The Ancestor by Danielle Trussoni begins with Bert Monte, a New Yorker, as she is navigating the difficulties of life with an estranged husband and a devastating late pregnancy loss. Things are looking grim, and Bert is uncertain of her life plans. She comes home one day to find an envelope addressed to Alberta Isabelle Elenore Vittoria Montebiano, a name she doesn’t recognize as her own, summoning her to Nevenero, Italy, to take possession of her inheritance as the last living Montebiano. There is a castle in the mountains of Nevenero, a title, a fortune, and responsibilities that are now hers. Bert knows very little of the small village that her grandfather Giovanni fled with several families from town. Her husband’s family were among those who came in that group. His grandmother tells her that Nevenero is a cursed place. There are terrible monsters in the mountains that hunt and kill children and that the Montebianos are deeply involved in the horror. Despite the warning, Bert travels to the secluded castle in the mountains to find out about her family’s past. In the process, she will be transformed.
When I started reading The Ancestor, I couldn’t help thinking of it like a horror version of The Princess Diaries. Random American finds out they are secretly a royal in a foreign nation with tons of money and privilege. In The Princess Diaries, she gets an amazing castle and cute clothes. In The Ancestor Alberta, gets a run down to death castle that should have its occupancy permit revoked but it’s so remote and unreachable no one would bother to stop by and a secret mountain evil she has to keep hidden from the villagers below. All 2 of them. Not ideal or what anyone would expect under the circumstances. The book pulled me in with the atmosphere and isolation of the lonely castle and mysterious occupants that everyone seemed to discuss as if they were hideous creature akin to Medusa. There’s a palpable unease and fearfulness throughout the entire first 2/3 of the book. Every mystery was a potential new horror from which we would never escape. The book lost me a little toward the end. The final act is when Alberta takes responsibility for her role as family matriarch. She accepts the role she has to play and finds a way to fulfill her obligations. I just wasn’t completely satisfied with the wrap up or the featured horror once revealed. It isn’t a bad ending, and it is certainly thought provoking about issues regarding the nature of man and evolution. It’s more that I just wanted it to go somewhere else. I would recommend this to most horror fans. Especially those that enjoy stories with deeper meanings and where the horror isn’t coming from where you think it is.
Alright, spoilers are coming. Stop if you want to read the book first.
Guys. The things in the mountains are Bigfoots, feet. I don’t know. And the deep, dark family secret is that once upon a time one of the ancestors got down with a ladyfoot. They had a human-looking kid, so he just brought it back to the family, but eventually those bigfoot genes popped out and created a more bigfoot-ish child. The family lived in shame over her existence. And of course, some dude had sex with the human-looking hominids. There’s so much scientific data saying we did that all the damn time. If it was vaguely human and had similar parts, we went for it. We are simple, and often stupid, creatures. I expect no less from us. It’s honestly astounding it only happened once in this family. But anyway, I have just a general dislike for bigfoot type things, probably because of my younger brother’s love of that astonishingly terrible hunting bigfoot show, so I think that’s really what killed it for me. Otherwise I loved this book.
Donna is an author and engineer with 15 years of IT experience and a lifetime love of literature and cinema, especially horror. She has written a paranormal Holiday novel, What Creatures Are Stirring. She holds and Electrical Engineering Degree from the University of Pittsburgh and an MBA from Western Governor’s University. Donna is passionate about reading and the importance of access to books. She loves writing about her favorite books and movies and sharing it with her readers.
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