“Diavola” by Jennifer Thorne explores familial dysfunction, haunted houses, and art history with a blend of dark humor and creepiness.
It centers on a family of stereotypical ugly Americans, the Pace clan from Ohio, who fly to the Italian countryside for a multi-generational gathering in a large, renovated villa in the village of Monteperso. Black sheep Anna is the sarcastic, self-aware heroine of “Diavola.” She tolerates her parents, older sister and brother-in-law, while connecting with her twin Ben and two nieces.
What makes “Diavola” stand apart from similar stories of haunting is the pluckiness of Anna, the slow reveal of her tormentor, and the satisfying conclusion.
Character Analysis
Main Characters
Anna Pace
Caterina a.k.a. La Dama Bianca
Benny Pace
Nicole Pace
Justin, Waverly and Mia
Mom and Dad
Anna Pace is a 34-year-old graphic designer working for a well-established advertising agency in New York City. She loves drawing, painting, and exploring museums on her own. To her family, she’s odd because of her decision to drop out of two prestigious university programs and not complete a degree. Her mother also disapproves of her choice to dump her longtime boyfriend, Josh, and to throw away most of her sketches.
In the Pace family, Anna’s role is to be the scapegoat and to be embarrassed repeatedly by her siblings and parents. She reluctantly accepts her fate and tries to be a good aunt to her nieces, Waverly and Mia.
Caterina a.k.a. La Dama Bianca has haunted Villa Taccola in Monteperso for five centuries. She slowly builds up tension and discomfort for visitors, often foreign tourists, before trying to drive them to their deaths.
When La Dama Bianca spies Anna and the fractured relationship she has with the Paces, the malicious spirit prioritizes unsettling the unhappy New Yorker. The haunting escalates and eventually leads the ghost to follow Anna home and wreak havoc on her life before a final showdown between the two.
Benny Pace is Anna’s twin brother. He and Anna have remained close, even after he left New York for Philadelphia, and has spent more time with his new controlling boyfriend, Christopher. Benny works as a teacher and serves as family peacemaker, especially when de-escalating Christopher’s tantrums on the vacations.
Although Benny and Anna are the closest of the Pace siblings, interference from La Dama Bianca forever alters their dynamic. This brings some true emotional resonance from the distant and collected Anna.
Nicole Pace, the oldest Pace sibling, serves as a reminder of conventional family life. As a stay-at-home-mom, she wants to control nearly every element of the family vacation to suit the desires of her children and herself. To this end, she creates a daily itinerary for the family to explore Florence, visit museums, and dine early at area restaurants.
She’s openly jealous of Anna’s artistic talent and decision to remain unmarried and live in NYC. Nicole’s comments are often rebuked by Benny, but she’s also his confidant about what Anna shares with him. Nicole is most similar to the older Paces and traditional families.
Justin, Waverly and Mia are Nicole’s immediate family. She frequently squabbles with Justin about his care of the two children. Waverly,7, is the older of the two and adores her Aunt Anna. Mia,5, loves her stuffed animals and emulates her older sister. The children stay with the grandparents and Anna so their parents can go out for adults-only events.
Mom and Dad are the senior Paces who planned and funded the family get-together. They are a traditional couple from the American Midwest who try to support their children, including accepting their gay son and his boyfriend. Still, they show a preference for Nicole’s conventionality and critique Anna and her choices at every opportunity.
Plot Summary
“Diavola” starts out with Anna Pace reluctantly leaving her solo travels in Florence to travel to Villa Taccola in Monteperso. She arrives to find the villa occupied by only her parents and nieces, despite seeing the curtains move and feeling watched from afar.
Over the course of a few days, Anna feels increasingly uncomfortable in the rented house. The air is heavy with dread, fresh food spoils, she hears random noises, and her dreams are overtaken with nightmares of strangers’ mouths dripping blood.
Her mood also strains under the constant demand that she act as a translator for visits to wineries, restaurants, and other outings. Anna learned Italian from Duolingo, but the rest of her family refused to learn a single word. The only ones expressing any interest are Waverly and Mia.
Anna’s family ignores the increasing displays of haunting and accuses her of trying to make trouble. In particular, Nicole is upset that Anna’s behavior threatens to disrupt her detailed daily schedules.
In a drunken moment of vulnerability, Anna confides in Benny that she and Josh broke up after she had an abortion. She made the decision on her own, and her ex-boyfriend was hurt that she didn’t consult him about it. Benny gossips to Nicole about Anna’s choice, which leads to a confrontation in a church.
Anna chooses to move forward with the vacation, despite being angry with Benny. They try to make up with a late-night drink of red wine with Benny’s boyfriend Christopher who bought the wine. He declines to share with Anna and calls her a name, which leads Benny to defend his sister.
The next morning, Christopher is gone with only a break-up note written on a piece of Anna’s sketchpad in Benny’s handwriting. She discovers Christopher’s suitcase in a field behind the house with broken bottles of red wine in it. Anna decides not to mention this evidence to her family because they are angry with her for causing Christopher to break up with Benny.
The villa continues to terrorize Anna and her family, including causing everyone to forget all events from Thursday. Things escalate to the point the group is forced to quickly evacuate as La Dama Bianca escalates her unsettling attacks. Once the family leaves, Anna separates from them and decides to return home early.
Her life back in NYC isn’t quite as she left it as Anna realizes La Dama Bianca followed her home and is determined to manipulate the American into returning to Villa Taccola. The ghost frightens Anna so much that she stops sleeping, bathing, and ingesting more than some pasta and wine.
The mystery of La Dama Bianca’s past becomes known as Anna researches 15th Century Italian art. Caterina Colonna, a Florentine noblewoman, served as an unnamed muse, Florentine Woman, to Jacopo da Sellaio with her tresses bleached a Naples yellow using dangerous lead oxide, which may have caused her mental health issues.
A stunning beauty of her time, Caterina turned heads and took revenge when she was rejected. Her vengeance on one family is the origin of Villa Taccola’s haunting. She gleefully infects Anna’s dreams with fragments of the brutal deaths she causes her paramour’s family after rebuffing her.
As Anna’s life falls apart, she concedes that she and the ghost must have a final confrontation at the villa. So, she books a flight and reluctantly returns with more knowledge of La Dama Bianaca’s history and Italian.
The confrontation escalates with Anna learning what really happened to Christopher, why her entire family was missing memories, and how to trap the revenge-seeking spirit.
With La Dama Bianca successfully trapped, “Diavola” jumps forward nearly 15 years to find Anna having bought Villa Taccola, estranged from the Paces, and making her living as a painter in Italy. She goes by the moniker La Dama Toscana, the Tuscan woman, which shows she remains tied to La Dama Bianca for life.
Final Thoughts
“Diavola” is a character-driven family drama with haunted house elements. It should be read as Anna enduring yet another Pace family vacation, rather than a straight horror novel.
Thorne takes her time building tension and revealing Villa Taccola’s history and what must be done to stop La Dama Bianca. Anna’s appreciation for Italian art, history and culture makes her the perfect character to serve as a foil for the ghost.
I would recommend “Diavola” for fans of slow burn mysteries with some light body gore and strong ties to history.
Rating
My rating is 4.5/5 stars!
Book Details
Title: “Diavola”
Author: Jennifer Thorne
Year of Publication: 2023
Number of Pages: 291
For more highly rated reads, check out my 2023 Reading Reflections blog post.
