The Price of Revenge

Olga Degtyareva was born in a small seaside town surrounded by mountain ranges, like huge hands of a giant. In this amazing place you can meet the owner of a pottery workshop, in whose hands simple clay figures come to life; an artist who can draw a rainbow in the sky on a rainy day; and other interesting people who shaped the worldview of a little girl. As a teenager, Olya attended one of the few city schools, where she met some of the future characters from her stories. When it came time to enter university, she had to move to a big city. There, bored and experiencing incredible nostalgia for her hometown, Olga began writing stories, intertwining memories with imagination—about life, visible and invisible, that flows steadily and is not always noticed by the many tourists arriving for vacation.

But if you stop somewhere in a quiet courtyard hidden from prying eyes, you will see real magic. The events of the book take place at the intersection of our existence with the magical world. Some episodes are autobiographical and have living prototypes. Ordinary people find themselves in unimaginable situations. While one girl tries on scenarios of life in an atelier, another tries to figure out what’s wrong with the painting her husband is restoring, and a third weaves fateful intrigues against her best friend…