Overview

The story takes place in the present day, in a fictional village on the border between Russia and Latvia. More than a century ago, the villagers made a pact with a powerful witch: for decades, she has granted the community stability and prosperity in exchange for human sacrifices. The main characters are three students from the Faculty of Philology who set out on an annual folklore research trip. The young women fall into a trap where reality cannot always be distinguished from nightmarish dreams. They have no idea that one of them is destined to vanish in the forest, becoming yet another victim of the witch. And her friends must face a grave moral choice - return home and pretend nothing happened, or break the existing order at the cost of their own lives. Each heroine must confront her own inner demons: vanity, dogmatism, and selfishness. Throughout the novel, the girls reflect on the nature of evil and faith in God, free will and predestination, social experiments and human hypocrisy, and on the price people are willing to pay for a comfortable life. Disguised as folk horror, The Other Side simultaneously mirrors contemporary Russian reality. It is not merely a story about a witch, but a meditation on the eternal questions of human existence, a psychological and philosophical horror.

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9781969268229

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Darina Anisimova was born in Saint Petersburg, Russia. She graduated from an engineering and economics university and spent more than ten years working for Saint Petersburg periodicals as a journalist, specializing in data journalism.In 2022, after Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine began, she left the country, openly speaking out against the war. Fearing persecution for her views, she sought political asylum in the United States.Her debut novel, The Other Side, is the author's attempt, first and foremost for herself, to understand how people can live side by side with evil for years without trying to resist it.As she continues her writing career, Darina Anisimova intends to focus on young adult fantasy novels based on real historical events.

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