I found Crimson Bound to be even darker and more gruesome than Hodge's previous novel, Cruel Beauty. It employs the same style of pulling together various fairytale/folklore/religious elements into one story that I found so interesting in that book, maybe even to a greater degree. 
 While Cruel Beauty was a sort of Beauty-and-the-Beast-meets-Bluebeard in a world with classical mythology, Crimson Bound combines a lesser-known (and exceptionally creepy) version of Little Red Riding Hood with The Girl Without Hands (which is very religious and also very creepy) in a Versailles-inspired setting (I think) with a religion that is clearly supposed to resemble Christianity without actually being Christianity. I was also picking up bits of what I think were Hansel and Gretel and The Juniper Tree. 
 This book made me sort of wish Rosamund Hodge would try her hand at writing adult fantasy since some elements of this felt a smidgen too dark for the YA romance it purports to be. I'd be curious what she could do if she weren't beholden to those trappings and tropes.