Alright, imagine if Daphne du Maurier shagged a Turkish bloke, and their weird little spawn grew up snorting Guillermo del Toro flicks and sobbing over melodramatic metaphors—that’s Yiğit Turhan, the mad bastard behind Their Monstrous Hearts. Turhan cannonballed into the deep end of gothic horror, splashed around in a Milanese butterfly shit-show, and crawled back with a novel so drenched in rot, longing, and the odd maggot of family fuckery that it’s practically dripping off the pages.

Let’s crack this creepy fucker open.

Turhan’s a Turkish lad scribbling in English—no picnic, especially when you’re juggling a genre as wordy and wobbly as gothic horror. Their Monstrous Hearts is a bloody maximalist fever dream, a moodboard of decay, legacy, and body horror that’d make your nan clutch her pearls. Doing this in a second language? That’s like juggling Fabergé eggs blindfolded while a tornado tries to nick your knickers. This is his first English novel, but the cocky swagger of it screams “I’ve been festering this nightmare in my guts for years.” And now he’s hacked it out and plonked it on the table like a rancid roast for us to gawp at—or leg it from.

Meet Riccardo, our mopey little shit of a protagonist—a 20-year-old writer with no cash, no future, and a creative block thicker than a Milanese fogbank. Things perk up when some cryptic geezer rocks up to say his estranged granny, Perihan, has kicked the bucket, leaving him her crumbling villa and—because this ain’t a fucking Zillow listing—her legendary butterfly stash. But when Riccardo rolls into Milan, the joint’s a cesspit of secrets and bad juju. Those butterflies? Not just fancy wallpaper—they’re flapping around like glittery harbingers of doom. Up in the attic, granny’s manuscript (or diary, depending on who’s yapping) spills the beans, slowly peeling back family secrets.

The story flip-flops between Riccardo’s now and Perihan’s then, through her scribbled ramblings. It builds tension slower than a sloth on Valium—until the last act goes full walrus, erupting in a grotesque shitstorm of body horror, moral implosion, and bug-winged symbolism. Picture Crimson Peak, but it climaxes in a cocoon woven from human ego and a metric ton of “oh fuck, I regret everything.”

Now, let’s address the elephant-sized butterflies in the room.

These winged wankers are everywhere in Their Monstrous Hearts—life cycles, transformation, beauty hiding a steaming pile of grotesque. Turhan squeezes these fluttery fuckers dry, milking every metaphor ’til they’re wheezing. In a tale this soaked in decay and change, it fits well, but the metaphor is certainly beaten to death by the end. At its rotten core, this book’s about legacy—the gnarly baggage of familial screw-ups we inherit. It’s about chasing immortality—through kids, art, or some mythic bullshit—and how beauty and monstrosity are closer than a butterfly’s arse to its wings.

The manuscript-in-a-novel trick is a nice touch—Perihan’s tale seeps into Riccardo’s world, hinting that obsession’s just trauma with better PR. There’s Turkish myth, eco-nightmares, and queer vibes sprinkled in, each a fresh pair of specs to ogle the monstrous through.

It’s clever. Maybe too clever for its own rickety bones.

Turhan’s prose is lush and poetic. It’s like scarfing rosewater cake while a creep murmurs death chants in your ear. His sentences are metaphor-drunk and alliteration-obsessed—sometimes they soar, sometimes they faceplant. Love it or hate it, it’s got a dreamy, witchy vibe. This ain’t a beach read. It demands you sit your ass down, sweat a bit, and pay attention. Skim it, and you’re screwed.

Strengths:

• Atmosphere, you glorious bastard. Turhan stacks dread like a deranged bricklayer. That villa’s practically alive, groaning under secrets and fungal funk.
• A finale that’ll haunt your nightmares. The last 15% is a horrific butterfly orgy—narrative shedding its skin and swinging haymakers.
• Big, ballsy themes. This ain’t just spooky vibes—Turhan’s got shit to say about legacy, grief, and how beauty rots if you lock it up too long.

Critiques:

• Pacing slower than a tectonic plate on a pub crawl. The horror teases, dawdles, then smacks you with a dead bug. Want fast scares? Piss off. While the payoff is glorious, we could have been given some more meat in the first 85% of the novel.
• Metaphor overload. Ya know, sometimes a butterfly’s just a butterfly—not a stand-in for loss, change, and your uncle’s colonial guilt trip.

Their Monstrous Hearts is a haunted greenhouse of a book—fancy, gorgeous, and crawling with nasty little shits that bite. It’s a debut that’s dense, gutsy, and doesn’t apologise for taking its sweet time. Turhan’s chewing on hefty ideas and letting them wriggle—and he mostly nails it.

It’s not flawless. Sometimes it’s barely hanging together. But it’s bold as brass—gothic horror with teeth, guts, and a brain. We need more of that. Just… maybe next time, chuck in some narrative Red Bull to keep the bastards moving.

MIRA
Published April 8, 2025