Review: Crimson Bound

Red Riding Hood, super soldier.

Full disclosure: Rosamond Hodge is my friend, which is how I got my hands on an advance reader’s copy of Crimson Bound. I’ll do my best to be objective.

Hodge’s specialty is a romantic mash-up of myth, fairy-tale, and classic literature. Her first novel, Cruel Beauty, used elements of Greek mythology, Victorian England, and Renaissance alchemy as a lens to re-imagine the Cupid and Psyche/Beauty and the Beast story. Her next novel – actually a duology – will involve Romeo and Juliet and necromancers. This novel crosses Red Riding Hood with the lesser known Girl with No Hands. Wait, not romantic enough? She throws in a love triangle – make that a love quadrangle. With the wolf. Sort of.

The wolf in Hodge’s retelling is