Bulgarian Books

Smyrna (today Izmir) - a city of light, cultures and the endless horizon of the Aegean Sea. Over the centuries, it has been home to peoples, traditions and histories, intertwined in an elegant but fragile whole. In September 1922, all this disappears in smoke and flames, and the centuries-old multicultural coexistence between Turks, Greeks, Armenians and Europeans collapses under the pressure of military conflicts and nationalistic ambitions.

Amidst the firestorm and the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, the personal dramas of those who loved this city but were forced to leave it come to life, witnessing the end of one era and the beginning of another, filled with uncertainty and fear.

This is a story about the human capacity for destruction - and about the hope that survives even in the ashes. It is a warning about the dangers of division, war and fanaticism - themes that still sound terrifyingly relevant today. Myrrh in Flames is a book, both shocking and inspiring, that weaves together history and literature to tell one of the most dramatic chapters of the 20th century

Young mother Colleen Clark is accused of an unthinkable crime: the kidnapping and murder of her infant child. Long before the jury is assembled, she already seems condemned by the public, unscrupulous prosecutors with political ambitions, and even her own husband.

However, lawyer Moxie Castine takes her side, and detective Charlie Parker, along with his loyal, courageous assistants Louis and Angel, take on the investigation.

The story involves a woman with a subtle sensitivity to the voices of the dead, a group of criminals with far-right beliefs, and an old Maine family, under whose house a bloodthirsty presence from another world lurks. When it wakes up, its hunger must be satisfied with human flesh. Of a child

Bestselling author Riley Sager returns with a chilling gothic thriller about a young nurse sent to care for a woman accused of a Lizzie Borden-like massacre of her own family decades earlier.

At seventeen, in a fit of rage, Lenora Hope hanged her sister with a rope...

Transformed into eerie rhymes sung in the schoolyard, the Hope murders shocked coastal Maine on a bloody night in 1929. Most people believe seventeen-year-old Lenora is responsible, but the police have never been able to prove it. Aside from her denials after the murders, she has never spoken openly about that night, nor has she ever set foot outside Hope's End, the cliffside mansion where the carnage took place - stabbed her father with a sharp knife, robbed her mother of a life of luxury.

It's 1983, and home care worker Kit McDeere arrives at a decaying estate to care for Lenora after her previous nurse runs away in the middle of the night. In her seventies and confined to a wheelchair, Lenora has lost her ability to speak after a series of strokes and can only communicate with Kit by typing sentences on an old typewriter. One night, Lenora uses it to make a startling proposition - I want to tell you everything.

'I didn't do it', Lenora claims, but she's the only one of the three who hasn't died.

As Kit helps Lenora describe the events leading up to the Hope massacre, it becomes clear that there's much more to the story than meets the eye. But as new details about her predecessor's departure come to light, Kit begins to suspect that Lenora may not be telling the whole truth - and that the seemingly harmless woman entrusted to her care may be far more dangerous than she thought

Freckled Stories contains twenty stories written over the past three years. Some of them will make you laugh, others will make you sad, as laughter and sadness are the main ingredients of this collection, and why not of our life outside the book.

Hristo G. Danov National Award for overall contribution to national literary culture

Linda Gray arrives in the town of Heaven's Bay to spend the night with her lover at the local motel. In the morning, her man takes her to Joyland and the two enter the 'House of Horrors'... but only he comes out.

As the monorail travels in complete darkness, the killer slits Linda's throat with a razor and throws her off the train. The crime remains unsolved until the summer of 1973, when Devin Jones (a twenty-one-year-old virgin, a writer with a broken heart, finding solace in the songs of The Doors and Pink Floyd) starts working at the amusement park.

His first meeting is with the local scoundrels: Lane Hardy with his perpetually crooked hat, reminiscent of a circus announcer from an old-time comic strip, Madame Fortuna with a scarf decorated with cabalistic symbols... And most of all with Mr. Easterbrook, the owner of Joyland, who looks more like an undertaker.

Addressing the newcomers, he says:
We live in a crazy world of wars, cruelty and senseless tragedies. Not a single human being who inhabits it is spared its share of misery and sleepless nights. Those of you who don't know it yet will learn it. Against the backdrop of these sad but undeniable facts about the state of society, this summer you are given a priceless gift: to sell happiness.

And Dev gives happiness to the children in front of whom he dances in a Howie the Greyhound costume. The happiest, however, is Mike (the boy in a wheelchair, gifted with supernatural abilities), who, thanks to his young friend, experiences an unforgettable day in Joyland.

And during the long sleepless nights, Devin thinks about the ghost in the 'House of Horrors'. Because his friend Tom has seen it. And because the killer has not yet been caught and is still lurking... perhaps very close by

The novel 'A Stranger' (1964) is one of the most famous and characteristic works of Kobo Abe, still relevant today, 60 years after its publication, because it examines the theme of human alienation in the ruthless conditions of a highly developed industrial society.

This classic of post-war Japanese literature describes a strange physical transformation that reveals the duplicity of the world we live in. The narrator is a scientist, deformed in a laboratory accident, in which he loses his face and with it - his connection to other people. Even his wife is disgusted by him. His only way back to the world is to create a mask so perfect that it is unnoticeable.

But he soon discovers that such a mask is more than a disguise: it is another self; a self that is capable of anything. A merciless reflection on nature, identity and social contact, 'A Stranger' is an intellectual horror story of the highest order.

Kobo Abe (1924-1993) was a novelist, playwright, poet, and director, considered one of the most significant representatives of the rich modern Japanese literature. He was born in Tokyo, but spent his childhood and most of his youth in Manchuria. At one time he was among the strongest contenders for the Nobel Prize in Literature, but he died before being awarded it

Step into the Future, where three classic stories come to life in a new guise:

In 'The Three Digital Pigs': A talented hacker is kidnapped in the middle of the night and forced to commit betrayal against her employer - the powerful Heimdall Corporation. The consequences are irreversible, and the Wolf is on the heels of not only the victim, but also the kidnappers.

In 'Cinderella: Wired': Home robots exist only to serve. A machine suddenly realizes that she is different when she falls in love with a world-famous artist. However, neither her body nor her owners would allow such a deviation. CHIPELyashka will need real magic to meet her lover at the Festival.

In 'Not Hansel and Gretel': When the son of an influential businessman disappears without a trace, he turns to lawyers Maximilian Hexell and Anita Gretel for help. Lured by a tempting reward, the two fall into a sinister trap from which they have no chance of escaping unscathed

A warm May night in 1993. The siege of Sarajevo had begun a year ago and there was no end in sight, just like the fratricidal war between yesterday's allied Yugoslav nations. A couple of young Serbs stand in their kitchen, lost in silence. Davor, a Christian, and Ida, a Muslim, have kept their love alive amid the destruction and madness that reigns in the besieged city. They know that another brief lull of only half an hour is approaching, when the snipers rest. Staring at the hands of the clock, they have made the decision to escape - to reach freedom... or face death.

Twenty years later, a Bulgarian traveled to Sarajevo to meet the Serbian translator of his book. They soon end up in a pub and subtly talk about the war. As the hours progress, the empty bottles on the table increase, and long-buried secrets come to the surface.

Two nights. Four Fates. All leading to the most important questions.

Who started this war? And who won from her?

With 'Lyutenski razkazi' (Lyuten Stories), Goran Atanasov shows that he has already become a great storyteller, with enough experience behind him; that he knows how to take us by the hand and lead us - where we need to go

There is nothing more scandalous than a rich man who has taken a step towards evil.

When Ruby McTavish died, she was not only the richest heiress in North Carolina, she was also the most scandalous. Famed as a child when she was kidnapped, Ruby outlived four husbands and until her last breath was the sole mistress of Ashby House, the family estate in the Blue Ridge Mountains.

After her death, the mansion - along with a nine-figure fortune - passes into the hands of her adopted son Camden. To everyone's surprise, Cam shows no interest in either the house or the money. Instead, he starts a new life with his beloved Jules. Both are done with the past. Alas, the past is not done with them, and years later it forces them to return to Ashby House.

The mansion's rooms are still elegant, the view still captivating, but returning home quickly reminds Cam why he wanted to leave, and still wants to. But Jules has other plans. The more she learns about her husband's estranged family - and its sinister secrets - the more determined Cam becomes to get everything Ruby left him.

As Ashby House tightens its grip on them, Jules and Camden search for answers to long-suppressed questions:
Is there any truth to the persistent rumors about Ruby's childhood? What really happened to her four husbands, who died under mysterious circumstances? And why did she adopt Cam in the first place?