A novel set in a Tuscan villa might seem like an odd choice for Southern Literary Review. Obviously, the setting completely misses our locale. Yet The Medici Curse (Scarlet Books 2025) hits the mark because it was penned by a talented Huntsville, Alabama, author Daco S. Auffenorde.
The story contains a heavy dose of gothic horror and supernatural elements. Enough so, that if the setting could easily have been a mansion in the American South—but then readers would miss all the charming descriptions of the Italian countryside.
When Anna de’ Medici Rossi inherits a haunted Tuscan villa, she reluctantly returns to the country she left as a twelve-year-old following her mother’s death. Although the death was ruled an accidental fall, rumors swirled through town that Anna had shoved her mother down the steps while experiencing an episode of night terrors. Ugly gossips suggested Anna coveted the Medici Falchion, her mother’s ruby and diamond necklace, which disappeared the night of her mother’s death. Even Anna can’t remember exactly what happened that night. But the necklace? Anna thinks it is “gaudy and outsized.” Besides, why would anyone want it? It seems the women who inherit and wear it die an early death.
After Anna moves into the villa, she reconnects with grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins she hasn’t seen since childhood. They seem friendly enough, but can Anna trust any of them? Did one of them kill her mother and steal the necklace? She also reconnects with the villa’s caretaker Edoardo. The elderly man seems kindly, but Anna can’t quite trust him either. Something about him seems off.
Perhaps the most important character of all is the villa itself, a haunted palace with its secret rooms and even a basement dungeon barricaded by an impervious lock. Anna recalls her father locking her inside in the dark when she was a child. The Medici Curse is packed with creepy elements, including a murder of crows, ghastly flying insects only Anna sees, catacombs, and secret passageways. Creepier still are the portraits of Anna’s ancestors. Their eyes follow her around the room. And why, she wonders, do the men all look happy while the women look austere and sad?
As Anna searches for the missing necklace that she hopes will reveal who murdered her mother all those years ago, she tumbles from one dangerous situation to another. The tortured twists of the plot and numerous suspects will keep readers engaged until the final pages.
Daco S. Auffenorde
Daco S. Auffenorde is an award-winning author of Cover Your Tracks, which was selected as a Suspense Magazine “Best of 2020” Thriller/Suspense and won Action Thriller of the Year with Best Thrillers Book Awards. Her psychological thriller The Forgotten Girl won the Book of the Year with Best Thriller Book Awards. Her debut The Libra Affair, a Jordan Jakes novel, was a #1 Amazon Bestseller. She is a member of International Thriller Writers, Mystery Writers of America, Authors Guild, Women’s Fiction Writers Association, and Alabama State Bar.
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