I like reading about Italy. I like reading about Italy when it’s described from the perspective of people with Italian heritage. I like Sicily. I like works of art questioning the stereotypical image of violence and poverty on that island.
So, Kerri Maniscalco is a Sicilian-American and she wrote a paranormal romance about Sicily. I hoped it would be good. I hoped it would be authentic. And guess what? Now I’m disappointed.
It isn’t only the question of me being sceptic (usually) about the paranormal romance genre. It’s also about representation and local nuances. Sometimes I think that this is the genre which has changed the lest in fantasy. And it isn’t a good diagnosis.
The book tells the story of two sisters, Emilia and Vittoria, whose parents have a tavern in the city of Palermo. They are witches, and when Vittoria is murdered, Emilia realizes that it was connected to the doings of the Lords of Hell. So begins her acquitance with Wrath, a hellish Prince. Who is handsome and enticing. Of. Course.
Where should I start? Was this book problematic beyond any redeeming? It wasn’t, by no means. But was it also cliched and predictable, and too vague in so many aspects? It was.
Once I thought that we are past the point of treating relations between yong humans and immortal powerful beings as something romantic and exciting. But we aren’t. We still ignore the obvious red flags, such as the imbalance of age and power. Is it really no problem that your crash has lived since the times immemorable and you are just eighteen? Or it’s all okay because he also looks like a young guy? We criticise the age gaps of 15 or 20 years, and we should do so, especially if the younger partner is before their late twenties. We should. But then we have a bunch of stories about immortal beings utterly different from humans, and yeah… They are fine. Because they don’t look older.
Setting is another thing. I hoped it would be vivid and fleshed-out, but nothing is well-drawn here except for cuisine. Cuisine, you know. Because we associate it with Italy the most, don’t we? It should be something more there, though. The scents, the sights. The Mediterranean. Orange trees, olive trees, dry mountainous landscapes, the crowd and chaos of a nineteenth-century city… And there’s none. With what architecture do you associate Italy, and, to be more precise, Sicily? Imagine it. Then read Maniscalco’s book. You don’t get any description. Really. And the sad true is that the author’s heritage and her, I do not doubt, genuine interest in the said heritage, isn’t enough. Sicily is yet another vague place in this book, vague and othered for the sake of not being the UK or the US, which are, you know, default in our culture.
Speaking of the setting and its timeline, we don’t get the Sicilian dialect, the language. It’s really not the same as Italian, come on! And taking some inspiration from the traditional Sicilian folklore and legends isn’t enough. Dealings with the Devil? Hellish/dangerous/sensual lovers? We’ve seen it so many times… And spekaing yet again of the setting, we don’t get any precise hints on fashion or historical events, either. The characters mention a refrigerator but there are no cars or cinema theatres here, so which period are we actually talking about? Is it really set in the late 1800s? Or already in the 1900s? Who cares…
Don’t get me wrong, there are books which did it well, and so there are authors, such as Michelle Harrison or Anna-Marie McLemore. There, the vague time and place works to create an eerie atmosphere, an engaing aura. But it doesn’t work in Maniscalco’s case. Sorry.
There’s a lot of “sorry” when it comes to this book. Sorry that the potential of it has been wasted. Sorry that some tropes are still so cliched there. And sorry that we don’t want new things in paranormal romance and speculative fiction, actually.
Left Hand of Fiction 