Yana, a vampire hunter, rides into Koprivci promising salvation. The village’s curse has endured for many years and rumour has it that Anka – whose parents died on the night of her birth – is to blame. But enduring the villagers’ suspicion is the least of Anka’s worries; now she has reached womanhood, she can no longer avoid the odious marriage that seems to be her only option.
When animal corpses start to appear in the village square and eggs filled with blood are found in the chicken coops, panic rises. The villagers look to Yana for hope. She knows all about the monsters that stalk the night, monsters that only she can vanquish. But Yana is a liar. And monsters come in all different forms.Yana and Anka become unlikely allies in hatching a plot to save both Koprivci and Anka from their fates. But then their plan takes on a horrifying life of its own...
"Was that how demons felt? Clawing at the walls of the world, desperate to cross? The movement between was jarring, the passage painful and cold, something they couldn't possibly survive. Even when her hands dug into the grit of the far shore and she coughed up her burning lungs, some piece of her was left behind."
Step into a gripping gothic tale in a sleep Bulgarian town; steeped in folklore and legend, superstition and suspicion. She Made Herself A Monster is a beautifully crafted piece of art, the first few lines weaving rich, visceral scenes to descriptive that they feel real. It's vivid, bloody, dark, a literary car crash full of flames that made me want to cover my eyes even though I couldn't look away.
The cast are just as unsettling and intriguing as the setting - fluid and changing, our opinions of them changing from moment to moment as we learn about them and their reactions to the world around them. The narration is third person but still feels deeply personal to whoever the focus is.
The young Anka seemingly doomed to marry her own lecherous 'uncle', the subject of vicious rumours of being born hexed. Her 'cousin' Kiril, recently back from his studies in the city only to find his beloved betrothed to a man chosen for her, and a new mysterious vampire hunter in town claiming to be able to solve the curse plaguing the village.
"Two truths: A body is not just an object. This is not a body yet."
It's complicated, beautifully so, because there isn't one specific evil, not a mythical villain to overcome or one specific obstacle to navigate. Instead there's unquestionably bad people, grey characters, superstition, rumour and hysteria in a magnificently unsettling mystery rooted deeply in humanity.
"Yulia says that after the sun goes down, that's when people show you who you really are."
It's our characters who are the story; realistically not a lot happens. We spend the first quarter of the book living the lives of Anka and Kiril at home as they hear whispers of demons in the dark. It's slow, patient, confident - all about the atmosphere and looming anxiety as a strange relationship starts to form between two young women in the shadows as they work together to fight the darkness closing in around them.
This is a striking, powerful book about fighting for freedom, about the power of women, of sisterhood - and just why strong women have been called witches for centuries.
⭐⭐⭐⭐
- She Made Herself A Monster will be available from 12th February with Random House UK, I received a reviewers copy of this title.
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