Novella Review: The Butcher of the Forest by Premee Mohammed

Posted on May 9, 2024 at 5:47 am by Gene Ambaum

The Butcher of the Forest by Premee Mohammed. Tor.com, 2024. 9781250881786. 160pp.

Veris Thorn has been summoned by the Tyrant to his great castle. One of his soldiers throws her to her knees before the throne, where the Tyrant drinks from a cup made from a skull. She’s not sure what he wants.

He knows she’s the woman who went into the cursed woods and returned with a missing child. He tells her she will go into the woods to recover his children. They have been gone for two hours. Their trail led to the edge of the woods. The guards who went in after them disappeared; their dogs returned bloody.

Because of the nature of the woods, Veris has only a day to get the children back. The Tyrant offers her no reward; if she fails her family will be killed and her village destroyed. Worse than merely destroyed.

This book is about Veris Thorn’s desperate, hurried quest into the woods, a magical realm with its own unique threats and rules. And it’s the best novella I’ve read since Nicola Griffith’s Spear.

Worth noting: I also loved Mohammed’s The Annual Migration of Clouds, and there’s a follow-up novella coming out soon, We Speak Through the Mountain.