Spitting into a tube and sending it off to a genetic testing site reveals ordinary Bert Monte to be Countess Alberta Montebianco, heiress to a grand, centuries-old estate. This description could as well apply to Ann Radcliffe’s Gothic “The Mysteries of Udolpho” as to Danielle Trussoni’s ingenious and entertaining neo-Gothic novel “The Ancestor” - especially the part about the mysterious heritage and family secrets, which in Trussoni’s hands are as creepy as you might expect from an author who also writes the Book Review’s horror column. There, she must face perils and hardships to uncover long-buried family secrets and find her own identity. A heroine of mysterious heritage is whisked off to a remote mountainous region of Italy where she is held captive in a castle with twisting corridors, ancestral portraits and a mysterious woman kept in a secret room.
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