this was a pretty good book! I like the way the familial dysfunction comes through, and how there are so many layers of secrets that shine through. I like this book, and enjoyed reading it! I liked the flow and the writing style of this book!!

Thank you to NetGalley, to the author, and to the publisher for this complimentary ARC in exchange for my honest review!!!

A gothic, utterly mesmerizing fantasy with a world so rich and rooted in darkness it practically breathes shadows and mystery into the night air! 🌙🔥

The Night and its Nocturnes feel impossibly alive! Shadowy, eerie and seductively enchanting with passing hints of creepy - the world building is intricate and in tune with its storytelling elements that enrapture the essence of the impossible world of the Night and Nocturnes. This story takes on a life of its own- descriptions that come to life off the page and melt us into the scene! ✨🖤

Oriana is a strong whirlwind of love, jealousy and sheer force. She dreams of becoming a smith at her father's forge despite long-standing tradition, family and fate standing in her way. When her father names her twin brother as heir when they reach of age (boo), she’s forced to fight for her place and when Night calls to her with its forbidden power, it whispers into her ear promises of destiny…but doesn't tell her of the danger until it's too late (and it's almost always too late). The world of the night is a world that his both mythical, mystical and as cruel as it is craven. Wrapping Oriana in its eerie, enchanting embrace, it is loath to let her go. And to be honest, she might not want to when all is said and done.

She battles the weight of societal expectations, perceptions of womanhood, familial obligations and parental favoritism/neglect (MY POOR BABY). I absolutely adore the way she gives not an inch and won't accept less than she deserves. The way in which Oriana reflects rejection of feminine expectations and the concept of her desire for masculinity as a shield to protect her opportunities, duties and expectations is a mirror of women's struggles which I applaud.

The pacing felt a bit uneven (why so much time on her childhood? Where were my extra 50 pages at the end?! I feel like I needed a longer wrap-up 😭) and her mother’s motivations left me scratching my head sometimes BUT the completion of the characters' complexities (her brother and father, namely) and the originality of the world more than made up for it.

With its dreamlike storytelling and a heroine who refuses to let the world define her, The Secret Market of the Dead is a beautiful, fast read. Definitely re-read worthy! 🕯️🔥

I am completely BLOWN AWAY! I went into this with a vague interest based off the description, and it was a total page turner. I loved the writing, I loved Oriana and I can only envy the author for such a colorful imagination and a way of telling it in a story. I sincerely hope this book finds its way to a wide audience if only so I could talk to someone about it. Thank you NetGalley, Saga Press and Giovanni De Feo for the ARC and for the existence of this tale.

All I can say is "WOW"! This was such a beautiful and mysterious gothic historical fantasy. This book was so well written and had an amazing plot! The author did an amazing job with the imagery of the book. I was able to visualize every scene and character perfectly. The beginning started off kind of slow but he more you read, the more it picks up and completely captivates you.

It took me a minute to get into this book, but the second I did, I was INTO it! I loved this and can't wait to read more from this author!

What a fantastic book! The first one I have read by this author but definitely can't wait to read more! The characters stay with you long after you finish the book. Highly recommend!

March 9, 2025
A fantastical tale rich in Italian folklore and imagery. The world and character building were excellent, and I was absorbed in the story right from the start. Would definitely read more set in this world or style!!


I received an arc copy of this book, provided by Netgalley.

Thank you to NetGalley and Saga Press for providing the DRC for review. All opinions are my own.

The Secret Market of the Dead by Giovanni De Feo is a magical tale about a young girl named Oriana, who has been touched by the Night. She dreams of following in her father’s footsteps to become a smith and inherit the family forge. However, society and her family deem this dream unbecoming, as women are expected to marry and bear children. In this world, Night and dreams are dangerous realms where sacrifices must be made to bring dreams to life. As Oriana navigates society’s expectations and the ever-increasing pull of the Night, will she be able to achieve her dreams, or will she become one herself?

“But that was also why she loved the Night, for not everything had to be explained, and so not everything was.” This quote from The Secret Market of the Dead perfectly encapsulates the experience of reading this story. Giovanni De Feo’s writing is remarkably beautiful. He weaves words together in a way that creates a hazy, dreamlike world that is both captivating and haunting. The characters and their surroundings feel as though they could have been lifted from a Guillermo del Toro film. The plot is intricate, touching on the dynamics between the dreams we have for ourselves and the dreams our parents have for us. Oriana is a protagonist we can all relate to—striving to achieve a dream while the world seems to conspire against her. The best parts of the book are when the focus is solely on her and her journey.

However, as the quote suggests, much of this book remains unexplained, and while I am generally okay with ambiguity, I found myself feeling lost for much of the story. There are numerous characters and creatures to keep track of, and I struggled to remember who was who or what they looked like. I do believe this is intentional—dreams rarely make sense, so why should the dreamworld follow logical rules? Still, there were sections of the book where I found myself glazing over, especially when the focus shifted to the backstory and history of the dreamworld and its key figures. This might be a nitpick, but there’s also an instance where Oriana’s twin brother’s name changes midway through the story, which only added to my overall confusion.

Despite these issues, I’ve found myself reflecting on this book long after finishing it. It’s a layered and complex story, and its ethereal nature makes it difficult to review. If you're up for the challenge, I would highly recommend it.

Be careful what you wish for and more importantly who you trust.

With a determination ahead of her time Oriana ventures into the ‘Secret Market of the Dead’ to return a prized tool to the Night Saints and finds herself bound to a world made of dreams and tricks as they test her will to succeed as the rightful heir as her fathers apprentice.

While I enjoyed the ideas brought forth in this story I wish the characters were aged up a bit to make it seem like it was meant for a younger audience the the young adult genre it’s billed for. The concept of the Night Market and how old sayings and cautionary tales could be undead things desperate to inflict their madness on to the living was one of my favorite parts of the story but staying in the mind of a child all throughout made it feel very middle grade.

I liked Oriana a great deal and as mentioned before she is very much a a character who is out of time as she sets her sights on ambitions far greater than the role of wife and mother that has been decided for her simply because of her gender. Her determination to rise above those restraints and work tirelessly to exceed those expectations was nothing short of powerful as she rallies against the wishes of her family and her peers as well as active sabotage from the apprentice she wishes to work under should she succeed.

This feels very much like a folk tale and I love that it is whispered as such with the beginning being told in this cautionary way for a saint no one dares speak about. The market lives as this dark underbelly of the city granting wishes at a hefty cost and punishing those for their greed or other sins but in the right hands Oriana was able to use this place as a tool all her own to push herself to become as great she always knew herself to be and I enjoyed that even still she was required to make a sacrifice true to the bargain struck in her childhood.

An interesting story with a lot of great ideas and imagery that will linger with me for quite some time but I wish it was aged up or I was far younger to feel more of that connection to the main character other than the desire to see women become what they want to be and not what others believe they should be.

**special thanks to the publishers and netgalley for providing an arc in exchange for a fair and honest review**

The only negative feedback I have is that I didn't like the way this book begins with the "this is what you dreamed" prologue. If this hadn't been an arc, I may have been inclined to DNF but that would have been a mistake because the rest of this book is top tier. It was a truly unique adventure that I couldn't put down.

This book was a wonderfully immersive story. Love when I get to learn about a different world's folklore. Such a different tale about growing up and becoming who your going to be.

In the Italian city of Lucerìa, Catholic saints have their nocturnal counterparts, the Night Saints. Strange and dangerous, yet not always malevolent (Serapide, the Night version of Saint Barbara, once helped the city fend off an invasion), they are spoken of in the same hushed reverence as the fairy folk, the kindly ones. They can offer your heart’s desire, but always at a price.

At eight years old, Oriana Siliceo sneaks out to a fair and comes across an odd stall selling impossible wares, things she dreamt up—and tangles herself in an otherworldly debt to the Nocturnals.

The titular Market, accessed by dream on a certain night of the year; a Parliament of cat-thieves and their boasts; the relics and artefacts of gods and their servants; all of these are a prelude to the real story, set six years later, a classic tale of thwarted desires. Oriana longs to be a smith, no matter what her family or society at large think. But law and custom stand against her. How (or rather where, or when) can they be overruled? In the Night, where nothing is so certain.

An intriguing little book, a quick read with the cadence of a fairy tale or a fable. Oriana’s story is well-suited for a younger audience, with a clear and simple writing style, but there’s also plenty to like here for adult readers. Its literary references range widely from HP Lovecraft to Edmund Burke. Its characters are well-drawn and its themes ring true, sometimes in quite unexpected ways.

Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC.

En esta fascinante fantasía gótica ambientada en el siglo XVIII, Oriana lucha contra las limitaciones impuestas por su género en una sociedad patriarcal. Mientras su hermano gemelo es favorecido, ella sueña con heredar la forja de su padre y desafía su destino en un mundo lleno de magia, mitos y criaturas nocturnas.

Giovanni De Feo construye una historia rica en folclore italiano, con un mundo envolvente y una protagonista fuerte e inspiradora. La novela destaca por su atmósfera única y la lucha por el destino propio.



Thanks to NetGalley, the publisher and the author for the ARC in exchange for an honest review

This was a beautiful, gothic, and magical read. Set in the 18th century, the story follows the talented and tenacious Origins as she struggles against the barriers that it is to be both female and to live in a world not truly your own.
The pacing was good as it had a few slow points but it never felt like it was dragging on. The lore of the Night and Day was so fascinating and made me want to learn more about Italian folklore. I found the book to be emotional.in that it pulled my own personal feelings to.the surface along with the FMC. I was not expecting the ending, and after having sat with it, I find it just as beautiful as the rest of the story.

This is a sweet and haunting tale. A tale of twins searching for a future that one desperately wants and the other has accepted, but only one may have. I found the description to be vibrant and have the comfortable feel of a folk tale all in one.

i do adore when the content of a fantasy book matches the beauty of the cover. it happens so rarely, and it's always a delight when it does.

first off, the prose and worldbuilding are truly lovely. exactly as fantastical and dreamlike as you would expect from a gothic fairytale about shadow markets. the descriptions are lush, filled with myth and magic and marvel (and a talking cat!). i love any stories with amoral god-creatures sending humans on impossible quests, and the nocturnals did not disappoint. the concept might be everywhere, but in "the secret market of the dead," the author makes it completely his own. i also love the visuals of the nocturnals in this—they weren't dressed up pretty faeries, but weird biblical six-eyed demon things from nightmares.

second, i absolutely love the characters. oriana was engaging and vibrant from the first page, and i can't remember the last time i was so invested in a character's journey. her fight to prove her worth, women's worth, to an audience of women, including even her own mother, trying to bury her aspirations, was so inspiring and beautifully executed. donna lena, her mother, was also an amazing, well-rounded character. her experiences in being shut down/harassed by men and her internalizing it and trying to diminish oriana as a way to "protect" her was excellently written. oriano realistically depicts many male children in male-centric families, who have all the privilege and willfully refuse to acknowledge the harm their sisters face.

the plot was intriguing as well. it's sort of alice in wonderland meets hercules. in the first section, oriana meets a nocturnal, accidentally gets on his bad side, and must retrieve his magic hammer from a dreamscape of fairytale creatures and fables. in the second section, she enters into a contest to inherit her father's forge and must complete three trials. i really liked it, but the pacing felt a bit off? the first section felt slightly too long, even though, yes, eight-year-old oriana is an immensely interesting character. it seems more like a background story than something that should have taken that long, and the second section with the trials should have been a little more in-depth. it felt like we barely saw them at all. i also wish we had a little more of the secret market in part two. it's such a captivating part of the story, and i wish it had been explored more. i do love the focus on the townspeople's reactions to oriana challenging for her inheritance, however. i think this is one of the best written explorations of feminism and the role of marriage and family for women in young adult novels that i've read yet.

"The Secret Market of the Dead" by Giovanni De Feo is an original, Italian-inspired gothic historical fantasy debut in which a young girl struggles to change her destiny—one denied to her due to her gender.

Set in Lucerìa, an 18th-century town in the Kingdom of Naples, the story follows eight-year-old twins, Oriana and Oriano, along with their parents and baby brother. This is a patriarchal society, and the twins are not treated equally by their parents and peers. Oriano is the favored child, given more freedom. He is popular and loved, so his pranks are met with indulgence. Oriana, on the other hand, is the more studious of the two. She has always dreamed of becoming a smith in her father’s forge, but her mother, and fate, have other plans for her.

The novel is steeped in mysticism, folklore, and tales of the nocturnal realm—a place ruled by seven immortals and fueled by Moira, the power to reshape one’s destiny, though not without a cost. Oriana’s path is forever altered when she encounters Emistuchivio, the Duke of the Under-Earth and Darkness, and other creatures of the Night, forcing her to enter the Secret Market of the Dead to fulfill a task.

Years later, at 14, Oriana’s twin brother is chosen as the first apprentice, destined to inherit the family forge. Unwilling to accept this, Oriana challenges her brother to three trials that will determine the rightful heir. What follows is a captivating tale of struggle, ambition, myths, and dreams.

At its core, this is a coming-of-age story set against the backdrop of a rigid patriarchal society. Oriana is ahead of her time—the first feminist, fighting against the limitations placed on her due to her gender—and I admired her for that. The book also explores themes of family bonds, sibling rivalry, societal constraints, misogyny, and the courage to defy expectations in pursuit of one’s dreams.

I thoroughly enjoyed the story. The author weaves a world rich with legend and myth, blending logic and the supernatural. The worldbuilding, the night saints, and the interplay between pagan beliefs and Christianity make for a truly unique backdrop. The characters are complex and realistic—Dame Lena, a hardened woman whose ambitions have turned her bitter; clever Oriana, educated in the era’s liberal ideas, which, sadly, did not extend to women; and Oriano, who benefits from a system he does not question.

Despite the title, the story does not revolve around the Secret Market itself—which is a pity, as I would have loved to explore it further. However, the novel beautifully captures a dreamlike world where one can become whatever their heart desires. And there’s a talking cat!

To sum up, I found this to be a refreshing and engaging tale. While I truly enjoyed the story, I felt certain aspects—like the limited focus on the Secret Market—kept it from being a full 5-star read. That said, it was still an excellent book, earning 4 out of 5 stars. While it is suitable for YA readers, adults will also appreciate its depth and themes. The pacing is steady, and the twist at the end genuinely caught me by surprise. Fans of gothic historical fantasy, folklore-infused stories, and strong heroines will find much to love in this book.

Trigger warnings: animal death, mistreatment, and abuse of power.

* Thank you NetGalley and (publisher) for the opportunity to read this arc. All opinions are my own.

Between the cover illustration, which caught my eye, and description, I had envisioned something between the Night Circus and Guillermo del Toro's Tales of Arcadia troll market for the titular market but this tale does not center on the market, that is a mere detail in the whole story of a young girl's growth and exploration of her fantastical path. I don't know if it was an element specified about the book, but the story is plainly YA; it is enjoyable for an adult audience, but would likely resonate with a younger one as well, perhaps more so. There are themes of sibling rivalry and misogyny but the greater story is of a magical world where dreams can come true but everything has a cost. The main character, Oriana, is a young child at the start and progresses to a teen. With a twin brother who is clearly the golden child, perhaps more a sign of the times ( 18th-century) that they lived than anything else. And thus, she is not destined to inherit her father's business, a forge. But with dreams of being a master artisan, she is more than determined to challenge her brother's claim regardless of where that challenge takes her. Her journey and the characters that she meets along the way made for a rich, vibrant, enjoyable tale with a fitting ending.
I received access to this eARC thru NetGalley (for which I want to thank NetGalley and the publisher, Saga Press) for an honest review. The opinion expressed here is my own.

This book really leaned more towards YA. A fresh coming of age story that was fast paced with excellent world building.

☆ Fun Factor 3/5
☆ Writing Style 3/5
☆ Characters 3/5
☆ Plot 3/5
☆ Setting 3/5
☆ Feels 3/5
☆ Spiciness 0/5
☆ Gore 1/5

If this were a movie it'd be rated: PG-13

☆FOR FANS OF: historical fiction fairy tales, Italian settings, parallel worlds

Ultimate verdict: ☆☆☆/5

☆☆☆Best Character Award goes to:☆☆☆ Oriana

Review: A very Italian fairy tale

The prose and the young protagonist Oriana leans very Young Adult for me (she's mentioned to be 8 years old when she first appears). I probably would have adored this as a young girl, but I felt like this wasn't "for" me. I'm too old for this story, I'm not its target audience. The dichotomy between the saints of Day and Night is a really interesting premise, and the world beneath Oriana's is extremely interesting.


Thank you to NetGalley, the author, and the publisher for this early copy in exchange for an honest review!