I am familiar with the horrid true story this book is based on, so I went in with high hopes. I appreciate the concept but I didn’t get anything additional from reading this book. It seemed familiar in other ways so I looked to see if it was a re-release but I couldn’t tell.

Orpheus Builds A Girl was slow to start but around two-thirds in, I was invested. Deeply disturbing and heartbreaking. I think it takes real skill to write a character that is so morally reprehensible, and Parry accomplishes just that with Wilhelm.

Thank you so much to Steerforth & Pushkin and Netgalley for this ARC. Yikes. And let me say that again for those who did not hear me in the back: YIKES. This book is not for the faint of heart. It will make you furious and queasy and upset and then you’ll realise it’s based on a true story and you’ll probably want to throw something heavy out of the nearest window. It tells the story of Luciana, a beautiful and vivacious Cuban immigrant living in Florida who contracts tuberculosis. Believing it is their only option, her family agree to let the mysterious Dr Von Tore give her some experimental treatments that he claims can save her life. What they don’t realise is that Dr Von Tore is a disgraced Nazi scientist whose grip on reality is tenuous to say the least and who believes that Luciana is destined to be his bride thanks to a vision he received from his long-dead grandmother. Naturally his ministrations do not save her but Luciana’s family had no way of knowing that her death would have no impact Von Tore’s obsession with her. He will not be denied his promised love and now he has the perfect subject for his true passion project – trying to resurrect the dead. However, Luciana’s beloved sister Gabriela is not going to let Von Tore rewrite his deluded and sick experiments on her sister’s corpse into a lover’s quest. Throughout the novel, Gabriela and Von Tore fight for control of the narrative both literally and figuratively, resulting in an utterly chilling meditation on power, female agency and the ease with which marginalised voices are silenced.

Ooof that's some good writing. It incited such hatred and then such a feeling of protectiveness that I had complex feelings all the way through. With wickedly sharp, brilliantly paced writing and vivid settings, it's a great interpretation that doesn't over-sensationalise the true story it's based on.

Told by two narrators is the story of Luciana who dies an early death by tuberculosis and ends up being the dead bride to a crazy doctor.
One narrator is the doctor himself, Wilhelm von Tore, who's unhingend right from the beginning and gets weirder and more delusional as the book goes on. The other one is Luciana's sister, Gabriela, who mostly has to look of first how her sister dies from malpractice (by von Tore) and then how Luciana's corpse is desecrated and mistreated.

I really liked the two viewpoints and actually preferred Gabrielas. I could have read a whole book about her and her family's story. I know practically nothing about Cuba in the 50s and the life of Cuban immigrants in the US, and I'll definitely look out for more stories on the topic.
Von Tore's story was a little wordy and too long sometimes, but that was actually fitting the character because he thought himself smarter than everyone else. The descriptions of Luciana's treatments after death were sometimes pretty stomach turning, even through Von Tore's rose-tinted glasses.

I really enjoyed this and will check out Heather Parry's other works!

CW: aside from obviously death and maltreatment of a corpse, this contains also two animals deaths, one of which was pretty graphic

Big thank you to Heather Parry and Gallic Books for a chance to read Orpheus Builds A Girl in advance in exchange for an honest review!

This book managed to incite such hatred for a character that it motivated me to finish the book. Boy was this man evil and sick! I had to pause throughout this book which is a first for me.

Thought provoking and unfortunately, applicable to our current climate. The dual perspectives added a certain disjointedness to the plot, making the audience work for the real truth of the story.

This book is based on the true story of Carl Tanzler and the young woman he obsessed over, Maria Elena Milagro de Hoyos. The book fictionalizes this true case of obsessive love and necrophilia in the 1930s, but it also incorporates a dual narrative from the perspective of the victim's sister, providing a contrasting view to the story. It was disturbing, but I couldn’t stop reading it. I’ve decided I need to go down the rabbit hole to determine what parts of the book were true, and which fabricated. I like to believe some of it in no way could be true. Anyways. The book was well-written and told a story that evoked many emotions throughout. Sadness. Anger. Disgust. I felt it all.

I could not fully review this book as the formatting has missed out all of the fs and ts in my version and I am visually impaired so was not compatible with my devices. I made it through about 15% and was enjoying what I read, and this is a book I will purchase based on this impression.

Thank you so much for the opportunity.

Reading this book made me alternately angry and sad. I knew it would be a good read from the start, and it delivered.

The story is told from a dual perspective : the "research"/memoir of Wilhelm, and the additions of Gabriela, whose sister Luci was his victim.

His perspective was truly enraging; a sexist, xenophobic Nazi piece of shit, who thinks he can do no wrong and is above everyone else. Seeing how he tries to portray what happened like he was in right, reading how he lies and distorts everything, I kept thinking "I want to kill that guy". Add to this everyone enabling him and letting him get his way.

And then getting the point of view of Gabriela, who shows everything as it is, warts and all. Getting to know Luci and their family, their life in Cuba, their arrival in America, all the difficulties along the way, made us see that they are real people, they are not just the tragedy that happened later on. And then when shit hits the fan, she's there to recontextualize, to show the horrific situation without the romanticization of Wilhelm. And all of this is so sad, and frustrating, and unjust, especially as you consider the real life stories of other young women, whose bodily autonomy was so horrifically violated. This is gonna stay with me for a while.

(Note: My one qualm with this book is its pacing, which was sometimes too slow, because of heavy exposition.)

Thank you to Netgalley and Pushkin Press for providing me with an ARC.

I went into this book unsure what to expect. The story is a truly tragic piece of writing following complex and intricate characters.
The plot is filled with snippets of life and I did enjoy the dual points of view. Hearing how the story was seen and felt by one person and how someone else can feel completely differently about the same situation.

There are parts of this book that are highly disturbing and I would definitely not recommend this to younger readers due to some of the themes explored and nature of the characters.
It was interesting to have such a, generally, well trusted profession (doctor/scientist) turned on it's head here and explore how obsessive the interest of this can be in someone with the wrong intentions. I would've enjoyed hearing more about how the relationship with the male main characters family adjusted his life but also understandably since it wasn't a good childhood for him, why it wasn't explored more.

I found it quite hard to read any 'romantic' parts due to the ginormous age gap, however again I acknowledge this is what makes the story so shocking.

Overall an interesting look into how interest can quickly turn into obsession if deluded enough.
2.75 stars

Τhe premise of the story was good but unfortunately it was hard to read woth all the misisng letters.
But it's a promising and disturbing book with a lot to say

Thanks to Pushkin and Net Galley for allowing me to read an advance copy of this book.

Woof. This book was great and I very much did not like it.

Parry did an exceptional job of instilling dread from the offing and boy did she not let up for one second.

This book has so many layers of social commentary and medical and existential horror. I am typically a reader who enjoys reading a book at face value and then chewing on the subtext after finishing it. I couldn't do that with this one and it took me a long time to get through.

I spent the first two thirds of the book seeing Willi as the bastard son of Dr. Frankenstein and Josef Mengele... and then suddenly he was Donald Trump and I was even sicker to my stomach.

Parry touched on the parallels to political and legal life for women in the last couple of years in her afterword and I was left at the point of tears thinking about just how much more prescient this story is than it was in the presumably short time since she wrote those words!!

This book is an amazing call to arms to all women and anyone who possesses a shred of empathy. I didn't like it, but I'm glad I read it. It feels important in the same vein as the Reformatory-a book everyone should have to read.

This book has a premise that truly appeals to me, and the fact that it was based on a true story, that makes it even more appealing.
Unfortunately, the writing and the execution of the plot failed to please me.
I never felt truly invested in the plot or engaged by the characters' development. And the horror aspect was not my favourite part at all.
I'm sure other readers will enjoy this book much more than I did.

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 an intense and very dark novel.

This novel explored fascism's links to the control of the female body, and the social complicity that allows older white men to wield power in the most horrific ways. The narrative is interesting and juxtaposed between the main unreliable narrators and counter-narrator in the shape of the victim's sister that humanises the woman the protagonist is determined to objectify.

If you can stomach it Orpheus Build A Girl is a must-read meditation on death, power and bodily autonomy, very relevant for today.

First off I would like to thank Net Galley, the Publisher and Author for the eARC of this book. I am leaving my honest opinion in this review. For complete transparency, I did not finish this.

The story is based on a true story. It follows two POVs. One of our racist, heinous and entitled doctor Wilhel. Von Tore, the other from the perspective of Gabriela, Luci's sister, who challenges this monsters version of events.

This is dark and heartbreaking. It is extremely difficult to make it though the words of such a deeply unlikable and horrific person. While the premise and historical framing was compelling, the emotional weight and moral depravity of the protagonist made it impossible for me to continue. This is not a reflection on the skill of the writing itself just my personal capacity to sit with the story's horror. I did skim the remainder of the book and stand by my choice to do so.

Heather Parry’s Orpheus Builds a Girl is one of those novels that creeps under your skin and stays there. From the first page, it’s drenched in gothic atmosphere, the kind that makes you feel like something terrible is always waiting just out of sight.

The story alternates between two voices: Wilhelm von Tore, a doctor whose obsession with a young woman, Luciana, curdles into something grotesque, and Gabriela, Luciana’s sister, who is determined to preserve her sister’s dignity and memory against the doctor’s delusions. Wilhelm’s sections are chilling—he’s arrogant, self-pitying, and disturbingly rational in his justifications, which makes reading his perspective both fascinating and revolting. Gabriela, by contrast, is the heart of the book: her voice is emotional, angry, and raw, and through her you feel the weight of grief and the fight for truth.

What I admired most was how Parry tackled themes of possession, objectification, and agency. It’s not just a horror story about a man who refuses to let go of the woman he desires—it’s also about how women’s stories, even in death, are twisted and controlled by others. That tension between who gets to tell the story, and whose voice is remembered, gave the book a resonance beyond its gruesome premise.

The writing itself is sharp, sometimes lyrical, sometimes grotesque. There were moments when Wilhelm’s voice felt a little overlong, almost suffocating in detail, but maybe that was the point—it mirrored his obsession, the way he wouldn’t let Luciana (or the reader) breathe. Gabriela’s chapters, though, offered relief and fire; they made me angry and heartbroken all at once.

By the end, I felt unsettled, outraged, and oddly grateful that a novel could provoke such strong reactions. It’s not an easy read—it’s uncomfortable, often disturbing—but it’s the kind of book that lingers, that makes you question how stories are told and who gets the final word.

If you like gothic horror that’s more about power, grief, and voice than just scares, Orpheus Builds a Girl is worth picking up. Just be ready to feel both haunted and furious when you turn the last page.

Heather Parry’s debut novel is a gothic fever dream that grabs you by the throat and whispers, “You thought this was a love story? Think again.”

We follow Wilhelm von Tore, a German doctor with delusions of grandeur and a disturbing obsession with a young woman named Luci. He’s convinced she’s his soulmate, even after she dies — which, for him, is just a minor inconvenience. What follows is a grotesque, skin-crawling descent into obsession, control, and the literal reconstruction of a woman’s body to fit a man’s fantasy.

The prose? Lush and lyrical, like a poisoned cocktail. The setting? Key West, hot and heavy with decay. The vibe? Frankenstein meets Lolita meets true crime podcast you shouldn’t listen to alone. It’s disturbing, yes, but also deeply feminist and weirdly beautiful

This book is grim, I think my face was in disgust for the majority of reading it.

Orpheus Builds a Girl tells the story of Dr von Tore, an ex-Nazi doctor living in Florida post-war, who believes his wife is a teenage girl. She comes to him in the form of a poor girl dying of tuberculosis, unfortunately, Von Tore cannot save her but believes he can bring her back to life. After two years in a tomb, von Tore exhumes her body in the dead of night and finally, they can live together as man and wife.

Parry writes as an obsessive, necrophiliac man very well and I enjoyed the contrast with Gabriela's chapters. Sometimes I felt like the pacing was quite slow. I felt like the plot was very predictable (despite some of the gruesome details that surprised me - like Luci being on display/Gorky's body being buried).

Like other readers, I could not continue with an ebook that misses words and letters. The premise is fascinating and (what I read) was very dark and with a lot of potential. I won’t be reviewing elsewhere until a final version is published.

A sinister retelling of a tragic true story (with some elements of other horrific incidents). A truly repulsive main character who commits heinous acts, this novel tells of the tragedies committed on a young girl by our primary antagonist but also shows the failings dealt to her by the society around her. This book filled me with rage and broke my heart all at once, for the injustices faced by women both before and after death.