Vampires seem to be having a moment again. Last fall was the 20th anniversary of Twilight, the classic book Carmilla is a perennial seller at our bookstore, and at least a few of my favorite authors released novels featuring fanged folklore in the last six months. The films Sinners and Nosferatu were big releases last year, too. And while I don’t consciously seek out vampire tales, they do find their way into my reading stack on a regular basis these days—including a romance novel published last year that was pretty much a Hallmark Christmas story set in Vermont…with vampires. I’ve read enough of them that it is hard for these stories to surprise me anymore, so imagine my delight when I came across a debut novel that turned out to be a vampire story with no vampire at all.
Kovatcheva’s debut novel, She Made Herself a Monster, is set in 19th-century Bulgaria in a town that has been living with a curse for decades. The town is overseen by a wealthy Captain, and the story unfolds around the lives of the two young people in his care: Anka, who is suspected of witchcraft due to the unlucky timing of the town’s misfortunes coinciding with the time of her birth, and her cousin Kiril, who has just come back to the village after training as a doctor in the big city. Kiril wants to usher in change with science and medical care, but the village’s people are superstitious and primarily believe the folktales they were raised with.
Enter Yana: a con artist who makes her living traveling from village to village creating a monster, usually a vampire, on which the people can blame their problems. She then helps them eliminate it for a reward. The Captain immediately sees Yana for what she is, but encourages her to fulfill her ruse to help alleviate the suspicions of his people. He understands the psychological value of having a scapegoat to blame and sacrifice, and decides to give her a chance to help the villagers get past their “curse”.
While Yana tries to conjure up a monster for the town to blame, it becomes clear that they already have a real one. The Captain is delusional, abusive, and grooming young Anka to become his bride. But it isn’t just Yana and Anka who work together to outwit the monster in their midst; they’re joined by other women in the town to figure out a way through that will cure the village of what truly ails it.
The delightful surprise of this novel is the full cast of characters working in concert to make life in the village better. Kovatcheva has written what has the gothic feel of a vampire story without the usual vampire tropes. It’s refreshing to see someone flushing out the very real idea behind much of the folklore that has been passed throughout human history: how helpful it is to have a monster to blame our problems on. Something we can defeat with the right incantations or tools or beliefs. A mythical being that’s making our lives miserable, and everything can go back to normal once it’s gone. Since reading the last page of this novel I can’t help but wonder, how many people made a living the way Yana did? Charlatans who helped people get past their perceived curses, but also perpetuated stories that carried through time and ultimately helped produce some of our most beloved stories. What a thrill to think about not only where folklore comes from, but how it makes its way through the ages and into the art we enjoy today.
Kari Meutsch and Kristian Preylowski co-own and run the Yankee Bookshop in Woodstock.
