Bulgarian Books

White Light is the story of a woman who must assemble the pieces of her shattered life and find the strength to go on. Viktoria is used to being strong. To solving problems and facing challenges. To being capable of everything. Until the accident that destroys her entire reality. While her husband loses himself in anger and senseless plans for revenge, Viktoria is left alone with her pain. Every attempt to remain her old self is doomed. But that woman no longer exists. Viktoria realises that to survive she must discover and rebuild herself. Piece by piece, until she fits grief into her new life and finds something that gives her a reason to continue. White Light is a novel about hope and the realisation that people can find themselves even after the greatest tragedy. Its action complements and completes the story of Black Light, but the two books can be read independently

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

Fourteen years ago, a conflict erupted between Olive Stone and her father, the legendary chef and owner of East London's most popular restaurant, and they were forever separated. Her place in the kitchen, and perhaps in her father's heart, was taken by the talented, ambitious... and irritatingly charming Leo Ritchie.

After her father's death, Olive unexpectedly inherits his failing restaurant, Nicky's. She's determined to sell it. Leo is even more determined to dissuade her. They also have to fulfill her father's last wish: to travel to Italy with Leo and finish the cookbook he started.

Traveling from sunny Sicily to golden Tuscany to picturesque Liguria, the two try countless recipes - from orange cake and citrus-tinged seafood to perfect pastas and cheeses. Enchanted by the flavors of Italy, sparkling wine and coastal towns, they gradually discover feelings within themselves that neither of them is ready to admit.

But in Liguria, a secret awaits them, capable of changing not only the future of 'Nikki's', but also their own

Bulgarian Roses is a dark, criminally enigmatic, merciless novel immersing readers in Bulgaria’s atmosphere at the beginning of the twenty-first century. Violence, appropriation of capital and identities, struggles for power. This is an account of the intelligentsia’s fate in the unscrupulous world of the powerful, brutal and rich, and of the shattering of illusions of innocence. A story of unattainable love and betrayal in the name of success, fame and money

That Shadow beneath the Red Rock is a novel about the American dream and its fulfilment, or failure, in the Balkans and America. It is also about a love triangle with a criminal undertone, in which the third person remains invisible. A psychological drama unfolding in Bulgaria, the United States and virtual space against important historical events: the Lovech camp in the early 1960s, Bulgaria’s turbulent 1990s transition and the lives of Bulgarian immigrants in the United States at that time. The book is a revised and expanded version of the novel The Man and the Shadow, published in 2012

In the summer of 1973, twenty-one-year-old college student Devin Jones takes a seasonal job at Joyland, an old-fashioned amusement park in North Carolina, hoping that work will help him recover from a broken heart. He soon becomes immersed in the strange community of performers, fortune-tellers and veteran carnival workers who keep the park running and learns the language and traditions of the amusement business. But Joyland has a darker history. Years earlier, a young woman was brutally murdered inside the park's Horror House, and her killer was never caught. Some employees believe her ghost still haunts the ride. As Devin becomes increasingly fascinated by the unsolved crime, he also befriends Annie Ross and her seriously ill young son Mike, a boy with an unusual sensitivity to things others cannot perceive. What begins as a summer job gradually becomes a confrontation with loss, love, mortality and a murderer whose past may not be as safely buried as everyone believes. Blending crime mystery, supernatural suspense and a coming-of-age story, Joyland follows Devin through a summer that will shape the rest of his life

This book is not about the love associated with smiles, kisses and a happy ending. It is about love that pierces, breaks the rules and leads to sacrifice. 100% Love tells the story of two women, so different and so alike in their pain and longing. Katya is a respected psychologist, wife and mother hiding feelings that do not belong to her marriage. Irena is a young woman with a scarred soul and a past that pursues her and drives her towards crime. A novel about forgiveness, sacrifice and the courage to love without insurance. And about the greatest victory: the victory over oneself!

When Andi lands her dream job as a senior PR executive at a major American publishing house, she's ready to take on the world of New York publishing. Until her first day on the job, when she discovers that her most popular author is Jack Carlson.

The same Jack who ruined her life in college. Who she hasn't spoken to in five years. Who is not only still maddeningly handsome, but also incredibly successful. And whose campaign she can't afford to screw up if she wants to keep her job.

Things get even worse when Andi has to travel around Europe for a month with the man who, if she's being completely honest, she would run over with her car. But she's not going to ruin her career for Jack Carlson. It's just a month of touring the most romantic places in Europe. What could possibly go wrong?

At first sight a thick book, yet inside it turns out to be two books. One is a normal narrative: a sculptor works in a village, while life around him seethes with passions, desires and murders. On the Danube bank he works on a European project to create the ten Europeans in question plus three Bulgarians. The project is undertaken in every European country. There is much showing off. The man works; he is the best in the Balkans. Yet this book is not an apotheosis of Europe, not in this way. All great human unions disintegrate through uniformity. Europe is so varied that preserving the authenticity of individual places is more interesting than unification. Another thread is woven into the novel: the ten greatest Europeans of the twentieth century, chapter after chapter, plus three great Bulgarians. Choosing them cannot have been easy. Each chapter reveals something interesting and new. Boris Christoff, for instance, begins studying as a baritone, not a bass: the discovery explains the soft, deep, powerful voice that does not shake the opera house’s roof tiles

Asphalt is one of those rare debuts that does not approach the reader timidly but seizes them from the first pages. Stoyan Kanchev writes with merciless directness and a rare ability to turn the social environment into a living literary organism. His characters are children of Bulgaria’s transition, carrying the scars of a time when success and failure often differ only in the direction of the next step. This is a novel about choices that build and destroy us, friendship surviving despite differences, morality constantly negotiated with reality, and a society finding it increasingly difficult to distinguish facade from truth. Asphalt offers neither comfort nor easy answers. It offers something much more valuable: an honest look at the world we live in. Simeon Iliev Asparuhov