I read The Butcher’s Lot by Cate Baumer as part of the SFINCS3 novella contest. My review is honest, and my opinions are my own and do not necessarily reflect those of my team (Team TBR).
The first sentence of this short novella (68 pages on Kindle) immediately drew me into the darkly atmospheric world of this fantasy story that features a vampire and a wronged woman.
“When the Butcher comes to our town, my nieces are locked in their bedrooms and the sheep covered in their pens.”
The Butcher’s Lot is the tragic story of Marguerite, a fisherwoman “ruined” by the local priest when only 16 years old, and thereafter shunned by her small, misogynistic, island society. Along comes The Butcher, a centuries-old vampire whose penance is to work in the communities from which she stole lives, every night having her fangs removed and being bound by silver on leaving her coffin.
It’s time for her to work in Marguerite’s community, but no one rushes to employ her. No one, that is, apart from Marguerite, who needs any help she can get to survive her harsh life on the ocean at night, dodging sea dragons to make a livelihood for herself, her widowed brother, and his two young daughters. She longs to escape her current life and romanticizes that of The Butcher. She would have power for the first time in her life if she could only persuade The Butcher to turn her.
The Butcher’s Lot is an emotional first-person perspective story of sapphic love between a woman who has endured horrors and a “monster” who has both caused suffering and endured her own horrors via the deaths of the vampire family she sired. Marguerite has a different perspective on who the monsters in her society are as she prepares to be replaced in her home by her brother’s new bride and relives the horrors of her past whenever she approaches the church. The first-person perspective makes her emotions feel all the more raw and real. At times, it feels like a dream sequence with atmospheric prose and a feeling of Marguerite not quite being present in the drudgery of her life. She has buried her trauma deeply within herself and tries to keep it there, living out her life at night time as much as possible in order to avoid the stares and pointing fingers of the judgmental village folk. I found it very easy to connect emotionally with this wronged female protagonist and to root for her to get what she wants for once in her life! The Butcher’s Lot was a highly enjoyable, character-driven short read which I would recommend to lovers of the gothic genre, vampire fans, and anyone who sympathises with female protagonists who have been terribly wronged, yet seem on track to become vengeful monsters.
