Before I get into the book review, apologies for my extended absence from this blog! October is a very busy month in our extended family (FOUR birthdays, plus our anniversary), and somehow once Halloween is past, Thanksgiving and Christmas seem to be upon us in rapid succession. But now that the rush is (mostly) past, I'm determined to get back to more regular posts in the new year (and the rest of this one). So I'll start with a book I read right around Thanksgiving.
The Inheritance of Orquídea Divina by Zoraida Cordova is an enchanting work of magical realism that will appeal to fans of Alice Hoffman's Practical Magic and Erin Morgenstern's The Night Circus. The story begins when Orquídea, as an old woman, summons her many descendants back to the family home for one last visit before the moment she knows she will die. When they arrive, they find that her death is not exactly to be a natural one: she is being slowly turned into an enormous tree. There are clues that this transformation is due, in part, to some heretofore unmentioned enemy, and Orquídea's granddaughter Marimar, as well as two of her cousins and one of their children, whom Orquídea blesses by bestowing living flowers onto their bodies, are determined to seek out answers. The story follows two timelines from there: Orquídea's past and her grandchildren's present. Orquídea lived a rough childhood, and this is as much family saga as fantasy quest. For a story based so much on people, the characters sometimes felt a little distant to me, but the plot was interesting enough to keep me eagerly reading, and I enjoyed how the pieces of the puzzle came together in the end.
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