The Butcher of the Forest

There is a perfectly sensible reason why the concept of Fairy Woods exist. Back in the day, the land was covered in thick forests, any person that travelled too far from the village or well-trodden tracks could easily get lost and become victim to one of several predators from wolves to wild boars. You stop the kids from going near the woods by scaring them. If the real threat of child eating wolves is not enough to deter, then tell them about the fairy folk that will steal their names. Premee Mohamed’s The Butcher of the Forest is a fantasy book in which the woods are packed full of magical beings who like nothing more than the taste of a human soul. Veris escaped the woods once but is tasked with going back in again. 

They came for Varis in the middle of the night. The Tyrant’s men dragged her from her bed, but for what reason? Varis leads a simple village life farming rabbits and doing small jobs, but she also has a past. She is the only person known to have returned from the North Woods. The Tyrant requires her particular skills to return to the woods and save his children who have wandered in. Little does he know that Varis has no real skills to speak of, but in she must go if she is to save what remains of her family and village from the Tyrant’s axe.  

I have read several novels that have magical forests, but they are often part of a larger story. Butcher comes in at 160 pages and is based soley around an adventure in the woods and Veris’ life. If you do not like stories of magical beings, you are not going to enjoy the book. This is a hard Fairytale, harking back to the days that witches ate children and fairies stole your soul. It is a horror story, filled with wonder. 

Butcher does on occasion fall into the trap that magical books sometimes do of being too fantastical. In a wood that anything can happen, where is the grounding? The book is gritty and there are some rules to the woods that give magical realism, but there are also occasions of characters leaping from one location to another on a whim. Magic works best in fantasy when it has a solid base that you can understand, this is difficult to portray when the very nature of the magic is Fae. 

Where the book is grounded it excels and this is in the character of Veris. Hers has been a hard life and through the action we learn more about what happened to her and her family. By forcing Veris to confront her past, Mohamed gives the book meaning. The Tyrant is also an interesting character, so violent he is an ever present threat, impacting on Veris’ state of mind, but also on the minds of his missing children. 

Butcher is a dark tale and when it is at its pitchest black, it is at its best. The magical folk in the woods are constantly trying to trick the humans and have no truck with innocence. Outside in the real world, things are just as dangerous as a Tyrant awaits and he only accepts success. The book is short, and I feel it could have carried on a little longer but does leave you wanting more. The characters and set pieces on Butcher will entertain any fan of fantasy, it is just the transitions from one set piece to another that lack believability, threatening to undermine the logic in the book. If anything can happen, why should the reader care if it does or not? Thankfully, Veris makes us care.