I enjoyed reading this book a lot. I went into this book with high expectations, and I wasn't disappointed! much. 
 I liked Cruel Beauty and Gilded Ashes, so I thought that Crimson Bound was going to be exceptionally good as the first two, but it didn't quite lived up to the potential. The cover is beautiful, albeit it being a sorta copy of Cruel Beauty's cover. But anyway, Crimson Bound is a retelling of Little Red Riding Hood and The Girl With No Hands, but with a twist: Hodge uses the old French version of the story called The Grandmother's Tale in lieu of Grimm's Little Red Cap (Red Riding Hood), and after reading the story, I think I prefer the way Hodge wrote this story and characters. 
 Crimson Bound is not a part of the Cruel Beauty universe, as noted by the author which I noticed while reading because unlike Gilded Ashes, were there were references of old characters, this one did not. This one read more like a stand alone novel with a new set of characters and the setting was way different. They way spoke was more with French, like the use of Mademoiselle and Monsieur, and the likes. It was interesting and caught my attention. 
 On the other hand, there was so much going on in this book that at times I felt overwhelmed and had the need to just drop this book, but since I really wanted to know what direction the author was taking it, I decided to keep on reading. I liked how the forestborn, the Devourer, and the bloodbound were introduced and it was something that I've never read about. Hodge got the idea from the french tale; because she didn't want to use wolves and so came up with the magical race of the bloodbound/forestborn who are evil-if they mark you, you have to kill in 3 days or you die. And become evil. But Rachelle kills and instead of losing herself to the Great Forest, she becomes one of the King's bloodbound and hunts the woodspawn that attack the humans. Of course, she ends up saving a man who she thinks is an idiot and then, according to the synopsis: 
 When the king orders her to guard his son Armand--the man she hates most--Rachelle forces Armand to help her find the legendary sword that might save their world. 
 And the rest, as they say, is history. They end up teaming up to search for the sword but Armand thinks that she's working for the Devourer when she's just looking for the sword just so she can kill the Devourer and Armand has a more deadly secret that he's keeping from Rachelle. 
 Another thing I liked was that the love interest was totally different from other books. Usually the love interest is strong and protective and has some hidden talent at swordfighting or martial arts, or whatever, basically he's normal, the most "damaged" they can be is filled with scars or have emotional trauma, but nope not in Crimson Bound. Remember how I mentioned that it's a retelling of two stories? Well, Armand, the love interest, doesn't have any hands. And I would go into more detail but I don't want to spoil everything, basically the whole story plot. Just keep in mind that Rachelle hates him because he claimed that he was marked by a forestborn and he survived the 3 days without killing, and they cut off his hands in anger, and Armand was suddenly catapulted to the status of a saint. Rachelle thinks he's a fraud. And so, they get thrown in together and sooner than later, they fall for each other. Of course, as always, things get complicated especially with the return of the Devourer. 
 Throw in a "love rival", an evil king, a rebellion growing, religious nut jobs running around, people who hate the bloodbound and want to kill Rachelle, plus the impending death of everyone if they fail to kill the Devourer and all of this makes for a great story!