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My rating: 5 of 5 stars
The Inheritance of Orquídea Divina is a literary fantasy novel by Zoraida Córdova. The eBook version is 336 pages. We follow multiple characters in dual timelines with third person points-of-view.
In one of our timelines, we follow the eponymous Orquídea from when she was a young girl through to a bargain she made with an otherworldly being. In the other timeline, we follow her descendants with a focus on her grandchildren Marimar, Rey, and Tatinelly, and great-grandchild (Tatinelly’s daughter) Rhiannon. These descendants were given unexpected blessings upon the passing of the family matriarch, which we see in the first part of the novel. Subsequent parts of the novel feature what the family goes through after her passing, especially the troubles the descendants find themselves in roughly seven years after Orquídea’s death.
I found this book to be beautiful. The story is really interesting, and the prose is very lyrical. The first time I tried to read this, I tried the audiobook. However, I kept getting confused about who I was reading about, as the Montoya family is quite large. I ended up checking out the physical book from the library, which helped! I put a post-it on the family tree provided at the beginning of the book that I would refer to any time I couldn’t remember how the person described in the story was related to Orquídea.
Tropes in this book include: magical realism, family curse
CW: death, neglect, loss of a child, abusive relationships
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