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Playing Wolf

by R

A remote village, a missing child, and a wolfish legend

Regular price $22.05 USD
Regular price $36.75 USD Sale price $22.05 USD
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AlbakiReads Editorial

A remote village, a missing child, and a wolfish legend

Bohumil and Bohumila move with their son from Prague to a remote village, hoping to repair their marriage. Their attempts to settle in are complicated by the villagers’ hostility, strange evasions, and nightly sounds around their cottage. Flyers about a wolf-related fairytale add a folkloric thread as unsettling coincidences accumulate. When the couple return home to find their son missing, the village’s costumed gathering outside their cottage leaves the meaning of its customs—and the family’s safety—uncertain. The novel brings marital strain, social unease, and folklore together in a horror story shaped by questions of human nature and animal instinct.

Good fit for readers who enjoy

  • Readers interested in psychological horror with folkloric elements.
  • Readers drawn to stories set in remote villages and shaped by social unease.
  • Readers interested in fiction about marital strain and family danger.

Themes

Folklore and ritualMarital strainSocial hostility and belongingHuman and animal nature

Based on publisher information and book metadata.

Book overview

A couple deep in the woods of a failing marriage find themselves the unwitting victims of a kidnapping plot after they move to a mysterious village in this distinctly poetic and disturbingly elegant horror novel for fans of Midsommar and The Witch

Husband and wife Bohumil and Bohumila, together with their son, move from Prague to a remote village with the hopes of salvaging their marriage. In the searing summer heat, they try to fit in with the villagers, only to be met with hostile stares and evasive lies. Each night, the couple hears what they suspect to be a large animal wandering around their cottage--an impression that oddly corresponds to the mysterious flyers found at the local watering hole regarding a wolfen fairytale. As inexplicable coincidences begin piling up, it's clear something sinister is afoot.

After a drunken night out, Bohumil and Bohumila come home to find the house empty: their son is gone. After three days of searching, they find the villagers in festive costumes gathered outside their cottage. Is it a bizarre game, or some perverse, folkloric ritual? Are Bohumil and Bohumila in danger? And what has happened to their son?

A dark social tale that slides inexorably towards psychological horror, Playing Wolf is a modern ballad of human destiny and discovering the animal in each of us.
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