Title: The Path of Totality
Author: Marie Zhuikov
Genre/page length: Short Story Collection, Speculative Fiction/176 pages
Date published/publisher: February 2025/Cornerstone Press (See below to pre-order)
Captivating stories that explore the inexplicable, the mystical, and the paranormal
Speculative fiction enthusiasts will find plenty to relish in Marie Zhuikov’s The Path of Totality, a collection of seven short stories and a novella. A stunning image of a total solar eclipse graces the cover. Symbolizing intensity, energy, and enchantment, the image invites readers to open Zhuikov’s book and contemplate both the knowable and the unknowable in the world.
In the collection’s eponymous lead story, “The Path of Totality,” a young married couple in Oregon travels to another town to see the total eclipse of the sun. Caught up in a grief that both unites and divides them, they each experience the eclipse differently. The wife, along with other spectators, sees it all, astounded as the moon covers the sun. But her husband cannot see the eclipse. With eloquent prose, rich imagery, and well-crafted dialogue, Zhuikov’s story, told from the young husband’s perspective, is spellbinding.
“Bog Boy” is set in rural Minnesota, where sixteen-year-old Natalie works at the Sax-Zim Bog, a nature preserve. On a spring day, while leading a birding tour, Natalie discovers a mummified teenage boy in the bog whose remains are two thousand years old. The well-preserved teenager, with high cheekbones and beautiful hair, is handsome. Natalie falls in love with him as only a teenage girl can – completely, blindly, devotedly. Because she cannot bear to be without him, she brings the bog boy home to live with her and her father. Darkly humorous, “Bog Boy” combines the realm of speculative fiction with thought-provoking satire that will make readers laugh.
In her stories, Zhuikov’s characters encounter situations where their perceptions of the world are called into question. Whether or not these alternate realities originate in a character’s mind, or come from the external world, or a combination of both, the reader is drawn into otherworldly scenarios as characters deal with the murky world of online dating, a house that harbors a mystery, falling in love with a voice, being hunted by a new life form, and a recently orphaned home that senses the passage of time and the loss of its people. In Zhuikov’s novella two characters, Sheila and Peter, explore the idea that trees can communicate chemically and supernaturally with humans who are receptive to the possibility.
Zhuikov’s stories explore a wide range of human emotions – grief, duplicity, curiosity, loneliness, love, obsession, and fear – against a backdrop of both rural and urban worlds filled with the inexplicable, the mystical, and the paranormal. She skillfully combines these human emotions with well-crafted imaginative worlds as she delves into the everyday desires and struggles people face, making her tales intriguing reads to be enjoyed by everyone.
The Path of Totality is currently available for pre-order at a 20% discount. Click here.
