Olesya Salnikova Gilmore
HarperVoyager
26 March 2026
384
eBook - PDF
Historical Fantasy
ARC via NetGalley
Spirited twenty-something Zina and her secretive grandmother, Baba Valya, own a tearoom on rue Daru in Paris, where they have lived quietly since Zina’s mother’s untimely death. By day, the women serve tea, mostly to members of the bustling Russian émigré community, but when dusk falls, they divine fortunes and perform séances for their loyal clientele.
Then the charming Princess Olga and her brother arrive, searching for answers about the disappearance of their father, the Grand Duke and cousin to the murdered last Tsar of Russia. Zina, eager to learn more about the spirit world and her powers, performs the séance. She is able to summon the Grand Duke, but to her horror, he starts to haunt the shop, and he seems to know something sinister about her mother’s death.
As Zina delves into her family’s hidden past, dark secrets are unearthed, threatening Zina and her grandmother’s found family, home, and tearoom, not to mention their very lives.
The Fortune Tellers of Rue Daru started strongly. I was interested in the story and the characters and was keen to see how things would progress. In the middle my attention wavered a bit as the action felt a bit slow and repetitive, but things did pick up again a bit during the final third. The world building was generally good, with a good sense of time and place and with good establishment of the more fantastical elements. Where things fell down a little for me was with the characters, none of whom I really felt a strong connection too. In particular, I struggled with the romance between Zina and Gabriel. This seemed a bit limited to insta-attraction, which made some of their choices relating to each other feel a bit forced. But that was only a small part of the tale and didn't spoil my enjoyment to any great extent, so I am still giving this book 3.5 stars. Recommended to fans of historical fiction tales with a dollop of paranormal fantasy on the side.
I received this book as a free eBook ARC via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
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