Orpheus Builds A Girl

Gabriela has met a monster. He stole her sister.

When social unrest forces their family from their home in Cuba to Key West, Florida, sisters Gabriela and Luciana are suddenly immigrants. While the elder is quiet and cautious, the younger a fiery tearaway, in this unfamiliar place they are vulnerable and uncertain, and turn to one another.

When Luciana suddenly falls ill, she is taken to a doctor, Wilhelm von Tore, whose immediate obsession with her drives a wedge between the family. Gabriela can only watch as her desperate parents grant Wilhelm unlimited access to their younger daughter, hoping for a cure. He fills their home with the stench of flowers and treats Luci as a plaything.

When illness finally claims Luciana, Gabriela thinks they are free of this controlling man. But Wilhelm knows Luci is his destiny, and for him death is only the beginning.

Wilhelm creates a narrative of great love and all-consuming passion,  but through the cracks in his account there appears another. Gabriela will not let Wilhelm’s version of events go unchallenged. She tells the story of her sister Luciana, fearless and full of life, and of the delusional man who robbed her from her grave.

Based on a chilling true story Heather Parry’s debut tale is 'terrifyingly brilliant'. She is one of the most interesting and talented British writers to emerge in recent memory. Orpheus Builds a Girl is 'a sinister dark flower of a book, both intoxicating and beautiful' (Camilla Grudova)

'Bold, sinister and debate-provoking’ — Kirsty Logan, author of Things We Say in the Dark