For a story just under 30 pages, this sure packs quite the punch. Alix E. Harrow's dystopian fairytale is gorgeous written and deeply touching. I'd love to read an entire novel set in this world! Dystopian and fairytale is a combination I didn't know I needed but one that results in a story that is familiar and refreshingly new in equal parts. It's a very quick read and I highly recommend it!

Short and beautifully written dark fairy tale. Female lead, a knight and demons. Great story. Thank you to the author. Thank you to #netgalley and the publisher for an ARC.

This short story showcases all the signature elements of the author’s work: engaging characters, a vividly twisted setting, and an eerily captivating tone. Set some hundreds of years after the apocalypse, the reader will recognize the world as both familiar and altered—an unsettling but believable evolution of our own. The author paints a picture of a poisoned world, telling both a love story and monster hunting tale. And while the creatures are scary in both origin and form, they are described with an animalistic realism, making them feel less like horrors and more like a realistic evolution of nature. Overall, it was a short, compelling read with a very satisfying ending. Fans of Alix E. Harrow’s previous work and T. Kingfisher’s horror stories wont want to miss it!

Thank you to Netgalley and Amazon Original Stories for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

It's a compelling narrative filled with suspense, emotional depth, and the complexities of love and sacrifice. There really is something for everyone in this book! I just wish it was longer!

A short story set in a post-apocalyptic world that is a call for change in today’s society, Alix E. Harrow has reminded me why she’s an author I return to again & again. There were themes of love & transformation, environmentalism, & a distrust of authority that claims to do things for the benefit of the wider population (& she somehow worked in Animorph & Hulk references, which were amazing). There’s also an ode to the art of storytelling woven into this tale, & I loved the author’s assertion that the setting in which one hears a story matters.

Thank you to NetGalley & Amazon Original Stories for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Alix E Harrow has such an imagination. Here is a world where the people you love can turn into literal monsters that can no longer live in society and may be hunted down and killed. The characters are asking themselves important questions about themselves and their ties to their loved ones and their homes.
It's a short story, but I found myself thinking about it later. I felt angry and sad and surprised, in just a short space.
Thanks to NetGalley for letting me read this

This is a post-apocalyptic short story that has dark fairytale elements. It sounded like it would be a hit but didn't work for me and I didn't like it. I wasn't endeared to the characters and it was slow with lots of talking and not enough action or true world building descriptions. It tried to bring up relevant things from current times to create the backstory but didn't flesh it out all the way, which is understandable since it's so short. There were moments that touched on great but they fizzled before they could be explored more.

What an incredible short story! Only Alix Harrow could create a whole post-apocalyptic world as rich as this one in a mere 30-some pages. This is a dark tale that's somehow also full of love, loyalty, and devotion. Harrow has never let me down and remains an an auto-buy author for me. Looking forward to seeing what she comes up with next!

Thanks, NetGalley and Amazon Original Stories, for the chance to read this story prior to its publication in exchange for this brief review.

I devoured this. Absolutely loved it! Such an interesting take on survival in the apocalypse. Shrike made me rethink how I’ve always thought about myths. Loved it and would totally recommend!

Alix Harrow managed to create a beautifully written fantasy story, equipped with it's own magic and lore, in under 40 pages. I am completely blown away. The Knight and the Butcherbird isn't just short and well written, it's moving and absolutely feels like it will stick with me. It took me about 30 minutes to read this book before bed and I'm still thinking about it while sipping my coffee. I will absolutely be returning to this story any time I need a quick read to get me back in the mood for fantasy.

The Knight and the Butcherbird is a stunning dystopian fairy tale. Shrike is the town storyteller. Her wife, May, has turned into a demon, but Shrike is unwilling to believe that she is now a total monster. When a knight arrives to hunt the demon, Shrike does everything she can to keep May safe - and finds out the knight is hiding secrets too.

This was a wild ride that had me feeling all of the emotions. The writing was absolutely fantastic and so descriptive. The story was both beautiful and hauntingly sad. It may be a short story, but it had the perfect amount of plot and world building.

"Dragging along
Following your form
Hung like the pelt
Of some prey you had worn
Remember me, love
When I'm reborn
As a shrike to your sharp
And glorious thorn" -Hozier

shrike is one of my Absolutely favorite Hozier songs and this tale felt like the embodiment of it. What a ride. It was dystopian and horror, with mystery and love in one.

this was so fucking SICK. metal as hell. no notes. perfect. give me 14 of them. excellent character work, perfect prose/tone, and very nice narrative work. honestly maybe the best, most effective short story I've ever read? just packs such a punch in so little. DELICIOUS

thank you to netgalley and the publisher for the arc!

"why does anyone commit acts others deem unspeakable? for love." not a quote from this book but its a quote i remembered while i was reading this and i think it describes it so well. i already loved "the six deaths of the saint" so i started this with expectations and i did not disappoint like at all alix really did it again. loving short stories like this is so rare for me and she did it twice! i wont say much since its so short but this is exactly the type of story i like the most: about love and what we are willing to do for it and her writing is amazing as always and fits it so perfectly.

A short story that packs a punch. This book touched my heart. The author conveys so much in so little words. I was emotionally invested in the characters and adored the back. It was immaculate. My only complaint? I wish this was an entire novel instead of a short story. 4.5 out of 5 stars.

Alix E. Harrow really knows how to write a short story! I actually never really enjoyed this kind of fictional work, but reading The Six Deaths of The Saint shifted my perspective so when I heard the same author had written another short story I immediately requested a copy.

It’s incredible how the complex story of multiple characters can fit in only a few pages in such a beautiful, raw and touching way. This story is set in the future which appears almost dystopian/catalytic but is a perfect metaphor in many ways for our own and what it could become. I’m gonna leave this quote here:
"The missions months after started the six first confirmed sighting. Priests, to call them demons, and knights, to slay them. The Bible and the gun-an old formula, well
proved.”

Thank you so much to netgalley and amazon prime for a an arc copy. All opinions are my own.

Alix E. Harrow's latest fantasy short story The Knight and the Butcherbird is set in a rural town centuries after an apocalypse, where a local oral historian meets a knight who has come to hunt the demon that has recently appeared in their area. For such a short story, Harrow fit in plenty of intriguing worldbuilding of post-apocalypse America and how it has divided and survived, as well as a compelling type of demon haunting this town and others. The only real drawback to me was that it took me a moment to get into the world and understand it, which is notable when you only have 36 pages total. Once I got into it, though, I found the world so interesting and would have enjoyed learning more about it.

This short story is a fantasy laden post-apocalyptic tale (300 years after, cancer and microplastics are the current scourges), but it’s also allegory about love, transformation, and the temptation to abandon a lover who has radically changed. Alix E. Harrow is best known for “Starling House” (a more contemporary haunted house thriller), her usual genre is dark fantasy horror/ magic realism. It’s a quick, yet very descriptive and emotional story about a knight hunting for demons and an outlander trying to protect her wife, who is “changing.” It’s a good example of Harrow’s work and her next novel (“The Everlasting”, due October 2025) appears to also be about knights and errant love.

By the way, bravo to Amazon Publishing for getting popular authors to do original short stories. I understand the marketing strategy, but I’m still thankful for getting more works from a lot of my favorite authors and sampling other authors that I’ve heard about. This short story will probably be available for free with a Kindle Unlimited subscription, and I’m glad I have one. 4 stars!

Literary Pet Peeve Checklist:
Green Eyes (only 2% of the real world, yet it seems like 90% of all fictional females): NO No green ones but many red ones.
Horticultural Faux Pas (plants out of season or growing zones, like daffodils in autumn or bougainvillea in Alaska): NO Many plants have transformed as well and kudzu is still a predator vine.

Thank you to Amazon Publishing and NetGalley for an advanced reader copy!

Listen, I'm trash for Alix Harrow's prose style. And this one is short but deeply evocative and full of timely, righteous rage. It's a post-apocalypse fairy tale about survival and transformation and love in the wasteland after the dystopia. The beats are pretty predictable, I suppose, but Shrike's POV and narrative voice makes this gorgeously cathartic in the current times.

This post-apocalyptic Southern gothic fairy tale (yes, it’s a lot) is eerie and sweet and short. Focusing on the power of storytelling, there was a lot here that resonated with me in this uncertain world of ours in which the existence of entire classes of people are threatened. It wasn’t my favorite Harrow, but it was intriguing, and easily digestible in one sitting.