The Last Witch of Lonjsko Polje by Lea Katarina Gobec has hit the shelves!
This eco horror double feature extravaganza is filled with an eerie atmosphere, melancholy, a creeping sense of dread, unlimitless sadness, and insects. So, so many insects. Especially spongy moths from the main novella, who also decorate the beautiful cover, illustrated by Antonio Filipović Athan.
You can get it in both ebook and paperback, just follow this link to your preferred store.
Included in this edition is The Secret of Mrtvi Kal, a novelette about the price of artistry, adoration, and annihilation. Both stories show us the beauty in decay and death, and are marked with reverence for nature and its transformative force, reminding us how insignificant humans are.
Meet Lea!
Lea Katarina Gobec is a Croatian author with a degree in urban forestry who fuels her writing by a healthy dose of her favorite professional deformation—climate anxiety. Most of her work is based around horror, particularly eco horror, but she also likes to dabble in other genres.
Her short stories are featured in several issues of the speculative fiction magazine Morina kutija, FantaSTikon’s short story collection A možda je u šumi, and in the Posljednja kuća u Šenoinoj ulici anthology published by Shtriga. The Last Witch of Lonjsko Polje is her debut novella.
Aside from writing, she likes to practice a lot of other creative hobbies, like drawing and sewing. She also helps out as an editor in the aforementioned Morina kutija, an online speculative fiction magazine, with which she travels to local conventions and holds various writing- and reading-related programs (i.e. designated yapping sessions).
She posts on Instagram under @carica__ficus, Tumblr under @carica-ficus, and on Substack at caricaficus.substack.com.
Praise for The Last Witch of Lonjsko Polje
“I love stories about witches, things that lurk in the dark, in the woods, creepy critters… this book ticks all the boxes.”
@contessa_tamara
“Lea beautifully lures us into the story and creates the atmosphere in a way it feels like you’re really there. I don’t have a fear of bugs, but after reading this I had a feeling of something crawling all over me.”
@svemir_knjiga
“You can feel the author’s love and respect toward nature as something beyond us as humans, something holy.”
@manicteadrinker
“Lea’s words have raised the feelings of dread and repulsion in such a beautiful way that rarely any book had before, and despite loving all manner of crawly critters, even I would sometimes scratch an imaginary itch…”
@koffeinvergiftung
Shtriga Books 