Foul Days by Genoveva Dimova – Review

Published: June 25, 2024

Publisher: Tor Books

Series: The Witch’s Compendium of Monsters #1

Genre: Fantasy

Pages: 352 (Kindle)

My Rating: 3 Stars

A copy of this book was provided by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

Synopsis:
The Witcher meets Naomi Novik in this fast-paced fantasy rooted in Slavic folklore, from an assured new voice in genre

As a witch in the walled city of Chernograd, Kosara has plenty of practice taming rusalkas, fighting kikimoras, and brewing lycanthrope repellent. There’s only one monster Kosara can’t defeat: her ex the Zmey, known as the Tsar of Monsters. She’s defied him one too many times, and now he’s hunting her. Betrayed to him by someone close to her, Kosara’s only hope is to trade her shadow―the source of her powers―for illegal passage across the Wall to Belograd, where monsters can’t follow.

Life in Belograd should be sweet, but Kosara soon develops a fast-acting version of the deadly wasting sickness that stalks shadowless witches―and only reclaiming her magic can cure her. To trace her shadow, she’ll have to team up with the suspiciously honorable detective investigating the death of the smuggler who brought her across the Wall.

Even worse than working with the cops is that all the clues point in a single direction: one of the Zmey’s monsters has found a crack in the Wall, and Kosara’s magic is now in the Zmey’s hands.

The clock is ticking, the hunt is on, and Kosara’s priorities should be clear―but is she the hunter or the hunted? And in a city where everyone is out for themselves, who can Kosara trust to assist her in outwitting the man―the Monster―she’s never been able to escape alone?

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Foul Days had a synopsis that I simply couldn’t resist and claims to be perfect for fans of The Witcher and Naomi Novik. The monsters draw from the same inspiration as The Witcher and I haven’t read enough of Naomi Novik’s books to say, but books following witches seem to be at the peak of popularity right now. How could I not like this?

The story begins on New Year’s day, when the city of Chernograd suffers an onslaught of monsters for the twelve days, called the Foul Days. The only thing keeping the citizens of Chernograd safe are wards and potions made by witches and the deadly skills of the monster hunters. Kosara is a witch simply trying to keep Zmey, the Tsar of Monsters, away but he comes knocking and she’s forced to trade her shadow for safe passage to Belograd. In Belograd she gets wrapped up in a murder investigation and ends up working with a suspiciously reasonable police officer to get her shadow back.

I like the premise of the book and I like the monsters – it’s all cool stuff. Unfortunately, this story didn’t work for me all that well. I found the characters (both main and secondary) to feel rather flat and the dialogue was lackluster. I didn’t care that Kosara lost her shadow because even when it started to affect her, it didn’t feel high stakes. So what, her hand turns shadowy and she drops stuff. Why is it so bad for her to turn into a shadow? This book told me things, but never made me feel anything. I didn’t care that Kosara’s shitty friends turned on her. I didn’t care that her sister was dead or that Asen the cop had something he was hiding. 

This wasn’t an awful book by any means, it just fell firmly in the category of ‘fine’. I didn’t have any trouble staying engaged with the plot because something was always happening, it just didn’t ever slow down enough to develop the characters in a meaningful way. This is a duology and the second and final book, Monstrous Nights, will be out in October 2024. I probably won’t continue with the series because I wasn’t invested in the story by the end of Foul Days.