There once was a great city that, at the time when Foul Days by Genoveva Dimova is set, was separated into Chernograd and Belograd by a deadly Wall, full of black, menacing tentacles that slash at the air around it, preventing anyone from getting over. Belograd is home to the wealthy, the powerful, and the happy. It is believed that they built the Wall to get rid of their neighbours once and for all. Chernograd is home to the poor, the witches, and—for the twelve days following the New Year—monsters both homegrown and imported. These twelve days are the Foul Days. These are the days when Chernograd’s residents cower behind their curtains while the witches battle all manner of foul creatures—including the Zmey, the Tsar of Monsters.
Kosara is one such witch and, despite her belief that it is her job to save idiots from monsters, she is spending New Year’s Eve playing cards with friends and strangers in the only pub that has dared to stay open. In Dimova’s world, a witch’s power is held within their shadow, and these shadows have an independence to them—useful for cheating at cards. One of Kosara’s card-playing friends is Roksana, a monster hunter, and she is on hand to provide the reader with a brief guide to some of the beasts as they attack the pub.
The monsters of Foul Days have names that will be unfamiliar for some, but recognisable traits. Yudas, for example, are bird-like creatures similar to harpies, upirs rise from their graves, and varkolaks have werewolf-like tendencies. The Zmey, meanwhile, is a dragon that can take human form and has a tendency to seduce women. The monsters here are mostly to be found in Slavic mythology (Genoveva Dimova is Bulgarian). Helpfully, for both readers of this book and residents of Chernograd, the Witch and Warlock Association publishes a handy educational pamphlet every year containing information on the monsters and how to fight them: They all have a weakness and can be beaten. This guide is reproduced at the end of the novel, should the reader require it. Much to Kosara’s annoyance, most residents don’t read the updated guide. They don’t listen to witches.
Kosara is of particular interest to the Zmey, so when he comes looking for her at the pub she is forced into leaving Chernograd with a stranger in order to protect those friends and acquaintances with her. When she finds herself in Belograd where there are no monsters at all, the stranger is gone, as is her shadow.
Chernograd is depicted as a grim, industrial place with polluting magic factories, muddy streets, disenfranchised citizens, and a lack of technological progress. Belograd, however, is a rich and bright, colourful place that has shiny mosques and ornate palaces, with cars and telephones and happy people enjoying leisure time—and, importantly, no monsters and very little magic. The city’s inhabitants have isolated themselves from their poverty-ridden neighbours, believing the latter are a cancerous growth that needs to be isolated before infecting the rest of the world. They also, of course, think that the Chernogradeans want to come over to their side of the wall to steal their jobs. They have, Kosara believes, the resources to cure lycanthropy and deal with the other threats, but they simply don’t want to: poverty needs only to be kept away from view. Getting from Chernograd to Belograd is no easy feat; but those that do, however legitimately, have to enter a period of quarantine to ensure they are free from infection.
But what of the plot? The main driver is the protagonist wishing to get her shadow back before, as a consequence of lacking it, she becomes one herself. She perhaps hopes for some revenge if that can be managed, too. The novel also becomes a bit of a murder mystery and buddy-cop story. While searching for her shadow, Kosara finds the stranger dead. Murdered. She becomes the reluctant partner of a policeman from Belograd called Bakharov. She needs to get back to her home, following the threads of the homicide investigation. It points to her friend, Roksana, being the guilty party. Along the way, however, she discovers that not all is as it seems with Bakharov: He’s not just some cop trying to solve a case. There are nice layers to this book, mystery upon mystery: Presumed guilt is not always as clear-cut as it first seems; motivations are muddy and occasionally unresolved.
After all, witches themselves are generally thought of as deceivers, manipulators, and in many cases, downright evil. In keeping with that reputation, Kosara is an interesting character. She believes herself to be a weak coward and a charlatan amongst other things; she is easily frustrated with herself; she breaks the law and feels guilty about it. She also carries further feelings of guilt regarding her family. But is she a typical witch, a caricature? I think not. And it does, eventually, turn out that Kosara has a particular talent. Fire magic is her thing, a rare gift. She’s not a Chosen One trope, but she does have the key to resolving the story’s plot.
In other words, adventures ensue. We experience some grave-digging, magical compasses, gambling with a pirate called Blackbeard, truth serums (always handy for a bit of exposition), and a feast at the Zmey’s palace. It all moves along at a fair pace, with plenty within the prose and dialogue to keep the reader entertained.
There are also themes to consider. In particular, there is a lot of abuse of young women by both men and monsters, and Dimova directly addresses this: For example, a folk tale of a young woman being embedded in a bridge to protect it elicits a suitably sweary response from Roksana at one point. Dimova spells things out in her characters’ dialogue, highlighting the sacrifices women are expected to make for their husbands’ careers. Similarly, the Zmey takes the life and love from vulnerable and emotionally naive young women. And we also find out that Kosara’s sister was murdered, her ghost a manifestation of her anger. There are allusions to the predicaments of older women—such as Kosara’s erstwhile teacher, Vila, who has stories made up about her, and her gingerbread house (with legs), that are used to scare children.
If all this suggests that Dimova isn’t overly subtle in her messaging around the sacrifices women are asked to make, or the fact that they are still demonised whatever they do or achieve, it also unsurprisingly turns out that the bad guys are those individuals from Belograd who created the Wall. In order to achieve this, they captured the Zmey’s sister, Lamia, another dragon-like monster from Slavic mythology. (A lamia is similar to a hydra, in that cutting off its head leads to more growing in its place.) The Zmey—previously coded as a monster, lest we forget—wants his sister back and to right an injustice. And, of course, he needs Kosara’s help.
Throughout, the tone of Dimova’s work is often flippant, mostly lighthearted, and enjoyable to read. When Kosara mentions that her parents are dead, the assumption is (as always in this type of story) that it is the monsters that did it (and are therefore the reason for the protagonist’s calling); but she simply says they were run over by a drunk driver. Death is commonplace in Chernograd and not always at the hands of evil. What seems to be anachronistic to a world of monsters and magic at first—mention of phone calls and tee shirts jars a little—does develop into an approach to worldbuilding that is occasionally discordant. There are also familiar and expected elements present, such as the fact that Kosara’s house contains a number of spirits (I love that the kitchen spirit vanishes in a puff of smoke that smells of bread), or a witch’s knowledge of counteracting curses and spell casting with potent herbs; but then there are passages talking about gramophones playing piano ballads, police dusting for fingerprints, and autographs on crumpled receipts, or how particular monsters are part of the family who just become a bit hairier during the full moon. But, remarkably, it also works. The world feels like it fits together as it should.
Similarly, despite this being a witch and monster story, resolutions feel earned. Characters develop. Kosara and Bakharov especially have the fairly typical banter of an unwanted partnership that slowly becomes a better, if untrusting, relationship. (There is an almost inevitable “will they won’t they” element, which is driven by plot requirements.) When secrets are revealed (is every character in this novel lying?), the various threads of the investigation and the characters’ relationships all come together at the end: Nothing feels forced, or shoehorned in for the sake of a cheap gag or clichéd scene. In other words, justice is served. Subtext is clearly understood by the reader, motivations explained. But sometimes, the monsters on the other side of the Wall are just monsters.