British book lovers will be among the first to get hold of Pavel Kostin’s latest romantic novel
British book stores from Waterston’s to Amazon are among the first to offer latest romantic novel from Russia’s youngest Debut prize writer Pavel Kostin, who visited London Book Fair event earlier this year. His latest novel “IT’S TIME” is scheduled for release in both Russian and English languages in the UK later this year. Leading UK book chains including W.H. Smith, Waterston’s, Blackwell’s. The Book Depository and Amazon are offering their customers to pre-order a copy of Pavel’s latest romantic adventure novel set on the shores of the Baltic Sea, in Pavel’s home city of Kaliningrad - Russia’s most western and arguably most liberal region.
Pavel’s visit to England left him with a remarkable impression that British people are infused with a sense of freedom. “Brits seem to have a different genetic code”, says Pavel in his blog. “They are from a different world. I see freedom in their eyes”. British freedom-infused readers will now be the first to peek into Pavel’s own world, a different mysterious world pictured in his latest novel “IT’S TIME”. Download PDF >
IT’S TIME / Время Пришло (Russian Edition)
IT’S TIME by Pavel Kostin (English Edition)
Set on the shores of the Baltic Sea, on rooftops lit with mesmerizing orange sunset and in the darkest corners of urban night. We find real characters there with depth and ideas searching for direction in their fragile lives and learning to express their ideas through art.
From up on the roof, you can see everything. You can see life scurrying below you, and see it with a calm objectivity. No prejudices, no assumptions. That's what Max, the compelling narrator does: even when he is not sitting on a rooftop, he looks at life with intelligent curiosity, amiable openness and good-humoured equanimity. Max is not only a great companion for the reader — a calm presence at the centre of events — but the perfect lens through which to see a hidden world.
Through Max we meet a succession of intriguing characters-artists and dreamers with their own unique perspectives on life and formulas for happiness: Viktor, the photographer who finds beauty in the mundane; inscrutable Tanya, whose mystery attracts Max as much as her smile; Mutt, an artist who can't see people and lives in a disappearing tower; Oksana, forever entangled in spontaneous and dangerous affairs; Gray, connoisseur of street-art and magic. And, at the centre of it all, the enigmatic Lady F, who appears out of nowhere to give Max little bits of comfort and advice. Her clairvoyant yet cryptic intimations lead Max, and us, through a procession of coincidences, adventures, and miraculous escapes. Who is she? Guardian angel, Lady Luck, hallucination? Whoever she is, her wry and wise interchanges with Max are one of the novel's real pleasures. Whispers of magic get louder and louder, but, thanks to Kostin's clear and sober prose, with its amused detachment and adroit lyrical touches, we never stray into the world of fantasy or stock-in-trade magic realism.
Pavel's latest novel offers the best of what Russian literature has always offered: the universal in the local, the humanity in the metaphysical, the humour in the deathly serious. Kostin hymns the urban landscape and the young people that refuse to just exist in it, but live in it, by it, and travel through it. We see them, and their lives, and their art (which accompanies the text) and we see the way their art elevates their lives. From up on the rooftop, we can see everything, and it is beautiful.
Pavel Kostin is a hopeless romantic whose inspiration comes from simplest things: a glass of cool spring water on a hot summer day or sunset gradually turning urban landscape into a kingdom of orange and purple shadows, concealing in the darker corners the unknown, mystical, and philosophical. Pavel grew up in the last days of crumbling Soviet Empire. Times were hard, but his writing talent found its audience with release of his first novel The Runner which he completed while working for Russia's Narcotics Enforcement agency's press office in Kaliningrad. This is where Pavel came face to face with drug dealers, organised crime and ugly reality of urban life. Pavel's career in investigative journalism and media progressed further into local television where he hosted Crime Chronicles TV show and became a popular presenter. But it is writing where Pavel's talents truly shine, giving us an opportunity to enter a magical world, skilfully painted by his pen.
| Amazon.co.uk | Amazon.com | Waterstone’s | The Book Depository | Lehmanns | Blackwell’s | WHSmith |
| Amazon.co.uk | Amazon.com | Waterstone’s | The Book Depository | Lehmanns | Blackwell’s | WHSmith |
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