News & Updates
Book announcements, reading lists and behind-the-scenes from the World of Dagome and beyond
Stay up to date with new releases, cover reveals, reading order guides, listicles and updates from Olena Nikitin. Whether you read The Cursed Bonds, Secrets of Dagome, Season’s War or Amber Legends, this is where you hear it first.
Best summer reads Slavic romantic fantasy
Looking for Slavic fantasy romance books to devour this summer? Here are eight romantasy reads steeped in Slavic mythology, from dragon riders and cursed kings to frost demons and Baba Yaga herself. Summer is the season of long evenings, cold drinks and books thick enough to double as sun shields. If your reading taste runs towards Slavic mythology, morally grey heroines and gods who play dirty, you are in the right place. I grew up on these legends, the proper Polish kind where the forest wants to eat you and the house spirit sulks if you forget…
Diary of the evil stepmother
A month ago, our elderly cat had an accident on my stepdaughter’s bed. She is a very messy teenager the bed looked like a pit, and she discovered it after properly rolling in it. My comment: Well, if your bed looks like a litter, cats will treat it like a litter. If it were made, kitty wouldn’t poo in it. I have nagged her for 7 years to make her make her bed in the morning. It took one cat shit, and every single day her bed is pristine. I don’t know if I’m an evil stepmother or an evil genius….
When life gives you hiragana
I don’t know why I did it, but I did it. On top of so many overwhelming things I was doing, the devil got into my head and steered me to start learning Japanese on Duolingo. When it comes to almost any European language, I would be fine, but here comes the caveat. My brain doesn’t seem to recognise the shapes of letters if the alphabet is different from standard Latin-based European. I kid you not, but when I was in high school, and we had obligatory Russian lessons, I learned the text passages by heart a few pages ahead, so…