Krelløy: A Lovecraftian Horror Novel of Arctic Isolation and Cosmic Annihilation

by Michal Polgar

A remote Arctic island. A mysterious fog. A reality that refuses to stay fixed.

When a supply ship delivers its final cargo to the isolated fishing community of Krelløy, forty-seven souls find themselves cut off from the mainland - and from the world they once knew. What begins as an eerie weather anomaly soon reveals itself as something far more profound, as the very fabric of their reality begins to unravel.

Stefan, a Slovak expatriate working at the local fish processing plant, and his wife Linnet, a Kenyan nurse who crossed continents for love, must navigate not only their community's fracturing bonds but also the increasingly alien landscape of their Arctic home. As neighbors vanish into the fog and those who remain undergo disturbing transformations, the couple faces an impossible flee into treacherous waters or witness the complete metamorphosis of everything they hold dear.

From the first impossible sound that echoes across the island to the final moments of human connection, KRELLØY is a haunting exploration of love, isolation, and the boundaries of human comprehension. Blending cosmic horror with intimate human drama, this literary thriller asks what it truly means to remain yourself when the world itself is forgetting how to be.

For readers of Jeff VanderMeer's Annihilation, Caitlín R. Kiernan's The Drowning Girl, and those who appreciate the atmospheric dread of Scandinavian weird fiction.

"In the Arctic darkness, some transformations cannot be escaped, only embraced."

Genres: Horror, Lovecraftian

331 pages, Paperback

Published September 11, 2025

About the author

Michal Polgár is a Slovak-born author of literary, cosmic, and psychological horror. Living in Northern Norway, he draws inspiration from remote landscapes, isolation, and the thin lines between the natural and the uncanny. He is a registered Norwegian author.

His work blends quiet atmosphere with slow-burn tension and emotional depth, often moving between the literary and the unsettling. Readers of H.P. Lovecraft, Jeff VanderMeer, or Paul Tremblay may recognize influences in his focus on tension, landscape, and the unsettling beauty of the unknown.

Krelløy is his debut novel.

Reviews

[ShannahBanana]

I wish this was a novella. even as short of a book as it was, it just felt way too long.

I loved the setting of an isolated fishing village. I loved the love the author poured into the relationship and connection of the main character and his wife. Too much of this reminded me of Annihilation. It felt like an overuse of metaphors and constant repetition of the same things happening and continuing. Take a drink every time the author uses "chrystalline" to describe things. I feel if the author had a better plot, his writing could've been beautiful but it just felt very monotonous here.



***********spoiler************

I was really disappointed in the ending. I thought this was all leading to the main character describing this transformation to us but instead they do a joint suicide and I felt like it was all for nothing. Cute love story though.

[Matthew W.]

Well that certainly captures a lovecraft story. This novel, while being horror, is also a fairly effective romance hidden between the creepiness.

[Billy Hoffman]

Just finished Krelloy by Michal Polgar. Horrific implications, beautiful and heartbreaking all at the same time. As an avid Lovecraftian/Cosmic horror read this brings an elegance seldom seen in the genre. This book has set a higher standard for the genre, that I wish to read more of from Michal.

[Paige Stumpf]

The book feels... Bland. Everything is very verbose and dramatic but the similes and sentence structure don't make sense half the time, and it's all very fast-paced and clearly trying to be impressive. I got to 33% and had to put it down when I realized I was bored reading it because the sentence structure is identical... Every sentence, it feels like.

I had a suspicion and plopped a random bit of text into Grammarly's AI detector (six paragraphs, at 30% where Siegfried is talking about cordyceps, randomly picked) and it came back as 100% AI. I know it's not always accurate so take it with a grain of salt, but it FELT repetitive and bland.

[Travis]

First off, the length here on Goodreads is wrong, which is frustrating if you're trying to keep progress past page 225. That being said, this book was NOT what I was expecting. Initially I was sucked in, the further I got, I'm sad to say I just wanted it to be over. Someone else on here mentioned the book seemed to overstay its welcome and I second that. There were times I felt it was just dragging on pages for the sake of not ending, using too many words to say very little. The "horror" aspect, if you can call it that felt very dull, and more like a very distant side plot to drive the book forward than anything actually prominent. It seemed like even the author didn't know what they wanted the danger to be and therefore we never get a sense of what is actually going on.

[Torin Whitefleet]

The author shows great potential as a writer, and I truly hope he keeps writing. As a first project I’m rather amazed at what he was able to do alone. But the story is just kinda… not it for me. It lingered and sauntered through the island, but only minor events really took place. Most of the story telling was pure description with an excessive amount of flowery language. I’m sure others will find something great here, but it’s just not for me. When I read Lovecraft, I understand his rambling to show insanity or a declining mental state. The rambling here feels more to highlight the craziness of the scene, which really doesn’t give the same effect for me.

[Matilda]

This was a hard one to rate. The plot was really good, as was the atmosphere and like others have said, it did make me cry at the end (which for me is rare).
However, it desperately, urgently, needs an editor. The language and style leaves a lot to be desired. There are more metaphors than I could count (take a shot every time the author writes ”as if/as though”) and classic mistakes that are hard to catch in your own work such as frequent repetitions. This is less of a critique of the author, and more so a fact of self-publishing, as professional editorial eyes catch much which you grow blind to yourself.
I agree that the story was very slow, but I feel it was fitting with the focus being not on the anomalies themselves but rather with the people, their lives and the altering of their world. Slow does not always equal bad, in a story such as this slow should be the standard in my opinion. That being said, in a slow story, such as this, I would have appreciated the characters being more rounded out. I agree with other reviewers that the novel would have been better if it was either longer and more fleshed out, or shorter, i.e. a short story.

Plot 4/5⭐️
Characters 2.5-3/5⭐️
Grammar/language use 2/5⭐️

[Charlotte R.S.]

I wanted to enjoy this story… but in the end I found it so meaningless. The writing style tries too hard to be Lovecraft, instead of developing its own voice. Descriptions such as “impossible” and imagery and metaphors are very repetitive, so much so that I started to wonder if AI wrote most of this. The characters are all so passive in the face of this random, pointless horror that I found myself frustrated as a reader. What actually was the point of this story? It felt like a slow decline into… nothing. None of the descriptions made any sense. The events, as few as they are, are so divorced from reality and human experience that they just don’t carry any meaning.

Write with your own voice, not Lovecraft’s.

By the way it isn’t “impossible” for fishing boats to cross open ocean in winter over the course of days. Shackleton did it through the worst seas in the world over hundreds of miles in a whaleboat with raised sides. So…

[Mary Zuelke]

Undying love. The slow witness of doom.

Polgar paints with lush, intimate language, bringing us to the isolated island to meet the community. We live among them, learn their rituals, and feel their rhythms—until their world begins to unravel.

The narrative resonates with raw emotion: tender moments clash with commanding control, and fiery defiance drives choices that divide, each path terrifying. Stephan, our solemn guide, moves through the chaos, feeling the emotions of those around him. Science and technology lose their grip on reality, while the old habits we cling to offer only a false sense of stability, until it's too late.

Devotion and enduring love thread through this cosmic horror tale. It breaks your heart and makes you question your humanity. Thought-provoking and haunting, Krelloy lingers long after the last page- ancient, unstable, and deeply unsettling.

[maltida]

KRELLØY is a haunting and beautifully written blend of cosmic horror and human drama. The eerie isolation of the Arctic setting creates an atmosphere that is both chilling and mesmerizing, while Stefan and Linnet’s journey grounds the story with raw emotion and depth. As reality unravels and neighbors transform in terrifying ways, the novel balances suspense with a poignant exploration of love and survival. Unforgettable, unsettling, and deeply thought provoking this is a literary thriller that lingers long after the final page.

[Rachel Turner]

Beautiful and bleak horror

Fans of Annihilation will adore the juxtaposition of cosmic horror with indescribable beauty. The story was so wonderfully bleak, written in a way that highlighted the beauty of the horrific transformation surrounding the island and it's inhabitants and the unshakeable love of a husband and wife facing the unfolding events together. Highly recommend this book to horror fans who enjoy a great atmospheric read.

[Ashley]

This book consumed me!!

I read a lot!! Cosmic horror is probably my favorite - no one has ever come close to Lovecraft for me! Until ..:this.. book! It was poetic, it was beautiful. I lost myself in this book! I couldn’t think of anything else! I cried! Anyone looking for beautifully tragical literature NEEDS THIS BOOK!! I HOPE this author writes so many more .. I will be buying them all!!!!

[Charlie Bell]

Definitely a Lovecraftian horror story worth reading. The author has a vivid way of describing the scenes and emotions that borders on gorgeous poetry. The story is gripping, deeply disturbing and well worth the adventure. If you are looking for a late night page-turner that is psychologically mind-bending, then this book is for you.

[Isabella Jones]

This story grabbed me from the very first page and never let go. The island of Krelloy feels so vivid and unsettling that I could almost taste the cold air. The way the fog creeps into every corner of life is terrifying in a quiet and emotional way. Stefan and Linnet are unforgettable characters and their love makes the horror hit even harder. This book is chilling and beautiful at the same time.

[Mark]

A story of two people caught in a Lovecraftian apocalypse on a small island in the arctic circle. At first I thought it might be going too long, but in the end I thought the length was perfect. I enjoyed the writing style, but I can see how it might not be for everyone. It's hard to describe without giving too much away. I would read another by this author, hopefully he has more to come.

[douglas d. faber]

Brilliant, moving, horrifyingly mythic epic.

The most beautiful, horrifying, intellectual Lovecraft story that hpl never wrote. No other mythos tale compares to this evocative landscape of a tale, none can better it. Brilliant job, sir, Brilliant.

[Chloe Reed]

Krelløy is a beautifully haunting blend of cosmic horror and human intimacy, where isolation, love, and identity dissolve under an unraveling reality. The Arctic setting amplifies the dread, making this a deeply atmospheric and emotionally resonant Lovecraftian experience.

[Daniel]

This is everything I wanted in a cosmic horror, since I’ve been digging into the genre. There’s not a monster or a malevolent force, it’s just a change in the structure of reality. No different than dealing with any other force of nature. One scene was so compelling in the description of the way reality alters that I honestly fell into a little fugue state reading it. The main married couple at the center seemed so emotionally written, and I wasn’t surprised to see on the authors blog that it’s basically him and his real wife.

The biggest disappointment was the very final chapter. Perhaps the final scene worked for the author’s intent and the themes he had in mind, but it was a pretty big disappointment for everything that lead up to it.

[Robert]

I could not put it down. The Arctic isolation. The events. The people. All woven together with enough detail to draw you into the story and keep me there. Lovecraftian for sure! Well done Mr. Polgar.

[Lauren Fitch]

first cosmic horror book I've ever cried over. horrifying and beautiful at the same time

[Amber]

I would describe this as the mist meets annihilation in the arctic with a twist of a love story. I thought it was a beautiful horror story

[Thomas Walsh]

Not exactly what I was expecting, but really good regardless. Not as scary as I was thinking going in, but a good story albeit much more sad.

[Amy Ruhe]

This book dragged on and I had a hard time finishing it. The descriptive language was often nonsense and repetitive, leading to a rather boring book. The premise was good, but the execution was not.