This general fiction/horror follows Lady Mae as her 18th birthday approaches. On that day, she'll take over from her mother as the Butcher of Settlement Five and be responsible for dismembering people as punishment for their crimes. But when her mother refuses to butcher a child, the settlement leaders - the Deputies - come to their home and murder her mother. Six years later, Lady Mae has become the Butcher and generally accepts her role in the settlement with little pushback. But when a new Deputy comes to town, the one that murdered her mother, Lady Mae must choose if she continues on the path chosen for her or if she'll choose something new.
TW/CW: blood/gore, medical procedure, death of a loved one, law enforcement corruption
I think I went into this read with a little bit of a misconception about the genre. From the title, cover, and description I was expecting this to be a bloody revenge story. However, this is much more of a story about people and community. The About the Author at the end of the book says that Young's "works seek to explore a deeper understanding of human behavior" and I think this is an accurate description of the focus of this story. That isn't to say the story isn't bloody at times - it certainly is - however it does feel like the main focus is a character/community study. I still really enjoyed this read but I was a little confused at first before I readjusted my mental expectations. We absolutely do get into a bit of a revenge story in the last 30% or so but I was expecting that to be the majority of the story.
I really loved the setting of this settlement and how almost timeless it was. There isn't any explanation of what time this is set - it could be an alternate past or it could be a dystopian future - and I really enjoyed that choice. We don't get much history of this place other than that certain roles, like the Butcher, are passed down generation to generation. Despite the lack of history, Young does a fantastic job of giving the reader enough details of the ins and outs of the settlement that I felt really grounded in this setting. Since we are focused on Lady Mae, we get details on the job of the Butcher as well as a bit of the court system since that's how people get sentenced to the Butcher. However, we don't see a whole lot of how the rest of the settlement is run or what the other people who live here are doing. But since we got all the details for Lady Mae's story, these extra details would have just been extra ways to flesh out the setting.
I loved the characters and I wasn't expecting to get so attached. Again, I think due to me going into this read expecting it to be horror/revenge heavy I was expecting a certain type of read and this ended up being much more emotional than I was prepared for. I didn't expect to cry reading a book called The Butcher but I sure did cry. I also thought the character development was well done. There's a pretty significant time jump in the middle of the book and all the characters read very differently after that jump. I do wish we had gotten some scenes during that time jump because certain events are then mentioned and I think those events would have been more impactful if we had seen them on page instead of just being told about them years afterward. I enjoyed the way the characters were developed and there were numerous times where we're told X or shown X about a character only to have some other details added on after or shown a slightly different side of that character. When the story opens, there are very clear lines drawn in this society that separate certain types of people and by the end, those lines get blurred.
The ending was absolutely fantastic and I think really hit home that Young's focus was more of a character/community study rather than a bloody horror story. It is a little bit of a bittersweet ending, but I liked how it generally ends on a positive note and ends up being a bit of an uplifting read. Sure, there's a lot of death and dismemberment that we had to read to get here, but I liked Young's choice to have this end on a high note. This same premise could have been a super bloody and dark read with a few changes (and I think that would have been a fun, but very different reading experience). I also like how the ending is just a bit open and reminds the reader that while this one situation might be finished, there's always the chance of something else bad could happen later. It isn't so open ended that I would consider it a cliffhanger or anything, just a gentle nudge to the reader to remember that this settlement is not alone and there could be outside threats coming in at a later time.
Overall, I really enjoyed this read. While it wasn't the bloodbath revenge story I was expecting, I still enjoyed the ride and was surprised at how emotionally invested I became.
Thanks to NetGalley and Titan Books for the ARC.
Expected publication date is September 27, 2022
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