Parry is from Yorkshire, and her work is a modern take on classic gothic fiction, and though the idea, Frankenstein-esque, is of course not new, her approach is from a different angle. There are (welcomed) moments of hideous unpleasantness, though in a lenghty finale Parry leaves her reader with plenty to contemplate; firstly that beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and a debate with more substance, what was the law, what is the law, and what should be the law.. When this book is good it’s really good. Once the ball starts rolling on Wilhelm gross experiments as he tries to “revive” Luci it’s very engrossing as well as just plain gross lol. Wilhelm is a very disgusting character, not only because of what he does to Luci but because he’s intentionally vague with everything he tells us. When going over his past he intentionally never goes into the specifics of the types of studies he was doing in his home country, WW2 era Germany, he never admits to being a Nazi but he constantly has small moments where he shows his prejudice for other nationalities. He romanticizes the brief relationship he had with Luci while she was alive and romanticizes what he does to her while she’s dead so there’s always this feeling that he’s probably done way worse than what he’s willing to admit. We follow the story of Wilhelm Von Tore and Luci told through the eyes of Gabriela (Luci's Sister) and I love that we get the two different perspectives to the story. This is particularly relevant in Orpheus Builds a Girl and it really makes you question what the reality of the situation was and the motives behind the different characters actions. It also explores what it means to love someone. gross, creepy, vaguely romantic, and loosely inspired by true events Orpheus Builds a Girl tells of the story of Wilhelm as he tries to revive his “one true love” Luci while simultaneously giving us the perspective of Luci’s older sister Gabriela.

Wilhem von Tore doesn’t have much time left. As he reflects on his life his main memory is his beloved Luci, love of his life and the woman he vowed to stay with forever. And stay with her he did, despite her having died of tuberculosis only a few months after their first meeting. Despite Luci being buried by her grieving family shortly after her death. Small obstacles, but nothing that would get in the way of Wilhem’s quest. A fresh and exciting addition to the horror genre is Heather Parry’s debut novel, Orpheus Builds a Girl. Then there is Gabriela, sister to Luciana. She recalls a feisty and carefree young woman, taken too soon but never forgotten. These two characters are worlds apart but united in their love for the same person. But love can have different forms; familial, habitual, obsessional. She won the 2016 Bridge Award for an Emerging Writer, Cove Park's 2017 Emerging Writer residency, the Laxfield Literary Launch Prize in 2021 and was a Hawthornden Fellow in 2021. She is the author of two books - a novel, Orpheus Builds a Girl, and a short story collection, This Is My Body, Given For You.This story is something else. It’s macabre. It’s sinister. It’s so, so dark. But it’s also beautiful. It’s heartbreaking. Its unbearable. Its a story I don’t think I’ll ever forget. Though only together for a few months in her first life, their love is written in the stars. Using scientific research compiled over decades, Wilhelm ensures that, for him and his beloved, death is only the beginning. ORPHEUS is written in part as a scientific biopic from the personal statement of Wilhelm von Tore; the doctor using this manuscript as a justification and confession for his actions in relation to his "life's work and purpose" in relation to Luci. The alternate chapters are written more as a recollection by Gabi, Luci's older sister, about her life and the intrusion/influence of von Tore. I loved the way this novel explored fascism's links to the control of the female body, and the social complicity that allows professional white men to wield power in the most horrific ways. It has one of the best unreliable narrators I've read and a counter-narrator in the shape of the victim's sister that humanises the woman the protagonist is determined to objectify. Thus is simply stunning. I can’t remember a story that’s gripped me so tight that I’ve spent a whole day reading it. Mesmerising, gruesome and strangely intoxicating. I’ve read many horror books so it didn’t phase me but it’s not for the squeamish.

Written as the memoirs of a German doctor in exile scarily obsessed with one of his teenage patients even after her death, and based on a gruesome true story, this is a perfect read for spooky season. But this book is not content with putting us in the mind of a deranged lunatic - it feels the need to intercut his 1st person narrative with that of the dead girl's sister, supposedly telling the other side of the story. The problem with this is that it's abundantly clear to us pretty much from the start that Wilhelm is crazy: after all, as a child he has a weirdly co-dependent relationship with his grandmother and cuddles up to her dead body for days till they're found together. Add to that his discreet but obvious allusions to his Nazi past: the 'youth organisation' he joins in 1930s German (Hitler Youth or similar), the obscure medical 'experiments' he participates in during the war even if he, self-righteously, tells us he was never interested in work on twins (as was, notoriously, Josef Mengele), his recall of the firebombing of Dresden, and his later escape from German via South America and, eventually, to Florida. Orpheus Builds a Girl is superbly creepy from the start, Parry expertly lacing unsettling details through her narratives. It’s a modern take on classic Gothic fiction, and while it certainly owes a debt to the likes of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, it breaks new ground of its own and will chill readers to the bone. Disturbing and compelling in equal measure, it’s highly recommended. Based on true events ORPHEUS BUILDS A GIRL tells a story of obsession and possession, of the possible cruelty of human inquisitiveness, and the strange bonds within family, culture, and reputations. I would say this is not a book for the squeamish: including body horror, scientific experiments, war, racism, and much more. It is about sisterly love, the dead, and how obsession can be used to justify a person's actions.

Based on a true story, Orpheus Builds a Girl is a novel of sisterly love, sinister obsession, and the battle for control of the story. A dark, chilling debut novel from award-winning writer Heather Parry.

Set in the 1970s in Key West, Floida, a German doctor who had worked for the Nazis in his youth, Wilhelm von Tore, becomes infatuated with a young Cuban woman, Luci, who he is treating for tuberculosis. When she dies, von Tore refuses to accept it, and takes matters into his own hands.From the start Parry is able to create something unsettling in the chapters devised through von Tore's descriptions; there is something remarkably twisted and self-gratifying in the doctor's chapters of his youth that only become more questionable once the two character's lives become intertwined. Gabi's chapter's are filled with something else unsettling, herself being unsettled and anxious throughout her life; always thinking of keeping her family together and ooking out for her younger more robust and adventurous sisters. The reader is pulled into the lives of her Cuban family, living through joys and heartbreak but always constantly aware of what Luci was doing. Gabi's recollection revolves around her sister to counteract the doctor's views; perhaps that is the point of her recalling memories, to actively disagree with what the doctor has put forward? Or maybe that is truly how Gabi saw her youth? Either way the familial chapters paints Luci in a different light than that of von Tore. I rest easy; I could not have done a thing more for my beloved, nor could I have shown my love in any greater way’ Luci is rebellious and wild and inquisitive; she is everything her sister is not, where as Gabi tries desperately to keep her family together, to appease her mother's sallow moods and depression, to keep her sister safe from the world. Gabi loses herself in trying to keep the peace and be a constant people pleaser.