A sixteen-year-old girl’s life takes some very weird turns when she notices a strange man watching her during her beach vacation with her mother. Every time Shasha successfully evades the stranger, she awakens in a terrifying time loop until she finally agrees to hear his bizarre request.
At precisely four in the morning, Shasha is instructed to swim out to a buoy in the ocean. When she complies, she receives three gold coins and is ordered to continue the practice daily. But when she oversleeps one morning, a close family friend pays the consequences.
Guilt-stricken and fearful of harsh repercussions, Shasha agrees to enroll in an unusual secondary school in the remote village of Torpa. While students at The Institute for Special Technologies receive instruction in typical courses like Mathematics, Philosophy, and World History, the coursework in Specialty class—where students are pressured to memorize passages of gibberish and warned to never read ahead in their textbooks—raises questions the professors refuse to answer. In the dining hall, anxious first year students noticed the strange speech and mannerisms of their second year peers and the absence of any upperclassmen. Motivated not to disappoint her dark mentor and fueled by equal parts curiosity and dread, Shasha excels at her studies. But as the months pass, she begins experiencing unprecedented physical changes and performing involuntary mental feats.
Vita Nostra combines science fiction, dark fantasy, and psychological suspense into a mind-bending modern coming-of-age story. Fans of J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series will enjoy this genre-bending adult novel by Ukrainian-born husband and wife co-authors, Marina and Sergey Dyachenko who describe their fiction as M-realism, leaving the M open to interpretation. Before his death in 2022, Sergey Dyachenko affectionately referred to their unique genre as "Marina's realism" and credited his wife for giving their stories romanticism, humanism, and hope for a better future.
Vita Nostra was originally written in the Russian language and published in the county of Ukraine in 2007. The story was translated into English in 2018 by Julia Meitor Hersey.
If you're looking for a immersive, dark fantasy to enjoy this Halloween, check out Vita Nostra by Marina and Sergey Dyachenko.
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