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The Language of Knives: Stories
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Expected 7 Jul 26218 pages, Paperback
Expected publication July 7, 2026
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June 11, 2026Markov's precise prose paints a viscerally beautiful horror journey in this stunning collection.
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
I read this as an ARC reader on NetGalley, cross posted my review on Goodreads.
Wow. If I'm being honest, I didn't expect to like this book as much as I did, considering it is a collection of non-related short stories, and not a full story novel. Every time I finished a story, from the third story onwards, I would think to myself; "Wow, that has to be my favourite so far.", and I would have to keep correcting myself and saying it over and over again as I read each story afterwards. I actually thought about Convalescence enough that themes of it ended up appearing in my dreams, which I can confidently say is the first time that has happened to me.
I loved reading When Raspberries Bloom In August and Baba Yaga Helps Build A House. I think its more of a personal preference that I love when a group of characters are driven to the point of insanity by an inanimate object, especially when it's more of an infection style of mental corruption. This also bleeds into me really liking the inanimate object with mild sentience in BYHBAH, which gives the story free points in my eyes. The stories were great, and mixed with two of my favourite things, I would rate both stories 4.5 stars or higher if they were their own short story.
I enjoyed The Drowning Line, Swallow, and The Language Of Knives as well, all of which mixed the horror aspect with the ideas of family and community pretty well. They weren't my favourite stories of the bunch, but I did really enjoy the horror aspects, and every story kind of reminds me of The Twilight Zone, where you get shown something strange or horrific, and the ending moral is 'that would be fucked up if it was real, huh?'.
I didn't really care for Nine Tongues Tell Of, The Town The Forest Ate, The Midnight Feast, and Bones Are Stones For Building. The first two didn't really pull me in, and I was worried that I wouldn't be able to get stuck into the stories because of them, but was thankfully proven wrong. The first two just felt kind of empty to me. The last two were good stories, and I could connect and understand certain aspects, but I don't really like them, whether it's the setting of the story or the characters in it, I'm not sure.
Holding Hands With Monsters and Spring Is Violence. I'm not sure how to explain my feeling for these two. I don't hate them, and I don't exceptionally love them. I think out of all the stories, these two are the ones that actually ended up creeping me out a little. They were both great reads, and while I enjoyed both of them, I feel like they were both missing something; but if the intention was to mostly just freak out the reader, it definitely worked on me.
Wow. If I'm being honest, I didn't expect to like this book as much as I did, considering it is a collection of non-related short stories, and not a full story novel. Every time I finished a story, from the third story onwards, I would think to myself; "Wow, that has to be my favourite so far.", and I would have to keep correcting myself and saying it over and over again as I read each story afterwards. I actually thought about Convalescence enough that themes of it ended up appearing in my dreams, which I can confidently say is the first time that has happened to me.
I loved reading When Raspberries Bloom In August and Baba Yaga Helps Build A House. I think its more of a personal preference that I love when a group of characters are driven to the point of insanity by an inanimate object, especially when it's more of an infection style of mental corruption. This also bleeds into me really liking the inanimate object with mild sentience in BYHBAH, which gives the story free points in my eyes. The stories were great, and mixed with two of my favourite things, I would rate both stories 4.5 stars or higher if they were their own short story.
I enjoyed The Drowning Line, Swallow, and The Language Of Knives as well, all of which mixed the horror aspect with the ideas of family and community pretty well. They weren't my favourite stories of the bunch, but I did really enjoy the horror aspects, and every story kind of reminds me of The Twilight Zone, where you get shown something strange or horrific, and the ending moral is 'that would be fucked up if it was real, huh?'.
I didn't really care for Nine Tongues Tell Of, The Town The Forest Ate, The Midnight Feast, and Bones Are Stones For Building. The first two didn't really pull me in, and I was worried that I wouldn't be able to get stuck into the stories because of them, but was thankfully proven wrong. The first two just felt kind of empty to me. The last two were good stories, and I could connect and understand certain aspects, but I don't really like them, whether it's the setting of the story or the characters in it, I'm not sure.
Holding Hands With Monsters and Spring Is Violence. I'm not sure how to explain my feeling for these two. I don't hate them, and I don't exceptionally love them. I think out of all the stories, these two are the ones that actually ended up creeping me out a little. They were both great reads, and while I enjoyed both of them, I feel like they were both missing something; but if the intention was to mostly just freak out the reader, it definitely worked on me.
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
This was a really enjoyable and immersive collection of short stories! While a couple didn’t really land for me, the majority of the stories were engaging, vivid and compelling to read. Some of my favorite stories were “The Mall on the Hill”, “Swallow”, and “Baba Yaga Helps Build a House”.
What worked for me:
The strongest aspect of this collection was definitely its atmosphere. The prose is often visceral and haunting, with horror elements that are genuinely unsettling. There were moments (yeah, I’m looking at you “The Midnight Feast”) that made me recoil - deeply disturbing, but also so well executed. I will say though - not for the faint of heart!
I also really appreciated the way Slavic mythology was woven throughout. Other than Baba Yaga, I’m not very familiar with Slavic folklore, so it was interesting to learn and see how those influences presented themselves in these stories. It gives the collection a distinct identity that helps it stand out from other folklore-inspired pieces.
Finally, I found the themes of queerness and outsiderhood very compelling, perhaps because they’re themes that I strongly identify with. While queerness wasn’t necessarily the centerpoint of the stories, it often shaped how characters moved through the world (as it does in real life) - as outsiders searched for meaning, belonging, or transformation; especially through supernatural or mystical experiences. Other recurring themes included desire, inheritance, and family.
What didn’t work for me:
As mentioned, a few stories didn’t fully click for me. However, that’s likely just personal preference and often will be the case with short story collections!
One thing I noticed as I continued through the book was that the stories had a fairly consistent pacing and structure to them. While this helped to make the book feel cohesive, it also meant that after a while I started to anticipate the rhythm of each story, which sometimes lessened the surprise or impact it had on me.
I would recommend this book to: readers who enjoy dark, atmospheric and sometimes disturbing horror stories, especially those interested in folklore-inspired and queer-leaning fiction.
Content Warnings: disturbing imagery, body horror, gore, violence, death, sex, genitalia, cannibalism
Many thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for an ARC of this book!
What worked for me:
The strongest aspect of this collection was definitely its atmosphere. The prose is often visceral and haunting, with horror elements that are genuinely unsettling. There were moments (yeah, I’m looking at you “The Midnight Feast”) that made me recoil - deeply disturbing, but also so well executed. I will say though - not for the faint of heart!
I also really appreciated the way Slavic mythology was woven throughout. Other than Baba Yaga, I’m not very familiar with Slavic folklore, so it was interesting to learn and see how those influences presented themselves in these stories. It gives the collection a distinct identity that helps it stand out from other folklore-inspired pieces.
Finally, I found the themes of queerness and outsiderhood very compelling, perhaps because they’re themes that I strongly identify with. While queerness wasn’t necessarily the centerpoint of the stories, it often shaped how characters moved through the world (as it does in real life) - as outsiders searched for meaning, belonging, or transformation; especially through supernatural or mystical experiences. Other recurring themes included desire, inheritance, and family.
What didn’t work for me:
As mentioned, a few stories didn’t fully click for me. However, that’s likely just personal preference and often will be the case with short story collections!
One thing I noticed as I continued through the book was that the stories had a fairly consistent pacing and structure to them. While this helped to make the book feel cohesive, it also meant that after a while I started to anticipate the rhythm of each story, which sometimes lessened the surprise or impact it had on me.
I would recommend this book to: readers who enjoy dark, atmospheric and sometimes disturbing horror stories, especially those interested in folklore-inspired and queer-leaning fiction.
Content Warnings: disturbing imagery, body horror, gore, violence, death, sex, genitalia, cannibalism
Many thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for an ARC of this book!
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
Thank you to NetGalley and RDS publishing for sending me an ARC in exchange for an honest review. My opinions are my own and subjective.
3.5, rounded up to 4 for Goodreads. It's nice to read about folklore and mythos that I don't know much of. That does mean that I have trouble pinning down the exact being that's referenced in each story, other than the spelled out ones like the Baba Yaga.
There are 13 stories in this collection, and like all collections, my enjoyment varied. The author explored the queer experiences of being a outcast, and how each protagonist finds their salvation in the weird and supernatural. They definitely understood how it feels to have their queerness be simultaneously too visible and completely invisible to the society as a whole. Being queer myself, this emotion is all too familiar to me, and perhaps that makes me biased!
My individual ratings for each story are as such:
Nine Tongues Tell Of - 3/5
The Town the Forest Ate - 3/5
When Raspberries Bloom in August - 4/5
The Mall on the Hill by the Horizon - 4/5
Convalescence - 3.5/5
The Drowning Line - 4/5
Swallow - 4.5/5
Holding Hands with Monsters - 4.5/5
The Midnight Feast - 1/5
The Language of Knives - 5/5
Bones Are Stones for Building - 5/5
Spring Is Violence, Spring Seeks Blood - 4/5
Baba Yaga Helps Build a House - 1/5
The stories that I had high ratings on are the one that really dive into the queer themes, while the one with a 1 are... not to my taste. They feel thematically different from what I've come to expect from the collection, and I suppose I just didn't appreciate the whiplash.
This is overall a very strong collection, but I'll also point out that the theme does repeat itself a lot, and if I weren't the exact target audience of it, might come off as 'author only knows how to write One Thing'. I can tell that it's something the author feels very deeply for, and I appreciate it and am curious to see where they go from here.
3.5, rounded up to 4 for Goodreads. It's nice to read about folklore and mythos that I don't know much of. That does mean that I have trouble pinning down the exact being that's referenced in each story, other than the spelled out ones like the Baba Yaga.
There are 13 stories in this collection, and like all collections, my enjoyment varied. The author explored the queer experiences of being a outcast, and how each protagonist finds their salvation in the weird and supernatural. They definitely understood how it feels to have their queerness be simultaneously too visible and completely invisible to the society as a whole. Being queer myself, this emotion is all too familiar to me, and perhaps that makes me biased!
My individual ratings for each story are as such:
Nine Tongues Tell Of - 3/5
The Town the Forest Ate - 3/5
When Raspberries Bloom in August - 4/5
The Mall on the Hill by the Horizon - 4/5
Convalescence - 3.5/5
The Drowning Line - 4/5
Swallow - 4.5/5
Holding Hands with Monsters - 4.5/5
The Midnight Feast - 1/5
The Language of Knives - 5/5
Bones Are Stones for Building - 5/5
Spring Is Violence, Spring Seeks Blood - 4/5
Baba Yaga Helps Build a House - 1/5
The stories that I had high ratings on are the one that really dive into the queer themes, while the one with a 1 are... not to my taste. They feel thematically different from what I've come to expect from the collection, and I suppose I just didn't appreciate the whiplash.
This is overall a very strong collection, but I'll also point out that the theme does repeat itself a lot, and if I weren't the exact target audience of it, might come off as 'author only knows how to write One Thing'. I can tell that it's something the author feels very deeply for, and I appreciate it and am curious to see where they go from here.
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June 19, 2026Gruesome, carnal stories by a non-binary Bulgarian; fair to assume the plan for this collection does not involve a glowing review from the Mail. Truth be told, in places it was even a bit much for me, though I realise that in being drawn to a book by the title The Language Of Knives, and then complaining about the amount of flaying, I am being one of those cats who wants precisely six and a half pets and kicks off at the seventh. Also on me are the times I didn't have the background; a couple of stories recontextualise creatures of Slavic myth, but it was never my strong suit so I didn't necessarily recognise them. Baba Yaga, who with her resentful gay grandson stars in the last and longest story, sure. But in the opener, not only did I not know the Hala, a monster talked into doing a podcast – I initially assumed Varna was a made-up place, perhaps on another world, and turns out that's Bulgaria's third biggest city. Elsewhere, towns are swallowed by vegetation, distant shining malls lure doomed questers, and bodies are always more fragile and permeable than we might like. The unhappy legacies of both communism and capitalism linger, protagonists often stuck with supernatural horrors, or even viewing them as a welcome change, simply because their lives have so few options. There are definite hints of Clive Barker, and if Markov hasn't always been well-served by editors who've let through a lot of homophones plus occasional sentences which land awkwardly in English, they're still doing wonders for someone working in a second language; yes, the stories tend intense, but there's technique and variation in the paths taken to get there, not the easy excesses of splatterpunk.
(Edelweiss ARC)
(Edelweiss ARC)
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
I really loved the folklore-heavy atmosphere of this collection. Markov’s takes on Slavic mythology are incredibly vivid, especially the interpretation of Baba Yaga, which was a standout highlight for me since I have recently learned about it. The short stories are dark, creative, and I got to know tales and legends I was not familiar with and I really loved that.
However, while I loved the majority of the pieces, it started to feel a bit repetitive by the end and reading similar structural patterns took away a little bit of the magic for me.
But, overall even if the pacing didn't quite hold up for me throughout, it was a enjoyable read and made me really curious about the parts of the mythology i didn't know and I think that's a great feat for a author to achieve.
Thank you to Netgalley and RDS Publishing for sending me this ARC in exchange for an honest review.
However, while I loved the majority of the pieces, it started to feel a bit repetitive by the end and reading similar structural patterns took away a little bit of the magic for me.
But, overall even if the pacing didn't quite hold up for me throughout, it was a enjoyable read and made me really curious about the parts of the mythology i didn't know and I think that's a great feat for a author to achieve.
Thank you to Netgalley and RDS Publishing for sending me this ARC in exchange for an honest review.
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
Thank you NetGalley and the publisher for access to an e-ARC for review.
Very interesting stories with unique concepts that I haven’t actually heard of before. The thing with short stories is they often leave me wanting more, which is a good and a bad thing. A lot of the stories ended at a point where I would loved to have seen just a bit more, but ending at that particular time leaves the reader feeling the suspense and the compulsion to guess what happens next.
Just a heads up that some of the stories are straight up disgusting and horrifying with a LOT of trigger material. Please check trigger warnings and make sure you’re in an okay headspace before reading this. I don’t have any straight up triggers but I do get disturbed pretty easily and some of these stories are rough. The author definitely doesn’t take any liberties and does a great job at writing true horror.
Very interesting stories with unique concepts that I haven’t actually heard of before. The thing with short stories is they often leave me wanting more, which is a good and a bad thing. A lot of the stories ended at a point where I would loved to have seen just a bit more, but ending at that particular time leaves the reader feeling the suspense and the compulsion to guess what happens next.
Just a heads up that some of the stories are straight up disgusting and horrifying with a LOT of trigger material. Please check trigger warnings and make sure you’re in an okay headspace before reading this. I don’t have any straight up triggers but I do get disturbed pretty easily and some of these stories are rough. The author definitely doesn’t take any liberties and does a great job at writing true horror.
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June 3, 2026Thank you to Netgalley and RDS Publishing for the eARC
3,5/5 rounded up.
Thematically rich collection of short stories, fueled by fairy tales and folklore and the desire to look at family, desire and belonging, as well as inheritance. Vey ry influenced by horror, with an abundance of darker tales, with a few more hopeful ones, all told with a nice voice, Obviously all the stories have a similar feel, since they have overreaching themes. It means that some of the stories felt too similar and blended together a bit by the end.
I have to admit I had a hard time to really connect to the stories, the characters. It kept feeling a bit removed. I don't know why. Despite that, I am glad to have read these very queer, very reflectives tales.
3,5/5 rounded up.
Thematically rich collection of short stories, fueled by fairy tales and folklore and the desire to look at family, desire and belonging, as well as inheritance. Vey ry influenced by horror, with an abundance of darker tales, with a few more hopeful ones, all told with a nice voice, Obviously all the stories have a similar feel, since they have overreaching themes. It means that some of the stories felt too similar and blended together a bit by the end.
I have to admit I had a hard time to really connect to the stories, the characters. It kept feeling a bit removed. I don't know why. Despite that, I am glad to have read these very queer, very reflectives tales.
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
Certain stories captured my attention, others didn't. I enjoyed "Nine Tongues Tell Of", "The Town the Forest Ate", "When Raspberries Bloom in August", "The Mall on the Hill by the Horizon", "Convalescence", "The Midnight Feast", and "Bones are Stones for Buildings". I felt these had strong development and imagery and fit my standard for horror/thrillers. A few of the stories that didn't resonate with me had a more contemporary setting which is not typically my favorite. Overall, I found this to be a highly enjoyable collection and think there's something here for every reader of the genre to enjoy, particularly if you enjoy body horror!
Thank you to NetGalley and publisher for the Advance Reader's Copy in exchange for an honest review!
Thank you to NetGalley and publisher for the Advance Reader's Copy in exchange for an honest review!
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
As with most short story collections, I enjoyed some of the stories in this collection and did not enjoy others. I preferred the stories that leaned towards more of a hopeful tone, as I found a few of the stories to be a little too dark for me. I usually enjoy macabre stories and novels, but reading these thirteen back-to-back was overwhelming. The stories are well written, although a few of them had very similar narrative voices, and there were a few that blend together by the end.
Rating: 3.5/5 stars
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review!
Rating: 3.5/5 stars
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review!
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
This is a collection of stories that tug at the emotions and sometimes roll the gut response. I don't know enough about Slavic mythology, but I enjoyed these short stories for the horrors they held. Lots of body horror, plenty of splashes of modern times. The Mall On The Hill By The Horizon was probably my favorite. Just give it a read!
Thank-you, RDS Publishing and Haralambi Markov, for this complimentary copy. Opinions expressed in this review are entirely my own.
Thank-you, RDS Publishing and Haralambi Markov, for this complimentary copy. Opinions expressed in this review are entirely my own.
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June 3, 2026 Thank you to Netgalley and RDS Publishing for the eARC
3,5/5 rounded up.
Thematically rich collection of short stories, fueled by fairy tales and folklore and the desire to look at family, desire and belonging, as well as inheritance. Vey ry influenced by horror, with an abundance of darker tales, with a few more hopeful ones, all told with a nice voice, Obviously all the stories have a similar feel, since they have overreaching themes. It means that some of the stories felt too similar and blended together a bit by the end.
I have to admit I had a hard time to really connect to the stories, the characters. It kept feeling a bit removed. I don't know why. Despite that, I am glad to have read these very queer, very reflectives tales.
3,5/5 rounded up.
Thematically rich collection of short stories, fueled by fairy tales and folklore and the desire to look at family, desire and belonging, as well as inheritance. Vey ry influenced by horror, with an abundance of darker tales, with a few more hopeful ones, all told with a nice voice, Obviously all the stories have a similar feel, since they have overreaching themes. It means that some of the stories felt too similar and blended together a bit by the end.
I have to admit I had a hard time to really connect to the stories, the characters. It kept feeling a bit removed. I don't know why. Despite that, I am glad to have read these very queer, very reflectives tales.
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