Book cover for The Cellar Below the Cellar: A Folk Horror Novella by Ivy Grimes

The Cellar Below the Cellar

A Folk Horror Novella

2026 Released
180 Pages
3-4 Hours
Ebook Unavailable
Audiobook Unavailable
Hardback Unavailable
Violet LichenISBN 9781955765411

A playfully dark folk horror inspired by the fairy tale "Vasilisa the Beautiful" and the mythology around Frau Perchta, set under the blazing sky of endless auroras.

When a wild solar storm wipes out all electronics and traps Jane at her grandmother's house in the woods, she is forced to start a new life off-grid as part of a small, isolated community.

However, there is something very strange about her new neighbors, and the longer she lives under the eerie glow of the auroras, the more she feels her grandmother may be hiding unsettling secrets.

To have any hope in her new world, Jane must find the courage to step into her power and claim her identity, but that would mean facing whatever hides in the cellar below the cellar--a place that seems to be waiting for her.

Full of delightfully weird surprises and off-kilter characters, this adult coming-of-age story explores themes of female empowerment, spirituality, identity, and community. For fans of Kelly Link, Karen Russell, Ottessa Moshfegh, and Leonora Carrington.

Ivy Grimes

Ivy Grimes was born in Alabama and currently lives in Virginia. She is very quiet and enjoys puzzles. Her stories have appeared in Vastarien, Interzone, the Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, hex, ergot., Seize the Press, and elsewhere. Also available are a chapbook of short stories called Grime Time and a novella called Star Shapes.

More by Ivy Grimes

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