There are monsters in Yana’s world. She bills herself as a monster hunter, traveling from village to village to rid them of the creatures that suddenly and violently kill the residents. She leaves each village with a corpse (a recently deceased person who was fairly unpopular) with a brick rammed down its throat and enough nails to make sure that the body stays wherever it has been buried. Everyone is happy. In She Made Herself a Monster, by Anna Kovatcheva, we get to see what happens when Yana encounters a real monster.
Three narrators take turns sharing their stories about what happens in the small, troubled village of Koprivci. Kiril is one of the few people to leave the village. He left to study medicine, hoping to lift the village out of its benighted reliance on folk healing and prayer. He has finally returned to Koprivci to set up shop. There’s plenty of excitement to be had the day he arrives as a “witch” is released from captivity to the widespread scorn of the village. Meanwhile, his foster sister Anka is rapidly approaching the day when she can no longer put off marrying the Captain, the man who raised Kiril and Anka after they were orphaned. And then there is Yana, who has been staking out the village to work out a plan to create a monster for Koprivci to scapegoat for all their troubles.
I was instantly hooked by She Made Herself a Monster. From the Slavic-inspired world of deep snows, isolation, and superstition, to the characters who’ve twisted themselves up in knots, to the fascinating exploration of the power of monster stories to bring justice or healing or just a measure of peace until the next “monster” rises up. Kovatcheva’s Captain had my skin crawling from the first dinner Kiril shares with him and Anka on the night he returns, though I had no idea how monstrous he was until Anka and Yana dig deeper into whatever is poisoning Koprivci and its people. This book is absolutely incredible.
I received a free copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley, for review consideration.