DRC Review: The Deathly Grimm by Kathryn Purdie
Release date: 25 March 2025
Rating: 3.5/5
Synopsis: The spellbinding sequel to Kathryn Purdie's bestselling dark fairytale, where our main characters must return to the forest—and its monsters.
The story hasn't ended yet.
After surviving the Forest Grimm and defeating the Wolf, Clara and Axel have made it back to their village, the one place they can be safe behind the forest's borders. But when the forest itself begins luring in more villagers, it's clear that Clara and Axel have only treated the symptoms of the forest's curse, not the cause—and it's getting worse.
Burdened with visions of the past and learning to navigate her fragile new relationship with Axel, Clara finds herself entering the forest with Axel yet again to discover the truth once and for all: the identity of the murderer who caused the curse. As they fight murderous woodsmen with incomprehensible riddles, ladies who will drag you into an eternal dance, and ghosts with the power to wield the forest against them, Clara and Axel realize the stakes are higher than ever. If they don't survive the dark, deadly twists of the forest once more, not only will they never escape, they may also no longer have a home to escape to.
Romantic, eerie, and beautiful, The Deathly Grimm is the triumphant conclusion to Kathryn Purdie's bestselling Forest Grimm duology.
Review
**This review is for a sequel book in a duology. It may contain spoilers for the first book. Proceed with caution.**
Read my review for The Forest Grimm here.
As far as the end of a duology goes, Purdie’s follow-up ties all of the loose ends from The Forest Grimm in a neat bow. I got to go back in the eerie forest for another literary romp, and dark forest settings are among some of my favorites, but this time the forest didn’t have quite the same feel. The story structure, as writers often do when a series follows the same characters and settings, changed from a search and rescue quest to a curse-breaking, whodunnit mystery. I may have enjoyed this one a bit less than the first, but I still feel it’s worth giving it a read.
Coming in at a hefty 48-page surplus over The Forest Grimm from about 18 months ago in September of 2023, The Deathly Grimm will also have a different cover design (with matching artwork from the gorgeous watercolor art designs of the UK covers) and a simultaneous paperback release. The first book will be getting a rerelease with a matching cover as well. As I completely loathed the cover for the first release, I’m almost happy about this, but since the rerelease isn’t going to have a matching hardcover as well, it’s a huge eh for me. Here’s hoping FairyLoot will be announcing a matching edition to go with their copy of the first one.
Purdie serves up some genre variety here and switches from the atmospheric forest setting where the characters search for missing villagers to a mystery/thriller in which Clara must now find the reason for the curse and the one(s) who brought it upon the village. I don’t really like murder mysteries because of how predictable they can be for me, and this one fared the same as all the others; I pegged almost immediately whodunnit. On a positive note, it took until the end for the how and why to come through. As I mentioned in my review for the first book, it is a YA; so some aspects of storytelling come across as juvenile to me. The drawback here would have to be the content matures more than the characters do.
Clara and Axel team up again and go into the forest and take on a monumental task of solving the mystery of the curse instead of simply rescuing a few of its victims, and though the book’s plot had a tight structure, the sheer amount of events create a breakneck pace. The shifts and transitions happen in a blinking whirlwind, and I backtracked more than a couple of times to reorient and continue. Add in the relatively immature character interactions, and the plot here didn’t have the same charm for me as it did in The Forest Grimm.
As for content—Clara and Axel got together in the first book, they kept their paws off each other, and the book was appropriately YA. Here, they do quite a bit of seriously heavy snogging, and some of it certainly pushes some boundaries. This one has a bit of language as well (I’d say mild, but I know some readers don’t like any, so just a heads up there). It’s one of the tamest selections I’ve read in the B5 YA market lately, so I won’t complain too loudly.
My thanks to Wednesday Books and Macmillan via NetGalley for the DRC, for which I willingly give my own, honest opinion.
Comments