Harare Review of Books

242 pp. April 7, 2026, World Editions. Fiction.

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English lit loves a linear narrative; so it always makes a reader sit up and take notice when a novel’s structure breaks that rule. This one does it very neatly, just as the clever cover hints: two timelines unwinding in opposite directions, one spiral turning clockwise, the other anti-clockwise. It’s an excellent conceit, and provides wonderful tension.

Irene, the novel’s protagonist, is a very successful real-estate agent selling extremely high-end properties. When an attorney from her home town of Milan invites her to be his agent for what he implies is an unusual but unsellable house, she’s instantly drawn to the challenge. And it is architecturally a remarkable house, she finds, with a rather sad story attached to it too, that she later discovers—and that the reader learns about backwards. The house also initially comes with a squatter. Untangling all of this proves to be far more arduous than Irene is prepared for.

Petrucci very convincingly makes this a haunted house story, complete with the very atmospheric setting of oppressive fog in a climate-changed, dystopian near future. (There are cool fog glasses!) Although she ties up the haunted house loose end fairly neatly, many readers will prefer to keep their own counsel about that. It’s very pleasing how Petrucci sets the reader up this way, intentionally or not.

There are unsettling things in the novel, too, stemming from a somewhat poorly explored subplot about the character deciding to become a mother. It seems to fit the background climate change theme—hinting lightly at natalist/antinatalist sentiment, perhaps; or, again, perhaps not. It doesn’t feel like any of this advances the story, although it may help to increase the feeling of unreality; possibly, even, Petrucci wanted to flesh Irene out a little more. This all seems unnecessary, however: all of the novel’s other parts deliver the required uncanniness.

In all, this is a deliciously unsettling novel with an excellent climactic twist. Well worth your time.

Thanks to World Editions and NetGalley for the DRC.

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