The Butcher of the Forest
"A perfect mix of horror and fantasy."—The New York Times
“The Butcher of the Forest” shows exactly why Mohamed is one of fantasy’s rising stars."—The Washington Post
"The Grimm brothers can’t hold a candle to Premee Mohamed and her fever dream of a fantasy novella."—Polygon
A world-weary woman races against the clock to survive a deadly forest in this dark, otherworldly fairytale from Nebula and World Fantasy Award-winning author Premee Mohamed.
At the northern edge of a land ruled by a merciless foreign tyrant lies a wild, forbidden forest ruled by powerful magic.
Veris Thorn—the only one to ever enter the forest and survive—is forced to go back inside to retrieve the tyrant's missing children. Inside await traps and trickery, ancient monsters, and hauntings of the past.
One day is all Veris is afforded. One misstep will cost everything.
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Community Reviews
I think this worked well as a short story. There were a couple of times I thought it could have been even a bit shorter, like when not a lot is happening and the main character is just kind of thinking about things. I also would have liked to know a bit more about the forest and at least a little bit about the magic parts. The author clearly tried to throw in some old timey or obscure words in there to reinforce the time period, which can be interesting. (What does cinacth mean??) And it does answer the big question that keeps getting referred to throughout the book about her past, so that's good.
4⭐️
This has got to be one of the best short fantasy reads I’ve read. The character development was pretty good. I also enjoyed the world building and thought it was really well done. The weird creatures in the woods seemed very “Alice in wonderland” but on crack lol, it’s a good thing!
*spoilers*
The scene where Veris makes it to the weird house was really creepy and good. When the dead animals that were shaped all weirdly started to rise up and go after her had me hooked. I do wish we could have a better visualizing of all the weird creatures, at times I was confused on what they looked like BUT that may be a me thing, because the creatures were written to confuse you since Veris had a hard time seeing what they were.
Anyway, I was really hooked on the story from the first few pages, mostly when she makes it into the woods and really wished there was more to read.
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