There is something quite off-putting having another's life told through two other's eyes. Although von Tore views Luci through his own twisted version of rose tinted glasses, it is also worth considering Gabi's version of her sister to be skewed too, and yet we as the reader are never allowed entreaty into Luci's own perception of events.

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 a perfect read for spooky season. From the start Parry is able to create something unsettling in the chapters devised through von Tore's descriptions; there is something remarkably twisted and self-gratifying in the doctor's chapters of his youth that only become more questionable once the two character's lives become intertwined. Then there is Gabriela, sister to Luciana. She recalls a feisty and carefree young woman, taken too soon but never forgotten. These two characters are worlds apart but united in their love for the same person. But love can have different forms; familial, habitual, obsessional.Based on a true story, Orpheus Builds a Girl is a novel of sisterly love, sinister obsession, and the battle for control of the story. A dark, chilling debut novel from award-winning writer Heather Parry. Orpheus Builds a Girl is superbly creepy from the start, Parry expertly lacing unsettling details through her narratives. It’s a modern take on classic Gothic fiction, and while it certainly owes a debt to the likes of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, it breaks new ground of its own and will chill readers to the bone. Disturbing and compelling in equal measure, it’s highly recommended.

Luci is rebellious and wild and inquisitive; she is everything her sister is not, where as Gabi tries desperately to keep her family together, to appease her mother's sallow moods and depression, to keep her sister safe from the world. Gabi loses herself in trying to keep the peace and be a constant people pleaser. ORPHEUS is written in part as a scientific biopic from the personal statement of Wilhelm von Tore; the doctor using this manuscript as a justification and confession for his actions in relation to his "life's work and purpose" in relation to Luci. The alternate chapters are written more as a recollection by Gabi, Luci's older sister, about her life and the intrusion/influence of von Tore.I loved the way this novel explored fascism's links to the control of the female body, and the social complicity that allows professional white men to wield power in the most horrific ways. It has one of the best unreliable narrators I've read and a counter-narrator in the shape of the victim's sister that humanises the woman the protagonist is determined to objectify. I rest easy; I could not have done a thing more for my beloved, nor could I have shown my love in any greater way’