Review by Booklist Review
Riccardo is a struggling writer in Paris, barely keeping his head above water when he receives news that his estranged grandmother, a Turkish émigré named Perihan, has died, leaving him her large home in Milan and her extensive butterfly collection. When he arrives, he finds that everything is not as it should be: the house is unexpectedly run down and Perihan's housekeeper and friends are acting strangely. After finding Perihan's journal, Riccardo hopes to learn more about her life, but he doesn't know what to make of her wild stories about a monster. Initially assuming they were the ramblings of a disturbed mind, Riccardo eventually realizes that not only were Perihan's recollections true, but the events she recounts have put him in immediate danger. Turhan's English-language debut is a slow burn with a genuinely horrific ending. Sinister motifs--buckets of blood, clawed gloves, swarms of butterflies, a circus massacre--and perfectly timed twists maintain the tension until the end. Recommend to readers who enjoyed Silvia Moreno-Garcia's Mexican Gothic (2020), What Moves the Dead (2022), by T. Kingfisher, or Del Sandeen's This Cursed House (2024).
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
A classic scenario--the naive heir to a family estate is imperiled by its morbid secret legacy--is the foundation for Turhan's uneven dark fantasy debut. Twenty-year-old Riccardo is a struggling writer living in Paris when he's notified that he is the sole inheritor of his estranged grandmother Perihan's fortune. After relocating to her villa in Milan, he chances upon a lengthy memoir left by Perihan that recounts her transformation over the decades from a poor Turkish immigrant to a popular Milanese socialite. This narrative quickly overtakes the frame story, detailing Perihan's adoption of a fey foundling from another realm. The child's magical tears--and his and Perihan's propagation of butterflies that can miraculously facilitate the rebirth of the dead--are a clue to the terrifying fate Riccardo has been lured to. Turhan relates Perihan's sprawling memoir in colorful fairy tale fashion, but it so dominates the text that the contemporary story in which it's embedded seems underdeveloped by comparison. The bumpy narrative eventually culminates in a flashy B-movie ending. Only devoted fans of gothic melodrama need apply. (Apr.)
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Review by Library Journal Review
DEBUT Time has run out for Riccardo, a 20-year-old orphan living off the advance for a book he is unable to even start, let alone deliver to his publisher. Then a stranger knocks on his door, alerting him that the Turkish immigrant grandmother he adored as a child has died rather suddenly and left her Italian villa and cherished butterfly collection to Riccardo. Riccardo goes to Milan, where he finds more questions than answers about his grandmother's life, death, life, and obsession with butterflies. When he stumbles upon a manuscript in her handwriting, labeled "To Riccardo," readers and Riccardo both begin to unravel the mystery. Told in the perspectives of Riccardo and his grandmother, what begins as a slow-burn gothic fable ventures out of its cocoon as a compelling, suspenseful, and lush grimdark fantasy, completing its metamorphosis with one final twist to emerge as an existentially terrifying tale that will put readers through the emotional wringer. VERDICT A solid debut to offer enthusiastically to fans of horror framed by dangerous family secrets, such as Midnight Rooms by Donyae Coles, Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia, and Now You're One of Us by Asa Nonami.
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