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The Memorials - Dejan Ognjanović

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  Autumn memorials. November morning. Serbs bring offerings to their dead to the cemetery. The dead rise from their graves. But they don't care about those offers... The dead rise from morgues, from autopsy tables, from coffins, in the middle of funerals... The wail for the dead turns into a wail from the dead. Chaos begins. But, in Serbia, chaos is natural state. At the beginning of the reading, I said that The Memorials / Zadušnice is a novel that should be transferred to the big screen by Romero, with the condition that Lakobrija does the masks. After reading the book, I stand even more firmly behind that sentence. It's just a pity that Romero is no longer among the living... Although... You never know... ;) Jockes aside, I'm thrilled. This is not the kind of novel we are used to when it comes to Ognjanović, but in my opinion it is as good as Live / Naživo, Seducer / Zavodnik, Prokletije and Dejan's short stories. When I started reading The Memorials, I was expecting...

Skaska, the Magnitude of Sadness - Drina Steinberg

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When one night in the Sokol mountains goes wrong, one boy's life must be saved. One woman who holds the title of the most cold-blooded and most dangerous special agent gets a new job. A job that she believes will provide her with easy earnings. The last of the three brothers from the knightly line Radj will try to free himself and his offspring from the age-old curse. In the land where everything flourishes and gives birth, in the mystical region over which the Mrkodol mountains tower, the secret about Radjevo and the curse of their descendants is hidden. Regardless of all the adversities that beset them, the Radjes survived. Will it survive when the song, sung with immeasurable sadness, is heard through Radjevo? Will it survive then "when the pain becomes infinite, when death erases all meaning of life"? Because "Radj listens to the same story, his own story, from the first night when his mother nurses him. He germinates and grows with her. He breathes, lives and le...

The Executioner - Chris Carter

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In a Los Angeles church, on the steps of the altar, lies the bloody, decapitated body of a priest. Carefully placed, legs spread, arms folded across chest, and most horrific of all, the priest's head has been replaced with a dog's. The forensics team later discovers that the number three is written in blood on the victim's chest. Inspector Robert Hunter initially believes it was a ritual murder. But after the discovery of new corpses, he changes his mind. All the victims died in the way they feared the most. Their worst nightmares had come true. But how could the killer know about it? And what connects these seemingly randomly selected victims? Hunter sets out in pursuit of an elusive, sadistic killer, a person who seems to have the power to read the minds of his victims, who can sense what scares them the most. For someone who will stop at nothing to achieve his sick plan. The Executioner, Dželat as it is translated in Serbia, is the second novel about the detective duo Hu...

Black Moon Rising - Aleksandar Tešić

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 The world's largest mining company came to search for gold in Homolje... They found something else! While a series of mysterious deaths shakes the small town of Homolj, horror, raw passions and dangerous secrets are looming behind the scenes of tradition and strict lore. Inspector Uroš Stanojević was transferred from Belgrade to an unfamiliar environment where he is suddenly faced with brutal murders that the locals turn their heads to. Angelija Kerčulj is an archaeologist who excavates the site of Belovode from the Neolithic period and discovers traces of a cult that is millennia old and has survived to the present day. A black moon is an astronomical phenomenon in which the new moon appears twice in the same month and repeats every 29 months. He is traditionally associated with the Great Forest Mother... Muma Paduri Black Moon Rising is an original and beautiful mix of horror and folklore with a touch of history and archaeology. With this novel, Tešić repeated his art of telling...

Nobody's Sky - Sanja Vukosavljević

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 Growing up in a small Bosnian village, Jelena and Enes spend carefree days, bound by a friendship that knows no boundaries and differences from early childhood. She is his best friend, he is her protector. Guided by feelings which they are unable to recognize, and under the dark clouds which have risen above mahala, life took them to different sides. After years of absence, Jelena returns to her hometown. Nothing is the same any more, by the most her. One was sure - Enes was still the most important person in her life. The question is, who is she now for him? Fate pulled the strings, setting them up the traps they were not up to. Are memories and reminiscences only what have they been left? Will fate intervene once again in the reunion of Jelena and Enes? Everyone knows that romance novels are by no means on my list of books to read. However, these are some encounters, after which nothing is the same, so you wish  to go out of the comfort zone and embark on som...

Zaire - Danijel Jovanović

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In a cruel world ruled by men, a broken girl tries to find her place. A relentless search for salvation will take her and her fox to the very end of the world. What she will find there will be much more than what she was looking for. The world of the Province is harsh. It is a man's world where women have very few rights. A great prophecy was revealed to the sorcerer Alaimbola. It says that on the first day of summer, a Hero will be born who will unite the four royal lineages and save the world from the coming darkness. Summer has come, and with it Zaire, the first firstborn daughter in the world. Her family considers her a curse, the rest of the world a freak. When on 7th birthday, despite the Rulebook, she adopts a fox, things get even more complicated. Her life is hard and cruel. She blames herself for all the misfortunes that befall her family and thinks that she unjustly took Hero's place. When her best and only friend, Zuri, is sacrificed to Vulcan, she runs away into the...

The Last House on Needless Street - Catriona Ward

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Ted lives alone with his cat Olivia in a dilapidated clapboard house at the end of a dead end street. He is unemployed, drinks and suffers from several undiagnosed mental problems. His daughter Lauren visits from time to time, but their relationship is strained and often violent. A woman named Dee moves into the abandoned house next to Ted's. When she starts looking for her sister who was kidnapped years ago, Ted's life slowly begins to turn into chaos. The Last House on the Needless Street reminded me why I love twisted and strange stories. Unfortunately, I have neglected some of them because of fantasy, but because of that, the enjoyment of reading is greater. This is a very unusual book. It is written from three perspectives, Ted's, Olivia's and Dee's. While Ted's and Olivia's narratives are in the first person, Diana's are in the third. The style is very strange and, honestly, it took me a while to get used to it. When I realized that there are chapt...