THE EXECUTIONERS THREE by Susan Dennard – Review

I received this book for free from the Publisher in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

The Executioners Three by Susan Dennard
Published by Tor Teen on August 26 2025
Genres: Mystery, Young adult
Pages: 304
Format: ARC
Source: Publisher
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The nitty-gritty: The characters steal the show in this fun, fast-paced YA supernatural mystery, a great blend of humor, romance and creepy intrigue.

Susan Dennard is one author I will break my “no YA” rule for, and I’m very happy I had the chance to read The Executioners Three, which appears to be a standalone novel. If you enjoyed Dennard’s The Illuminaries, you’ll find this one has a similar vibe, with a creepy forest and a story that revolves around a school setting. The characters are wonderfully quirky, the banter is funny, and the romance is oh-so-sweet. But “sweet” and “funny” are tempered with a rather dark story about a family curse, and the underlying mystery was a lot of fun.

Freddie Gellar lives in the small town of Berm, is a senior at Berm High, and has just (inadvertently) gotten the seniors at Allard Fortin Prep—Berm High’s rival school—arrested, after hearing screams coming from the woods and calling the cops (the Fortin kids were partying in the woods, wrong place wrong time!) After this unexpected event, Freddie is asked to join the popular seniors, whose “prank wars” against Fortin Prep have been going on for years. Freddie is thrilled to finally be part of the “in” crowd, especially when cute fellow senior Kyle starts asking her out.

But weird things are happening in Berm. Freddie keeps hearing the sound of pealing bells coming from the forest, even though the town’s historical bell doesn’t ring anymore. Hundreds of crows fill the trees in the forest, and odd shapes appear out the shadows. And then Freddie and her best friend Divya find a dead body in the woods. Freddie has always been an Answer Finder (according to her late dad), and she hopes to follow in her father’s footsteps one day and join the local police force. And when another body turns up, she decides to conduct her own investigation. An old poem in the Historical Society’s archives called The Executioners Three might hold the answers to what’s happening, but Freddie can’t figure it out on her own. She’s surprised when help comes in the form of Fortin Prep student Theo Porter, a maddeningly annoying boy who pushes all of Freddie’s buttons.

The local Harvest Festival is only weeks away, and Freddie is determined to solve the mystery before anyone else dies.

Susan Dennard sets her story in 1999 in a small French logging settlement from the 1800s, and I found this fascinating backdrop to be perfect for this supernatural mystery. Freddie’s mom works for the local historical society and is in charge of City-on-the-Berm, a historically preserved town where tourists can get a taste of the life of the French settlers (think a Sturbridge Village-like town), complete with a Fall Festival where volunteers reenact the French discovering the area and settling down. The forest surrounding City-on-the-Berm is the setting for most of the scarier parts of the story, and as she has done in past books, Dennard uses this setting in some very creepy, atmospheric ways.

The mystery surrounding the poem and what’s happening in the woods was a lot of fun, especially with Freddie throwing herself into the roll of Nancy Drew and teaming up with Theo. And of course by doing this, she’s attracting the wrong sort of attention and putting herself and her friends in danger. Dennard weaves a fascinating mystery around the old poem and the original settlers of Berm, and she does a great job of bringing all her clues and puzzle pieces together at the end.

But honestly, it was the characters and their relationships that really shined. Freddie is such a fun character, a curious girl who worships Scully and Mulder from The X-Files, although she leans more towards Scully since she doesn’t believe in monsters or the supernatural, lol. I loved the friendship between Freddie and Divya, especially the fact that they both love the boy band NSYNC and worship Lance Bass (they have a Lance keychain that they believe brings them good luck, and they take turns sharing it).

And I adored Freddie and Theo together, who start out as enemies—they do go to rival schools, after all—but soon realize they are undeniably attracted to each other. Freddie imagines them as the Capulets and the Montagues from Romeo and Juliet, and they decide to keep their burgeoning relationship a secret from their friends. There are some adorable kissing scenes between the two, which was the perfect amount of romance for the story. Their hysterically funny banter is top notch, and I found myself laughing out loud every time they were together. All the side characters are fantastic as well, especially Freddie’s parents, who have a great relationship with her.

The story seems to be a standalone, although Freddie and Theo and the others really grew on me and I wouldn’t mind a reunion at some point! The Executioners Three was a lot of fun, and I think it will be a hit not only with Susan Dennard’s fans, but with new readers as well.

Big thanks to the publisher for providing a review copy.