Genoveva Dimova is a fantasy author and archaeologist. Originally from Bulgaria, she now lives in Scotland with her partner and a small army of houseplants. She believes in writing what you know, so her work often features Balkan folklore, the immigrant experience, and protagonists who get into incredible messes out of pure stubbornness. When she’s not writing, she likes to explore old ruins, climb even older hills, and listen to practically ancient rock music. The Witches Compendium of Monsters is her debut and is made up of the novels Foul Days and Monstrous Nights. She recently talked with Daryl Maxwell about them for the LAPL Blog.
What was your inspiration for The Witches Compendium of Monsters novels?
The inspiration behind the duology was twofold. Firstly, I was inspired by Bulgarian folklore, with all its monsters, creatures, legends, and rituals, which I grew up with and which I love. Secondly, I took some Cold War inspiration from the Berlin Wall and the Iron Curtain, which appear in my novel in the form of a magical barrier, trapping the characters in a city overrun with monsters.
Are Kosara, Asen, Vila, or any of the other characters in the novels inspired by or based on specific individuals?
I wouldn’t say they are based on specific individuals, no, though they all have traits that I have borrowed from people I know or from characters I have enjoyed in other media. For example, Vila is part Granny Weatherwax from Discworld part Baba Yaga, and part a love letter to grumpy older women who suffer no nonsense.
How did the novels evolve and change as you wrote and revised them? Are there any characters, scenes, or stories that were lost in the process that you wish had made it to the published version?
I really lucked out when it came to beta readers, mentors, and my agent and editor in that I truly believe every revision only made the story better. There are quite a few scenes and a handful of characters that got revised out, but it was always for the best. Besides, nothing I cut is lost forever—I save everything in a document and occasionally pull out a nice turn of phrase or a cool description from it.
When and how did you decide to split the story you were telling into two novels, Foul Days and Monstrous Nights, instead of a single book?
I can’t take credit for that decision—it was actually my editor’s idea. Originally, we’d submitted Foul Days to her as a standalone. However, the ending was rather open, and there were a few subplots that felt a bit rushed, trying to cram everything into a single book. I was thrilled with the opportunity to expand on some of them and move some to the second book, especially because I got to make the slow-burn romantic subplot introduced in the first book even slower. I love a slow burn!
Your biography on your website says your day job is working as an archaeologist and that you specialize in archaeobotany. Can you tell us a bit about your work? Does your background in archaeobotany inform your influence your writing (especially when you're writing about a witch)?
My work as an archaeobotanist involves looking at plant remains recovered from archaeological sites and interpreting what they tell us about past societies—things like diet and agriculture, medicine, dyes, but also trade and contact. It is very handy knowledge for writing fantasy, and perhaps the reason I tend to be drawn to witch characters. Other than that, I don't think my work as an archaeologist impacts my writing in any conscious way—I don't write archaeological fantasy (or at least, I haven't yet), largely because archaeology sounds like a really fun, exciting job, but it's quite mundane on the day-to-day level. No one wants to read pages and pages of the characters digging in the rain, trying to draw despite the paper not being quite as waterproof as advertised, and arguing over what colour a specific soil is! However, as an archaeologist, I'm very passionate about exploring the lives of the sorts of people who no history books were written about—the ones who got on with their jobs, raised their families, and tried to survive. So, in both my writing and my reading, I tend to prefer stories about ordinary people—who granted, sometimes achieve extraordinary things.
Your biography also says that you currently live in Glasgow and, before that, in Varna, Bulgaria. Do you have any favorite places in either place? Hidden gems that someone visiting should not miss but would only learn about from a resident?
Not exactly a hidden gem, but a gem nonetheless: The Glasgow Botanic Gardens is my favourite place in the city—perhaps unsurprising given the fact that my day job has to do with plants. It’s got two greenhouses, a rose garden, an herb garden (that might be my favourite part, actually), and an arboretum. It’s stunning, it’s free, and it’s a great place to hide from the rain.
In Varna, the Sea Garden is our huge park that spans the length of pretty much the whole city, running along the coast—which, again, is not very well hidden as far as gems go, haha! However, nothing beats buying a cup of buttery sweetcorn or a box of fried, sugar-dusted ponichki, sitting on a bench, and watching the sea.
Foul Days and Monstrous Nights are about battling monsters drawn from Slavic folklore. How familiar with these monsters were you before you started writing The Witches Compendium of Monsters? Did you need to do a bit of research about the monsters? If so, what was the most interesting or surprising thing that you learned during your research?
I was familiar with a lot of them, but I also did quite a bit of extra reading just because there is so much variation when it comes to folklore. It is an oral tradition, so different regions have different beliefs, and various creatures overlap in some ways and differs in others from place to place, which meant that sometimes I’d find excellent little tidbits to add to the narrative, giving it extra flavour. My favourite fact that I learned has to do with vampires—apparently, the best way to defeat them is to throw a bag of rice or millet at them. They can’t help but stop to count the grains, which gives you a chance to escape. Who knew that The Count in Sesame Street is folklorically accurate?
Do you have a favorite of the monsters in your books?
It’s got to be the zmey! Zmeys have two forms: one is that of a dragon-like creature with golden scales, and the other is that of a handsome man with golden hair and blue eyes. They take their second form in order to seduce young women, kidnap them, and take them to their underground kingdom, which eventually kills them—which is why I decided that a zmey would make the perfect villain in my duology.
My favourite fact about zmeys is the way to recognise them: if you have any doubts that your golden-haired lover might be a zmey, check his armpits. Even in their human form, zmeys have tiny wings hidden under there.
Do you have any favorite monster-themed novels, films, and/or series?
Oh dear, so many! In terms of horror, my favourites are Into the Drowning Deep by Mira Grant, about the scariest mermaids I’ve ever read, and Such Sharp Teeth by Rachel Harrison, which is kind of half horror, half paranormal romcom about a woman turning into a werewolf. In fantasy, Shanghai Immortal by A.Y. Chao which is about a "half-vampire, half-hulijing fox-spirit and all sasshole" (as per the back cover description), The God and the Gumiho by Sophie Kim which is—again—about a fox spirit, but one that teams up with a disgraced trickster god, and Someone You Can Build a Nest In by John Wiswell, which is a cosy horror fantasy about a horrifying shape-shifting monster who makes the fatal mistake of falling in love. I usually prefer reading about monsters rather than watching them, probably because I’m quite squeamish, but I am partial to the Alien films.
Do you have a least favorite? (I realize that you may not want to address this one, and if that is the case, please don't. But I also realize it might be so bad that it could be fun to answer.)?
I don’t think I’ve ever met a monster book or movie I didn’t like—unless we end up going the ‘it’s so bad, it’s kind of brilliant’ route, and then I’d have to pick something like Zombievers!
What’s currently on your nightstand?
I’ve been on a huge Angela Slatter reading spree recently—you know that feeling when you discover a new favourite author, and then you find out they have a big back catalogue to binge? I just finished All the Murmuring Bones and have started The Path of Thorns.
Can you name your top five favorite or most influential authors?
I can certainly try, though it won’t be easy to pick only five! Okay, here we go…
Terry Pratchett
T. Kingfisher
V. E. Schwab
Mikhail Bulgakov
Tamsyn Muir
What was your favorite book when you were a child?
The Brothers Lionheart by Astrid Lindgren: it’s a novel about two young boys who die and are transported to a fantasy land, where they have to fight an evil king and defeat a gruesome fire-breathing dragon called Katla (which is a name I found particularly terrifying as a child, for some reason). Lindgren, who is Swedish, is one of the most popular children’s authors in Bulgaria, and I believe I read her entire catalogue when I was little, but The Brothers Lionheart was always my favourite. Firstly, it’s fantasy, and secondly, it’s unusually dark for a children’s book. You can totally see how it influenced my writing!
Was there a book you felt you needed to hide from your parents?
Not really—my parents always encouraged me to read, and they were never strict about books I showed interest in. Like many children who enjoy reading, I often ended up reading ‘up,’ which meant I read some disturbing scenes a bit too young—a few Stephen King books gave me nightmares for days!
Is there a book you've faked reading?
Oh yes. I never did well with assigned reading for school, so I’d usually read a few pages here and there, skim the rest, and then hope the teacher doesn’t ask me any complicated questions. The silliest part is that I ended up reading a lot of these classics as a grown-up and enjoyed them quite a bit.
Can you name a book you've bought for the cover?
Most recently, The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi by Shannon Chakraborty—that cover is stunning!
Is there a book that changed your life?
I guess, kind of, Naomi Novik’s Uprooted. It was the first fantasy book I read inspired by an Eastern European setting, written and published in English, and it was the one that made it click in my mind that I didn’t need to write books set in that ubiquitous Western European pseudo-Medieval world that was popular in fantasy at the time in order to be published.
Can you name a book for which you are an evangelist (and you think everyone should read)?
One of my favourite books is The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov—I think the fact that it’s an older book, a classic, and originally written in Russian makes people expect something rather dour and slow-paced. I’m here to tell you that it’s a brilliant satirical dark comedy about the Devil visiting Moscow, and everyone should read it.
Is there a book you would most want to read again for the first time?
I’d love to experience the Discworld books for the first time. Is this cheating? Picking 41 books instead of one?
What is the last piece of art (music, movies, TV, more traditional art forms) that you've experienced or that has impacted you?
I visited a photography exhibition by Jenny Matthews recently, called "Sewing Conflict: Photography, War and Embroidery." Matthews is a photographer who has documented events like the guerrilla war and Independence of Eritrea, the Sandinistas in Nicaragua, and the genocide in Rwanda, and she combined her photographs with fabric and embroidery in order to tell the stories of women and girls impacted by those conflicts. It was very sad and very moving.
What is your idea of THE perfect day (where you could go anywhere/meet with anyone)?
Wake up late. Have a slice of toast with luytenitsa (a pepper and tomato spread) and sirene cheese for breakfast. Go to the beach and swim in clear, 25°C water. Then, I’d probably have some nice seafood for lunch, go for a walk in the park, have a coffee, read a book, and meet up with friends for dinner and drinks. Steak and wine? Or a good pizza, you can never beat a good pizza.
To sum up, my perfect day involves a lot of food.
What is the question that you’re always hoping you’ll be asked but never have been?
No one ever asks me what’s my favourite cheese.
What is your answer?
Gorgonzola.
What are you working on now?
I’m working on a murder mystery set in a lighthouse in the middle of a sea overrun with monsters. I can never escape writing about monsters, I guess! I love them too much.
In her debut, Genoveva Dimova tells a story spread across two novels, Foul Days and Monstrous Nights, about the cities of Chernograd from Belograd. Chernograd is surrounded by a magical wall that keeps its citizens inside the city. It also keeps the monsters inside as well. Once a year, beginning on New Year’s Eve, the barrier between the human world and the monster world is at its thinnest and Chernograd is besieged with monsters. It is the job of Kosara and witches like her to protect her city and its citizens during the "Foul Days" (the first12 days of the new year) while the monsters run rampant.
With a bit of magic, adventure, a touch of romance, and Monsters(!!!) drawn from Slavic folklore, The Witch’s Compendium of Monsters novels are a marvelous debut from an author to watch.
