“Writing in spare prose, Young harkens to some of the dystopian greats, with a keeper of memories who seems right out of The Giver, and a horrific solstice celebration scene of public gore. Torture, brainwashing, and isolation add a satisfying bite of horror throughout….this unsettling tragedy cuts deep.” – Publishers Weekly
Praise for The Butcher
“Young crafts a mean little world of stark landscapes and sharp edges, and beneath each turn lies a wound. Psychologically claustrophobic, and a harrowing debut.”
Hailey Piper, Bram Stoker Award-winning author of Queen of Teeth
“Readers will be swept away by the fresh take on dystopia found in this intelligent, immersive horror novel drawing on both The Lottery and The Hunger Games. In a poverty-ridden mountain town ruled by unfeeling overlords and their monstrous code of punishment and retribution, Lady Mae will – one day – take on her mother’s role as the Butcher, delivering bloody eye-for-an-eye ‘justice’ to a resentful population. Her coming-of-age is brutal, and Laura Kat Young is unafraid to ask tough and necessary questions about corporal punishment, shared guilt, mob mentality, and who is served when the disadvantaged are pitted against each other.”
Ally Wilkes, author of All the White Spaces
“Immersive, original, and unflinching, The Butcher is a pitch-perfect dystopian Western. A satisfying, blood-spattered exploration of justice and vengeance.”
Rachel Harrison, author of Cackle and The Return
“Savage beauty, unrelenting violence, and unbreakable love crash together in this powerful and hypnotic novel of a dystopian West and the young woman who wields an intellect and sense of justice and revenge sharper and more deadly than her butcher’s knives. A bleak, brutal, and thoroughly original meditation on the horrors and triumphs of life.”
Livia Llewellyn, author of Engines of Desire and Furnace
“The Butcher is being described as Shirley Jackson meets Never Let Me Go meets West World. Pretty wild combination, but it works!”
Book Riot
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