Orpheus Builds a Girl

By Heather Parry

A hotly-anticipated modern Gothic horror story of sexual obsession, medical abuse, and coercion masquerading as love, for fans of Carmen Maria Machado and Eliza Clark

"A chilling exploration of power, love and grief, written with incredible precision by a major talent" -- Julia Armfield, author of Our Wives Under the Sea

Based on a gruesome true story, this is a compelling, horrifying, and heartbreaking debut novel of sisterly love, sinister obsession, and the battle to control--and challenge--a perpetrator's twisted version of events.

Wilhelm von Tore is dying. As he looks back on his life he reflects on his youth in Dresden, his grandmother and his medical career during WWII. But mostly, he remembers his darling Luci, the dark-haired beauty promised to him years before they met.

Though only together for a few months in her first life, Wilhelm knows their love is written in the stars. And he ensures that death is only the beginning. But through the cracks in Wilhelm's story there is another voice-that of Gabriela, and she will not let this version of events go unchallenged. She tells instead the story of her fearless sister Luciana and the madman who robbed her from her grave.

Creepy yet intensely gripping, sinister yet shot through with mesmerizing beauty, this is the debut novel from Heather Parry, a rising literary star of the genre, longlisted for the Polari First Book Prize.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1805337963
• ISBN13: 9781805337966
• Release Date: September 2025
• Publisher: Pushkin Press
• Length: 320 Pages
• Weight: 1.90 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 5.1" x 7.7"

Customer Reviews

Gripping and Deeply Disturbing

I read a lot of horror fiction, and this one rattled me deeply. The sickening dread, the intense discomfort, the moments where the lives of the two leads intersect and become tangled with each other in truly nightmarish fashion. The author mentions it in the afterword, but I absolutely think it's an excellent question to have in the back of one's mind while reading; What control over their bodies does our society truly permit women to exert? It's a superb book. I was both shocked and not shocked to learn that this story was inspired by true events.