story with its body horror lightly sprinkled in, part cosmic horror with its universal stakes salted on...this novella packs a lot into its one-sitting length. Enough that it might repay breaking the read into two sessions.

While the ending fits with the story, and concludes the stakes satisfyingly, I do not think the usual audience for Quests will be all that pleased with this iteration of the storyverse because its stakes are...mutable. Veris faces down lots in this tight package. She makes her peace with the past, as all of us around her age must; she does the right thing by her lights, as we all hope to do in life; she learns that her life of answering puzzles and solving mysteries can not prepare her for anything to come except in habits of mind. The answers are, maddeningly, never the same.

Sound like my forties. Yours too, I wager. ( )

I received an advance copy via NetGalley.

Butcher of the Forest isn't a tromp through your typical fairyland--no, it's a hardscrabble scramble through a nightmare. Veris is a middle-aged woman summoned to the court of the Tyrant, the man whose ruthless rule cost Veris the lives of her own parents and thousands more across the realm. He tasks her with an impossible quest into the nearby woods, where his two curious children have gone exploring, and where no one but Veris has returned. These woods are a place where undead animals hunger, games are deadly, and the food anchors people there forever. If Veris doesn't return with the Tyrant's children within the day, her own surviving family and friends will be slaughtered.

Hooo boy. This book is dark. Dark, dark, dark. Mohamed can sure write, as the prose is eloquent, the tension high, and the mission feels impossible. It's a novella, at least, so I wasn't kept in suspense through a never-ending tome. The end feels... right yet not right at the same time. ( )