Lucilla Ingannamorte

If you love gothic atmospheres and mysteries to solve, here is a book you can’t miss reading this fall: Lucilla Ingannamorte – Specchi e spettri will take you on a journey through séances and exorcisms, anatomy lessons and Kabbalistic studies, visits to cemeteries and psychiatric hospitals, flowing smoothly to the end and leaving you wanting to read more!

Capitava che le intenzioni dei fantasmi non le fossero del tutto chiare; aleggiavano fumose e ambigue, come la nebbia che, d’inverno, avvolgeva Torino, celando persino ciò che era davanti agli occhi. Aveva l’impressione che si divertissero a metterla nei guai. Di una cosa, però, era sicura: da che aveva memoria, loro c’erano sempre stati.

Being a young woman in Turin in the late 19th century is no easy task. It’s even harder if you have the gift of seeing and hearing ghosts. In an era when charlatans and self-proclaimed mediums thrive on the suffering of others, Lucilla Ingannamorte infiltrates bourgeois salons during séances to expose them, with her uncle Attilio, an eccentric scientist, and her friend Micol, a scholar of Kabbalah, by her side. When Lucilla meets Jaime Flores, an Argentine poet with a melancholic gaze, she is drawn into a new mystery: entangled in an investigation that treads the fine line between hallucination and truth, between restless spirits and broken minds, where even reality cracks, like a distorted reflection in an antique mirror.

“Non avrà ancora a che fare con il caso delle ragazze dai nervi fragili? Ti avevo detto di lasciar perdere quella storia, non ti fa bene occupartene.” Come se la loro debolezza potesse infettarla, risvegliare qualcosa che, forse per genetica, era latente in lei: la pazzia.

What at first seems like a simple and pleasantly lighthearted plot gradually deepens to reveal multiple layers of interpretation: the layer of grief and what we’re willing to believe in order to stay in touch with the loved ones we lost, and the layer of injustice and the fight of the early feminist movements against the power of patriarchy—a system capable of exploiting even the allure of the supernatural to keep minorities under control. The book shows how the issue of mental illness was instrumentalized at the time, particularly among women who would not comply to social norms, showing their feelings and asking for a change. The choice of these themes makes the story resonate deeply with the issues of inequality and pathologization that, unfortunately, we still face today.

All characters are very well-developed, both the positive and the negative ones. And among them all, Police Chief Damiano Maltraversi is an incredibly believable and fascinating villain who shows the reader how one can get corrupted by the world; but there’s no shortage of tender romantic scenes and cute moments with cats—both real and ghostly! The final highlight of the text undoubtedly consists of the descriptions, which powerfully convey the atmosphere of the city, the era, and the story’s main theme.

Lucilla si era appostata all’ombra di un portone annerito dal tempo, con gli spiriti in pietra grezza e un battente di ferro a forma di leone. Dall’altra parte della via, la sinagoga torreggiava con le sue cupole moresche e le finestre ad arco acuto, stagliandosi come un miraggio d’oriente nella bruma che offuscava i contorni aguzzi della città.

The author of the novel decided to share her story though self-publishing: by no means a solo project, she was able to gather a group of skilled professionals who handled the editing, layout, and cover design of the book with critical eye and good taste, thus allowing the reader to experience the story in its best form. I particularly enjoyed the characters black and white portraits in the frontispiece, the chapter titles named after folk proverbs and the little spooky ghosts added to the page numbering. The printing by Amazon Italia is also flawless and the binding durable.

In conclusion, Lucilla Ingannamorte – Specchi e spettri is an entertaining project that plays with the gothic and paranormal topoi and brings its characters right in contact with our time and sensibility. By doing so in a professional and captivating way, the author demonstrates how self-publishers can nowadays offer high-quality products and thus engage an eager readership. And don’t worry about the somewhat open ending–a second book has already come out in October!