I read Spinning Silver by Naomi Novik last year and it left me jonesing for more fairy tales. So when I saw the Woodcutter on Kindle Unlimited, I snatched it up. Plus, look at how pretty the cover is! I’m a sucker for a good cover.
The Woodcutter is a magical person who lives in the Wood and maintains the peace between humans and the fae. At the beginning of the book, he finds Cinderella dead in the Wood, with no mark on her to indicate how she died. He then finds a Red Riding Hood-type dead, also without any marks on her. He soon learns one of Odin’s hellhounds has gone rogue and is killing people with fae blood, and that someone is kidnapping pixies to steal their dust. The Woodcutter must find those responsible to save the people and pixies, and to prevent a war between the fae and humans.
This book didn’t quite work for me. I liked how the prose would become a little hypnotic, which added to the magical aspect. But it often felt like the Woodcutter was just wandering around running into characters from various fairy tales. I didn’t feel any tension building and it seemed like the Big Bad changed about halfway through the book. The ending did tie it all together nicely, but I wish it had been a more cohesive story. Considering the book involves a magical forest, I guess it’s appropriate that I couldn’t see the forest through the trees.