Tender Eyes 3 The Butcher a novel by Matt Heart Long before Tender Eyes became a town known for its eloquent cuisine, it was a place trying to survive. Winter tightened its grip. Food ran low. Families did what they had to do to endure. Then Barton Russell Farmer arrived—offering order, protection, and answers for a community already on the edge. What he brought with him was something far worse than hunger. As desperation deepens, the Bartolucci family finds itself caught in the birth of something unnatural—where grief is manipulated, flesh becomes currency, and survival demands more than anyone should be willing to give. One quiet decision at a time, Tender Eyes is transformed from a struggling settlement into the foundation of a nightmare. Because evil didn't begin in Tender Eyes with madness.-- It began with meat. Tender Eyes 3: The Butcher is the brutal prequel to the Tender Eyes series—revealing how the hunger started, who fed it, and why some towns should have been left to die.