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Your next favorite book
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Stories
by Haralambi Markov
A murderous nine-headed monster from legend permits a podcast interview.
The mall has opened its doors, and nothing, not even certain death, will keep the shoppers away. A dead man's curse drives his descendants to drown themselves, no matter how far from home they flee. An eerie haunted house attraction receives an even more unnerving guest. A grieving widower, knife in hand, undertakes a painstaking, gruesome ritual to appease the gods. If seeking a boon from Baba Yaga sounds nerve-shattering, imagine having to live under her roof.
These thirteen tales from Bulgarian author Haralambi Markov meld Slavic mythology, pitch-black humor, and moving explorations of queer identity with vistas rooted in body horror and nightmares, yielding results that are sometimes deeply disquieting, sometimes surprisingly hopeful, and always strikingly novel. As Hugo and World Fantasy award-winning editor Ann VanderMeer states in her introduction, Markov "writes with such power and intensity that you can't imagine where they get the courage to put such words on paper. Their work challenges us to face our fears, our insecurities, and not look away."
"They find in Slavic legend a rich vocabulary for queer desire, loss, and transformation. The result is a collection that refuses to look away from darkness while still, against the odds, reaching for hope. Readers who enjoy Bora Chung's Cursed Bunny and the folk horror of T. Kingfisher will find much to savor." —Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"A perfect twilight read, this book will stick with readers as they devour story after story (just as some of Markov's characters devour their prey). A stunning, thrilling, and eerie collection of short stories that will delight readers of gothic fiction." —Kirkus Reviews
"Markov's precise prose paints a viscerally beautiful horror journey in this stunning collection." —Chelsea Conradt, USA Today bestselling author of The Farmhouse
"These haunting tales feel both ancient and utterly new. Bleak and beautiful, visceral and transcendent, Markov weaves folklore into a cosmos that whispers under your skin and into your bones. A stunning collection of lush nightmares." —Michael Harris Cohen, author of Effects Vary
This information about The Language of Knives was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Haralambi Markov is a Bulgarian fiction writer, blogger and reviewer with a background in marketing. A Clarion 2014 graduate, Markov lives for the thrill of chasing down stories and you'll always catch him typing.
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