The Butcher

When Lady Mae turns eighteen, she’ll inherit her mother’s job as the Butcher: dismembering Settlement Five’s guilty residents as payment for their petty crimes. An index finger taken for spreading salacious gossip, a foot for blasphemy, no one is exempt from punishment.

But when her mother refuses to harm a child, the Deputies come to the house for retribution. No one is above the law, and Lady Mae watches as they murder her mother.

Within twenty-four hours, now alone in the world, Lady Mae begins her new job. But a chance meeting years later puts her face to face with the Deputy that murdered her mother. Now Lady Mae must choose: will she flee, and start another life in the desolate mountains, forever running? Or will she seek vengeance for her mother’s death even if it kills her?

The Butcher is a devastating, alarming page-turner infused with melancholy, humanity – and society’s maddening acceptance in the face of horror.