THE FORTUNE TELLERS OF RUE DARU is Olesya Salnikova Gilmore’s third gothic horror novel, following THE WITCH AND THE TSAR and THE HAUNTING OF MOSCOW HOUSE. In each story, she has leveraged her Russian background to produce dark tales that toe the line between the supernatural and magical realism.

The majority of Gilmore’s latest work is set in 1920s Paris, but the opening sequence takes place in 1900. We see the Grand Duke, the cousin of the last Tsar of Russia, struggle to make his way to the Samovar tearoom on rue Daru, where he claims to have been poisoned by their owner. We watch the life drain out of him before he can get his revenge on the woman who cursed him.

"THE FORTUNE TELLERS OF RUE DARU is an eerie and compelling tale filled with all the elements you would expect from a top-notch work of gothic horror."

Twenty-four years later, we are introduced to Zina, the granddaughter of Baba Valya, who owns and operates the tearoom. She assists her grandmother not only with the daily operations of the place but also in the after-hours business that occurs there. These late-night activities deal not in tea but in the occult --- fortune-telling, seances and conjuring spirits of the dead.

Zina has learned a lot from her grandmother and just enough to be dangerous. Possessing this knowledge backfires on her when she ends up reviving the ghost of the Grand Duke, who may have died on their property. This all came about due to the business that Zina was attempting to enact with Princess Olga and her brother, Prince Alec, the Grand Duke’s children who still want to know what happened to their father.

As for Baba Valya, we get to see her history in flashback chapters. We learn about her daughter, Svetlana, who may have been murdered by the Grand Duke. This inevitably will lead to her planned revenge against him, which now seems to be coming full circle with Zina’s conjuring of his haunted spirit. Zina is not aware of what happened to her mother. She can only guess from the strange things the spirit of the Grand Duke is saying to her, which makes her begin to question the exact circumstances behind Svetlana’s death.

A police inspector arrives at Samovar, and it won’t be long before Zina finds out why he is there and who sent him on a quest to make trouble for her and her grandmother. Zina accepts an invitation from Olga and Alec to come to their house to assist them in locating their father in the afterlife. She reluctantly conducts a Ouija session but to no avail.

Zina must get back to the tearoom, not only to deal with the conjured spirit of the Grand Duke that is still there, but also to confront Baba Valya about what she is hiding from her. She ends up attempting to contact her dearly departed mother for answers, and what she learns is shocking. Now, she must fight to save her family’s name and her grandmother from possible prosecution, all while finally unraveling the mystery that has haunted her throughout her life.

THE FORTUNE TELLERS OF RUE DARU is an eerie and compelling tale filled with all the elements you would expect from a top-notch work of gothic horror.