by Ashley Dickson-Ellison (@teachingtheapocalypse)
I listened to Zoraida Córdova's The Inheritance of Orquídea Divina (Bookshop.org | Libro.fm) thanks to Libro.fm's ALC program, and I was so captivated by the story. This was the first book I'd read by Zoraida Córdova, but it will not be my last!
Richly woven with a complicated mystery at its center, this is a beautiful story that unfurls over decades and generations all tied together by fate and choices made early on in the life of the family.
As the novel begins to unfold, we get to know Rey and Marimar, two cousins who have grown up largely by leaning on each other. They are now adults living in NYC, which is where they both receive the mysterious hand-written letters that simply appear where they are, calling them home for the death of their grandmother Orquídea.
"Some people were meant for great, lasting legacies. Others were meant for small moments of goodness, tiny but that rippled and grew in big, wide waves."
This story is packed with a lot of characters because Orquídea has a large family, and we get to know all of them as they begin to appear in Four Rivers, the matriarch's home where they've been summoned. But even after the summoning, Orquídea continues to guard her secrets, many of which she left behind when she left her hometown in Ecuador as a teenager.
This family is accustomed to bewildering circumstances and unanswered questions, but as time passes after the summoning, they begin to realize they are in imminent danger, and they have to find answers quickly before it's too late to save those who are left.
I dare not say too much! I felt like a lot of what I enjoyed in the story was figuring out how the pieces fit together, and it's one that is best read without any spoilers. Full of magic, ghosts, superstitions, and legends come to life, I found it fascinating.
"There were not enough words that could be spoken. They were entangled deeper than roots and always would be, and that was enough. Sometimes silence said enough."
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