“It’s no coincidence that ‘Seven Ways to Marinate the Soul’ first appeared in serialized form, because it is a pure noir mystery. The atmosphere is thick, the tone is somber—exactly the kind of style we love. The only difference is that the setting has shifted from Sweden to Western Siberia. Before this, no one had realized just how perfectly this land fits the noir mystery genre—except for Vera Bogdanova. And it must be said: Vera is simply brilliant at titling her books. Each of the three titles hits the mark with pinpoint precision; it’s hard not to notice them.” —Yana Wagner, a renowned Russian author

“Vera Bogdanova has a keen eye and always manages to unearth the chilling, mysterious core hidden within the most ordinary, everyday details. Her novel ‘Seven Ways to Marinate the Soul’ is no exception. It tells the story of an ordinary life shrouded in a vast, oppressive gloom. Yet the evil in the novel is not as overt as that of a serial killer; rather, it is a past that you can neither escape nor conceal, no matter how hard you try.” —Aleksey Polyarinov, a Russian writer, essayist, literary critic, and translator, and a finalist for the 2021 Big Book National Literary Prize and the 2021 NOS Prize

“The sins of the fathers, the transgressions of the previous generation—this is one of the central themes in culture. Zeus overthrew Cronus; Ham humiliated Noah. Fathers and sons struggle with all their might yet never truly understand one another. Should children bear responsibility for what their fathers have done? Can a person ever truly shake off guilt and evade all responsibility? Or should a person immerse themselves in repentance, using it to cleanse their soul? This seems to be one of the most thought-provoking dilemmas of recent years, and ‘Seven Ways to Marinate the Soul’ is like a spotlight, illuminating this question with crystal clarity for readers.” —Konstantin Milchin, a Russian literary critic and journalist

“In this thriller by Bogdanova, crime and mysticism intertwine. Although the story is set in the fictional small town of Old Altaysk, its inspiration comes from real-life horror. The cult depicted in the book is based on a real cult—the Shambhala Ashram—which wreaked havoc across Russia in the 1990s and early 21st century, deceiving tens of thousands of people.” —Andrey Myakov

“With her earlier works, ‘Pavel Zhang and Other River Beasts’ and ‘The Season of Poisonous Fruit,’ Vera Bogdanova has already proven that she excels at cutting straight to the heart and laying bare the inner world of her readers. Now she has created this brooding psychological novel, which explores where a person can find emotional support when their will is stripped away, they see no future, and their past is riddled with wounds.” —Natalia Lomeikina, a literary columnist and critic

★ Is she the “madwoman,” or the only one who remains truly sane? The evil here is quiet yet all-encompassing, hidden in the silence of the entire city.
★ How can a soul be “pickled”? How can living, vibrant humanity be transformed into a long-lasting specimen perfectly adapted to a dark environment? Taking the real Russian cult “Shambhala Retreat” as its prototype, this book unveils the hidden mechanisms of totalitarian mind control.
★ A dark, suspenseful tale set in Siberia, focusing on the atrocities of a cult and the path to healing from trauma: In this frozen land, how does madness silently fester through silence and forgetting, and how does even the faintest individual courage become the only blade that pierces the gloom?
★ With vivid, evocative prose—featuring the sounds of shamanic drums, the crunch of snow underfoot, bears roaming the streets, and the scent of fireworks mingling with the pine forests—the author paints a breathtaking yet oppressive portrait of Altai, highlighting how human nature becomes alienated and struggles in extreme environments.
★ An extraordinary work that blends suspense, psychological thriller, female coming-of-age, and pressing social issues! Highly recommended by numerous prominent figures in the cultural sphere!
★ This is not just a suspense novel—it’s also a social novel exploring guilt, memory, and resistance, as well as a powerful story of female growth. The writing is cinematic in its precision and immediacy, delivering an immersive reading experience like no other—and plans for a film or TV adaptation are already underway!

Nika has always refused to speak about her childhood. Her father was the leader of an authoritarian cult, and the entire small town trembled under his tyrannical rule. He died when Nika was 12, but the shadow cast by his crimes has never left her. Years later, now an adult, Nika returns to her hometown only to find that time seems to have come to a standstill in this town shrouded in snow, forests, and prefabricated apartment blocks—and that a new kind of terror is taking root: female followers of the cult are dying one after another in mysterious circumstances, yet the authorities hastily dismiss the deaths as suicides. Even more unsettling, Nika discovers that she is being watched by a mysterious figure and keeps receiving encrypted messages that suggest the sins of the past are awakening once again. Yet because of her history of mental illness—she was once forcibly treated in a psychiatric hospital and declared legally incompetent—no one around her takes her warnings seriously; instead, they see her as a delusional patient. That changes when she meets Roman—a man whose younger sister vanished under mysterious circumstances and who is convinced there is a sinister conspiracy behind it all. Together, they decide to join forces and track down the buried truths amid collective silence and official indifference.

The novel delves deeply into Nika’s psychological struggle as she finds herself caught between traumatic memories and immediate threats in the present. With a delicate, evocative style, author Vera Bogdanova portrays how Nika fights to maintain her sanity and reclaim her autonomy as she grapples with hallucinations, the side effects of medication, and the stigma imposed by society. Against the cold, brooding backdrop of “Siberian noir”—endless winter nights, dark primeval forests, and isolated, helpless communities—the story uses these elements as a metaphor for the intertwined shackles of mental confinement and geographical isolation. The shadow of the cult, “the Holy Light Society” (whose real-life prototype is the Shambhala Ashram—a cult that wreaked havoc across Russia in the 1990s and early 2000s, ensnaring tens of thousands of people), looms not just as a set of concrete crimes, but as a pervasive legacy of psychological control. This raises profound questions about the intergenerational transmission of guilt: Are the sins of the fathers inevitably borne by their descendants? Can individuals truly break free from the ghosts of the past? As Nika pursues the truth, these questions arise again and again, elevating the novel beyond a mere thriller to a profound psychological exploration of trauma, memory, and moral responsibility.

As the investigation deepens, Nika and Roman gradually uncover the intricate web of connections between the cult’s network and the town’s power structure, revealing a dark mechanism that has been operating in the shadows behind the disappearances and deaths. With vivid, cinematic prose—capturing the sound of shamanic drums, the crunch of snow underfoot, bears wandering the streets, and the scent of fireworks mingling with the pine forest—the author paints a landscape of breathtaking beauty that is at the same time suffocatingly oppressive, highlighting how human nature becomes alienated and resists in extreme environments. In the end, the novel is not just a hunt for the culprits; it is also Nika’s journey to rebuild her shattered sense of self and reclaim her agency.

With its layered suspense, realistic depiction of the cult’s manipulative tactics, and profound exploration of human resilience, the book emerges as a weighty allegory that blends social critique, psychological depth, and regional specificity. It reveals how, in a land locked in ice, madness can quietly fester in the silence and forgetfulness of others—and how the faint spark of individual courage may be the only blade capable of piercing the darkness. How does one wage a double battle against external evil and internal trauma, struggling to piece together fragments of truth on a frozen wasteland of denial and oblivion, using those fragments as a foundation to rebuild a world that has been nearly destroyed? In doing so, the novel serves both as a literary probe into the scars of a particular period in Russian society and as a profound meditation on the universal human experience of shadow, resilience, and the possibility of redemption.

[Author] Vera Olegovna Bogdanova (1986) is a writer, literary critic, and translator. In 2023, she was awarded the Moscow Art Prize; in 2021, she was shortlisted for the National Bestseller Prize; and in 2020, she was shortlisted for the Lyceum Prize. She has been a regular contributor to numerous publications, including Posters Daily, The Rules of Life, Redbook, Blueprint, L’Officiel, Snob, London Review of Culture, and Youth, and was named to Blueprint magazine’s list of “100 Most Influential People.”

Her debut novel, Pavel Zhang and Other River Beasts, attracted considerable attention even before its official publication: the manuscript was shortlisted for the Lyceum Prize, an award for young writers. In 2021, the novel was published by Elena Shubina Publishing House, and Bogdanova was subsequently shortlisted for the National Bestseller Prize. Her subsequent work, The Season of Poisonous Fruit, became one of the most talked-about books of 2022 and has remained consistently among the top sellers in Russia for three consecutive years. This novel is widely regarded as a landmark work of the post-Soviet millennial generation, bringing into the public eye the experiences of women who have suffered violence in the 1990s and beyond. The book was longlisted for both the Big Book Award and the Yasnaya Polyana Literary Prize, and it also won the prestigious Moscow Art Prize. For the Booklover platform, Vera Bogdanova has created Seven Ways to Marinate the Soul, a gripping cult-themed thriller that is impossible to put down once you start reading.

Soul One
Soul Two
Soul Three
Soul Four
Soul Five
Soul Six
The Final Soul
Epilogue
Acknowledgments