The Inheritance of Orquidea Divina by Zoraida Cordova

Publisher – Atria Books

Published – Out Now - paperback out 4/8

Price – £21.99 hardback £9.99 Kindle eBook

The Montoyas are used to a life without explanations. They know better than to ask why the pantry never seems to run low, or why their matriarch won’t ever leave their home in Four Rivers—not for graduations, weddings, or baptisms. But when Orquídea Divina invites them to her funeral and to collect their inheritance, they hope to learn the secrets that she has held onto so tightly their whole lives. Instead, Orquídea is transformed into a ceiba tree, leaving them with more questions than answers.

Seven years later, her gifts have manifested in different ways for Marimar, Rey, and Rhiannon, granting them unexpected blessings and powers. But soon, a hidden figure begins to tear through their family tree, picking them off one by one as it seeks to destroy Orquídea’s line. Determined to save what’s left of their family and uncover the truth behind their inheritance, her descendants travel to Ecuador—to the place where Orquídea buried her secrets and broken promises and never looked back.

The coming of age tale is a well known part of fantasy (and I mean adult not YA) and its for good reason. As well as helpful for readers to explore someone like us finding out how a world works a tale of characters finding out who they are will always appeal. But sometimes I do think we’ve seen a lot of them. There is another phase though in life after we grow up; its when we look back at where we came from; how we grew up and start to process how the past influenced us. Its rare I get to read such a story and it was just one of the many joys I experienced reading The Inheritance of Orquidea Divina by Zoraida Cordova.

Orquidea Divina is a matriarch of her large family and yet she is a woman of mystery to her family. She moved from Ecuador many years ago; has buried five husbands and in the picturesque and unusual town of Four Rivers is known to be someone to whom strange things happen…magic may be a phrase to describe a place of a fertile space in a barren land and just strange things happening. It is a family that has grown just a little distant though as tragedy and life has got in the way. All the surviving relations including her grandchildren Rey and Marimar are shocked to be invited to collect their inheritance as she is dying. But the assembled relatives witness more magic; find that their home is under attack and an unknown force appears to now be seeking revenge against the whole family. The answer lies in the mystery of who Orquidea really is and what happened so many years ago.

This is an exquisite read. It sounds a huge sprawling generational saga, but Cordova delivers this all in less than 300 pages with a tale that skilfully crosses past and present; moves focus across the generations and is delivered with some of the most beautiful prose I’ve read in some time. This is a world where Orquidea’s family finds magic can be real and capable of strange, good and terrible things. People can transform into objects, bargains with unearthly powers can be made and then there are small little asides like someone hibernating for six months, ghosts are questioned, flowers growing in flesh and much more than make this a hidden world being slowly revealed and understood. This is a novel of the fantastical where anything can happen but within a set of rules we get to understand.

The world itself isn’t enough though to make a great book and and importantly it’s the characters all on their own paths of discovery that make the tale work. In the present day the story divides a lot of the action on Rey and Marimar and they’re very much twenty first century characters. Rey the gay man who wanted to be an artist and became an accountant to be safer while with Marimar a young woman who decided after the tragic death of her own mother that she needed to get away from Orquidea but finds in New York you can’t outrun the past. The focus here are two people in their twenties who are re-evaluating where their past; discovering a lot more of her family heritage and where they come from that shapes their lies still. Subtly their inheritances changes both of them with Rey in terms of their art and Marimar getting a growing appreciation for her home and desire to save the family that will send them all the way to Ecuador to find the secret. I really found the focus more on adults learning about working themselves out more interesting than the traditional young teens we see so much of.

The catalyst for it all is though Orquidea herself and Cordova makes us see both the matriarch with secrets that she knows will cause pain and the young girl whose desperate, yet magical childhood will unwittingly bring about the tragedies of the future. As well as capturing life in Ecuador we get a strange circus, family strife and affairs of the heart combined again with strange magical moments that gel the tale together. We may not always be sympathetic to her but importantly we understand all her decisions and I do respect that she owned to her own errors too. The way the various generations all come together in a fast paced and powerful magical finale is extremely well handled. The antagonist when finally revealed by the way is truly horrible and works as a great counterpoint to Orquidea herself

This is a story that I’m very glad Subjective Chaos got me to read because it reminds us that Fantasy isn’t all about the epic or the contemporary city kind. It can be a stranger more personal magic that can be just as much astounding as any other type of tale. Its smart, gorgeous to read and has an emotional depth that was a joy to sink myself into. Go get this book!