Showing The Etruscan by Linda Lappin

In this entrancing novel, the tantalizing love story between American heroine Harriet Sacket and the enigmatic Count Federigo , self-proclaimed Etruscan spirit, is played out in 1922 against the backdrop of eerie Etruscan tombs, boar-infested woods, and elegant Tuscan villas. The Etruscan recounts the adventures of Harriet Sackett, trouser-wearing American photographer who travels to Italy to photograph Etruscan tombs for the Theosophical Society in 1922. Here she falls in love with the charismatic Federigo del Re, occultist , amateur archaeologist, and shape-shifter. Her increasing fascination with the man will leave her on the brink of collapse. The story is told from the viewpoint of Harriet’s English cousins, Stephen and Sarah, whose own dark secrets are revealed as they read Harriet’s diary, trying to understand what has transpired. As the unraveling of Harriet’s mind is revealed, so too are the secrets of Harriet’s family– secrets which are no less disturbing than those revealed in her diary. The mystery at the heart of Harriet’s experience draws the reader on: who is Federigo del Re, the man she calls “her secret sun”? Noble lover, unscrupulous conman, Etruscan ghost, village shaman, or simply the product of Harriet’s delusion? Lappin keeps the suspense pulled taut till the very last page. Readers traveling to Italy this summer or just lounging at home dreaming of Tuscany can lose themselves in the Etruscan woods in this award-winning, literary gothic novel, which Prairie Schooner has praised as “Gorgeously detailed, wickedly fun.”
What Readers Are Saying:
“Think Fifty Shades of… but fifty times better written,” Margaret Bramley, Bookcrossing.com
“Pan dances more deeply in The Etruscan than he does in Lawrence’s Etruscan Places” Mel Ulm, The Reading Life.
“I was enthralled by Lappin’s Italy… and by that god/demon/boar that flits through its landscape” Nina Auerbach, critic, author of Our Vampires, Ourselves
“Reminiscent at times of John Fowles’ The Magus” A.E. Stallings
From the Critics:
“Lappin elegantly brings the characters, Italian countryside and surroundings to life in vivid, engrossing prose.” Kirkus Reviews
“The basic pleasure of this book lies in the suspension of disbelief, the heightened emotional urgency, the mystery, the lush and mystical scenery.” – Prairie Schooner
- Prairie Schooner
“Lappin’s artfully written novel inhabits a supernatural landscape, but alludes subtly to hints of Etruscan culture … Lappin’s gift for atmosphere places her amongst the finest writers of gothic art, not genre.” ~ The Southern Indiana Review