This was one of those books that drew me in slowly and would not let me go. The plot centers on Alessandra Povarelli, an Italian medium, and the people who believe in her, those who are out to expose her as a fraud and the young reporter Tomaso Labella who creates a sensation with a photograph he takes during one of her seances. But at its heart, this is a love story told by Tomaso about the woman he is first attracted to as a young man and ultimately comes to care for like a son would his mother. Alessandra's abilities are tested, she is broken, her skeletons are exposed, and the threat of her violent ex-husband is ever present.
Michael Schmicker is an excellent writer an this is much more than a story about seances and the supernatural. There is heart and beauty here amid the unknown. Ultimately it is the reader who decides what and who Alessandra was and that is the real gift.
Thank you Palladino and NetGalley for giving me my favorite book thus far of 2015. Magnifico!
