Description: "At the northern edge of a land ruled by a merciless foreign tyrant lies a wild, forbidden forest ruled by powerful magic. Veris Thorn#21;the only one to ever enter the forest and survive#21;is forced to go back inside to retrieve 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"--
Brief description: Premee Mohamed is a Nebula, World Fantasy, Ignyte, Locus, and Aurora award-winning Indo-Caribbean scientist and speculative fiction author based in Edmonton, Alberta. She has also been a finalist for the Hugo, British Fantasy, British Science Fiction, Ursula K. Le Guin, and Crawford awards. In 2024, she was the Edmonton Public Library writer-in-residence, and she has taught at establishments including the Banff Institute for the Arts, the Clarion Workshop, and the Carl Brandon Society. She has judged short fiction contests for CBC and Alberta Views Magazine and can be found on her website.
Review Quotes:
"Fast-paced, tense, fantastical and uncanny, The Butcher of the Forest is a perfect mix of horror and fantasy. The perilous dimension hidden inside the forest is full of wicked shape-shifting beings, undead deer and other monstrosities, but it's Mohamed's beautiful prose and endearing characters that make this a powerful story."--The New York Times
"Mohamed excels at telling the stories of ordinary people trapped by dark forces, and she infuses these characters with astounding tenderness and compassion. 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 "Woven with the dark and dreamlike intricacy of a medieval tapestry, this novella implicates the reader as an accomplice in its monstrosity. It's exactly the kind of punishment we as readers deserve."--Hiron Ennes "Nothing in nature matches the uncannily sweet murdermirth of Premee Mohamed. She will show you yearning in a scrap of cheese or the whole world in the rules of a game. This book is bigger inside than out... by a large margin."--Meg Elison, winner of the Locus Award "Hansel and Gretel meet Annihilation in Premee Mohamed's The Butcher of the Forest, a fairytale that shifts into a meditation on war and grief, one that asks questions about who is innocent and who is complicit in oppression. Come for the eldritch monsters; stay, as always, for Mohamed's critiques of power."--S. Qiouyi Lu "Mohamed puts a chilling twist on the fairy tale of the stolen child. Veris, a commoner in her late 30s with little power beyond her wits and experience, makes for a captivating heroine whose vulnerability and fear give the narrative the gasping tension of a horror movie. Butcher of the Forest is short, sharp fantasy at its finest."--Shelf Awareness, starred review "An enchanting, bite-sized adventure. . . . Readers will be rapt."--Publishers Weekly "Recommended for readers of magical-bargain and forest-journey novels, such as Emily Tesh's "Greenhollow" duology and Peter S. Beagle's The Way Home."--Library Journal