{"id":10566,"date":"2025-07-27T12:36:38","date_gmt":"2025-07-27T16:36:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/?p=10566"},"modified":"2025-07-28T22:38:02","modified_gmt":"2025-07-29T02:38:02","slug":"their-monstrous-hearts-a-gothic-horror-novel-with-a-dual-timeline-and-a-suspenseful-mystery-by-yigit-turan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/their-monstrous-hearts-a-gothic-horror-novel-with-a-dual-timeline-and-a-suspenseful-mystery-by-yigit-turan\/","title":{"rendered":"Book Review: Their Monstrous Hearts: A Gothic Horror Novel with a Dual Timeline and a Suspenseful Mystery by Yigit Turan"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Cover<\/a><\/i><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Their Monstrous Hearts: A Gothic Horror Novel with a Dual Timeline and a Suspenseful Mystery <\/i>by Yigit Turan<\/p>\n

MIRA, 2025<\/p>\n

ISBN-13: 978-0778368274<<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Available: Hardcover, Paperback, Kindle edition, audiobook<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Buy:\u00a0\u00a0 Bookshop.org<\/a><\/strong> |\u00a0Amazon.com<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

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A feeling of impending doom hangs over the characters of Their Monstrous Hearts <\/i>emanating from, of all things, beauty. The narrator tells us: “Beauty had a threshold, and beyond it, it became a captivating terror.\u201d This terrible beauty finds its expression in the overwhelming presence of living and preserved butterflies and the cloying smell of tuberoses connected with the elegant, sinister Perihan, grandmother of Ricardo, who wields a secret power over the elite of Milan.<\/p>\n

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When Riccardo, a struggling writer, leaves Paris to attend his Turkish grandmother\u2019s funeral, he has mixed feelings about returning to Milan. When he finally reaches Perihan\u2019s home, he discovers her once beautiful garden has been left untended, and there is a cloud of butterflies hovering over her house. He also finds that Perihan\u2019s employees, familiar to him from childhood, are still there, but they are acting very oddly.<\/p>\n

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As he prepares for the funeral, Ricardo discovers a manuscript written by his grandmother, with his name on it, and immediately begins reading what seems to be a very strange horror myth. He finds himself wondering whether she has left him a phantasmagoric novel or a shocking memoir. The answer to that question will determine how much danger Ricardo is in and whether he will be able to face the terrors Perihan has prepared for him.<\/p>\n

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Their Monstrous Hearts <\/i>is notable for its originality of plot, its complicated juxtaposition of magical goodness and mythic horror in the characters\u2019 motivations, and its European locations infused with a Turkish sensibility. At times, Riccardo\u2019s constant reading of the manuscript is an unwelcome distraction, until the final scenes in the book. But there is also a luxurious languor, ironically, in the mesmerizing prose that leads to the best part of the tale. That is when Turhan answers his own question: what would happen if you extracted something from a fairytale and placed it outside its original context, dragging it back into the center of reality?<\/p>\n

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Reviewed by Nova Hadley<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Their Monstrous Hearts: A Gothic Horror Novel with a Dual Timeline and a Suspenseful Mystery by Yigit Turan MIRA, 2025 ISBN-13: 978-0778368274< Available: Hardcover, Paperback, Kindle edition, audiobook Buy:\u00a0\u00a0 Bookshop.org |\u00a0Amazon.com     A feeling of impending doom hangs over the characters of Their Monstrous Hearts emanating from, of all things, beauty. The narrator tells<\/p>\n

Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[5846,3796,4199,232,645,749,2912,5843,5844],"class_list":["post-10566","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-butterflies","tag-folk-horror","tag-generational-trauma","tag-gothic-horror","tag-horror-book-reviews","tag-horror-books","tag-occult-horror","tag-their-monstrous-hearts","tag-yigit-turan"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10566","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10566"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10566\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10597,"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10566\/revisions\/10597"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10566"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10566"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10566"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}