Lenka and the Dead

How to negotiate with a dead man? 13 stories about a psychic from the Russian hinterland

Lenka is an ordinary village girl… with the gift of a medium. She connects two worlds at once — the earthly and the beyond — and helps the dead find peace, while returning a peaceful sleep to the living. And although Lenka is convinced this gift brings her nothing but troubles, it’s precisely because of it that she uncovers crimes in which paranormal forces are involved. But can she handle the danger threatening the entire village on her own?

Anna Pronina’s stories are based on the analysis of hundreds of encounters with unexplained phenomena. Still, in the mystical tales of a village girl who sees unquiet souls, there is room not only for curses, plots, and magical riddles, but also for reflections on life and relationships with loved ones.

Listen to thrilling mystical stories performed by an incredible tandem of actors: Sofia Lebedeva (Vikings: Valhalla, The Mediator, Tetris) and Kirill Radtsig (the voice of Dr. House). Thanks to a goosebump-inducing sound design, the line between book and reality fades, and the listener is immersed in the atmosphere of a cursed place where the rules are set by guests from the other world. A special afterword in the audio version was read by the author of the book, Anna Pronina.

From reviews of the book "Lenka and the Dead":

"Reading Pronina’s book is like wandering through a deserted village on a dark night. Stories — like creaky huts — are full of corpses, and neither the walls nor the pages can keep them inside," — Maksim Kabir, writer

"A novel about how the living and the dead manage to get along quite successfully, because in the end, all of them are people," — Darya Bobylyova, writer

"Anna Pronina’s prose isn’t just horror for the sake of horror. Of course, classic techniques, turns of phrase, and plot lines are present here, but at the forefront is still the story. Often psychological, and even more often — therapeutic. It’s a way of working through fears and difficult situations that any of us might face. And that’s wonderful. "Lenka and the Dead" hides behind genre conventions — like horror stories where there are ghosts, terrible deaths, devils, and so on — but at the same time the book reveals an entirely different side of human relationships and the psychology of ordinary people. Finding a second or third layer in each of the book’s stories is its own pleasure. I recommend it!" — Aleksandr Matyukhin, writer

"The story of the dead, in which there is so much life. The residents of the village of Klyukvino fall in love, break up, and make irreversible mistakes without thinking about eternity. But once eternity becomes inevitably real, everyone needs forgiveness — and so does Lenka, the heiress to the gift of seeing the dead. Any evil isn’t finished while there’s someone on the other side who meets you there and gives you a chance to ask for forgiveness," — Sasa Stepanova, writer