The Village at the Edge of Noon

Everything you were afraid to find out about the heat of noon and grandma’s old tales comes together in this English language debut of an award-winning and bestselling young Russian writer.

What if summer never ends?

Residents of a Russian village wake up one morning to find that everything has changed. The road to the motorway has disappeared. The paths into woods all lead back to the village. If you enter the woods, your fate is either to vanish into thin air, or to return as a different version of yourself.

Normality becomes a thing of the past as objects mutate, devices emit odd sounds, no one knows who the next victim to disappear will be. Without the internet and modern technology, the residents are stuck in a seemingly never ending summer, punctuated by strange noises and stranger visitations. As the forest grows closer, villagers must try to differentiate between ally and foe.

In the midst of the chaos, there’s Katya, the only one who seems to understand what’s happening…

Translated by Ilona Chavasse"An age-old tale melded with the cosiness of the quotidian and multiplied by the greenly-scented, ancient call of the wild "
– Anna Zhuchkova, Literatura magazine

"Bobyleva’s novel is a complex linguistic spell that captures awe and wonder, fear and love, sacrifice and selfishness, all embodied in a few isolated cabins and their all-too-human owners."
– Paul Di Filippo, Locus MagazineDarya Bobyleva is a young Russian novelist, short story writer and poet. Her books have been shortlisted for major commercial awards in Russia and she has won two Russian language Horror and genre awards. Critics have compared her writing to authors as varied as Stephen King, Gogol and the Strugatsky Brothers.