Baba Yaga

by Matthew Turk

What happens when someone confirmed to be deceased shows up at your front door in perfect shape? As summer recess comes to a close in 1933, a seven-year-old girl is found almost entirely dismembered and lying on the ground in a forest of the Pacific Northwest. Her dress is in shreds, a leg is folded 90 degrees in the wrong direction, and her face is gone, leaving only a heap of slimy pulp. Before the child’s parents have a chance to navigate the devastation, however, someone shows up at their door one day, and they are unable to distinguish this person from the daughter they had just buried. In this modern, grimly twisted take on a fairytale from Slavic folklore, the world of Baba Yaga brims with the supernatural as a team of local investigators attempts to make sense of physical impossibilities, extravagant hallucinations, and the historical enigma of the Voynich manuscript. But once the mystery begins to reveal itself, the townspeople realize that they’ve disturbed a force deep in the forest that is so insidious and so frightening that its threat lingers beyond the final page.

234 pages, Paperback

Published April 10, 2022

Reviews

[TheMother · Rating 4 out of 5]

I purchased this book on a whim. I am a huge fan of horror elements in fiction books. This novel by Matthew Turk was a very readable. The style was not difficult to understand or work through. I appreciate that.

The overall story has a few literal errors in the middle but nothing that can’t be quickly reread to say oh he meant he not she etc. (SPOILER AHEAD) that said - I’m a little confused toward the end on the escape sequence from the hut.

Continue Here!!
I was always ready to “see” more of Baba Yaga and that kept me pushing through to the final 11th chapter. I look forward to more works in the future lots of potential!