I came across Zoraida Córdova’s The Inheritance of Orquídea Divina on the Book Outlet website. I had never heard of it before, but the synopsis sounded interesting enough to give it a chance. I had no expectations when I started reading this novel, but I found it to be an entertaining and engrossing read.

The Inheritance of Orquídea Divina is a story about magic, and about family. When the novel opens, the matriarch of the Montoya family, Orquídea Divina, is dying. She invites her estranged family back to the family homestead, Four Rivers, for her funeral, and so they can each receive their inheritance. Orquídea’s family members dutifully return to Four Rivers, but with mixed feelings. For cousins Marimar and Rey there is resentment and frustration towards Orquídea for all the secrets that she keeps, such as how was she able to produce Four Rivers seemingly out of nowhere, why does she never leave Four Rivers, and what the truth is behind Marimar’s mother’s death. Their other cousin, Tatinelly, who is pregnant when she returns for Orquídea’s funeral, has fond memories of Four Rivers and is happy to see Orquídea, even though she is turning into a tree.

Yes, that’s right, Orquídea’s manner of death is that she is going to transform into a tree, and no one in the Montoya blinks an eye, chalking it off to yet another one of Orquídea’s mysteries that she will not explain. Before Orquídea’s transformation is complete, she gives everyone their inheritance: most of the Montoya’s cough up seeds that they are to plant, but Marimar, Rey and Tatinelly each receive a flower bud growing out of different parts of their body. Tatinelly’s flower bud grows out of her belly button and is transferred to her daughter Rhiannon’s forehead when she is born.

Orquídea tells her family to protect their magic, then becomes a tree, taking all her secrets with her. The Montoya family scatters once again, and over the next seven years they live comfortable, prosperous lives, except for Uncle Enrique, who threw his seed in the fire. Then suddenly their fortunes take a turn as three family members die unexpectedly, and a shadowy figure begins following Rey and Rhiannon. The remaining members of the Montoya family return to the only place where they are safe, Four Rivers, and they realize that they need to discover the truth about Orquídea’s past if they are going to be able to save themselves.

Orquídea’s origin story is not very original: she is the bastard child of an unwed woman who is disowned by her family; her mother marries a wealthy man who despises his new stepdaughter; her half-siblings are all brats who treat her like a servant; she runs away from home to join the circus and ends up married to a handsome man who cheats on her. But the magical nature of Orquídea’s life lends the story some imagination, and the novel’s exploration of fraught familial relationships makes it more interesting.

One member of the Montoya family equates the family’s inability to talk to each other as a curse, and as an inheritance. I have been thinking about this a lot since I finished reading this novel. Are you really a family if you do not have any meaningful communication with each other, if you cannot trust each other enough to tell each other how you really feel without receiving judgement in return? The Inheritance of Orquídea Divina takes the Montoyas, and the reader, on a journey through the past and around the world where they must learn to put their ancestors’ mistakes behind them if they want to move forward as a whole family.