**3-Star Review: *Orhan's Inheritance* by Aline Ohanesian**

*Orhan’s Inheritance* by Aline Ohanesian is a historical novel that spans generations, exploring the legacy of the Armenian Genocide. The story follows Orhan, a young Turkish man who inherits his grandfather’s home but is shocked to learn that it has been left to a mysterious woman named Seda, living in an Armenian retirement home in California. As Orhan travels to meet Seda, he uncovers long-buried family secrets and painful truths about his country’s history.

Ohanesian’s writing is evocative, capturing the weight of history and trauma with sensitivity and grace. The alternating narratives between Orhan in modern Turkey and Seda’s memories from the past create a poignant, layered story. The novel bravely addresses difficult themes of identity, loss, and reconciliation, making it a moving read.

However, the pacing can be slow, and certain plot twists feel predictable. Some of the supporting characters lack depth, making parts of the story feel less immersive. Additionally, the romance subplot may feel forced for some readers, detracting from the novel’s exploration of cultural and historical issues.

Overall, *Orhan’s Inheritance* is a thoughtful story with an important message about memory and forgiveness, though it may appeal most to readers with a strong interest in historical fiction focused on generational trauma and cultural identity.

I got approximately 25% of the way into this one and had to give it a pass. I felt that the language was far too choppy and the story was just plain boring. Disappointing!

I had checked this book out from the library on my Kindle. Sadly, it was checked in before I finished it. I put it on hold and again and two months later when I was able to finish it, the book was still imprinted in my memory so strongly that I was able to pick up right where I left off. I knew nothing about the Armenian genocide in Turkey before I read this. Not only is a story of the annihilation of a people and the cruelty ethnic groups can inflict on others, in this case because of religion, it is the story of the strength required to stay alive, the need to do things you have to forget to continue living. First time author, Aline Ohanesian, makes the story of Orhan who discovers the history of his family as he flies from Turkey to California to discover why his father left the family home to an old lady no one knew. The author has created strong writing in the story of a people who were forced to flee. I kept thinking about the Syrians now and that if there is one thing in which war and excel it is the creation of refuges, who did nothing to bring on their forced migration or more often death. This story is as powerful as Kite Runners (Hosseini) in telling the story of persecuted people.

As always it is heartrending to read about the Armenian genocide of the early 20th century. This is a story which links that dreadful time with the death, in 1990, of an old Turkish man who has left an odd request in his will ... this leads his grandson to learn about the family's history and part in the tragedy of the past.

Thanks to the publisher for the advance digital copy.

Opening Blurb: Grandfather Kemal is found in a vat used to color the kilim rugs he sells, meaning he literally "dyed".

Orhan's Inheritance is the perfect title for Aline Ohanesian's premiere novel about a young man, Orhan Turkoglu, who inherits the family business when his DeDe dies. His bequest is unusual since a father usually passes his property to his son, not his grandson, but the 1990's are modern times even in Turkey. Yet traditions remain strong and Mustafa threatens to take Orhan to court and challenge what he considers a bogus will. It's not that the father wants to run the family business, he's never earned an honest days work, it's just the principle. Orhan fears his father will either neglect the business or sell it and waste the money, negating all his efforts to create a successful company.

However, that is not the jist of the story. The most unusual aspect of the will is that the deed to their family home is to be transferred to 87 year old Seda Melkonian, an unfamiliar name belonging to an elderly women living in an Armenian Nursing Home in Los Angeles, leaving him, his father, and his aunt without their beloved residence. Seda is the key to Orhan's true inheritance and he travels across the ocean, his grandfather's sketch book in hand, to have this stranger sign papers so he can keep his childhood home in the family as well as discover the mysteries of his Dede's past.

Bopping back and forth between present and past, the reader is exposed to the genocide perpetuated against the Armenians living in Turkey during the waning days of the Ottoman Empire, when the Turks sided with Germany in World War I. The Armenian Death March, where able bodied men were murdered or imprisoned and women, children, and the elderly were forced to leave their homes and walk to the Syrian dessert, is prescient to the treatment of the Jews by the Nazis. Similar to the attitudes towards those of the Jewish faith, the Turkish people resented the affluence of their Armenian neighbors - angry at the fees they charged when lending money, angry that they were Christian instead of Muslim, angry that the women were seen in public without covering their bodies (wearing a bonnet was not enough), angry that their success make them feel somehow lesser. So when the Turkish Army took action, the populace remained mum, even though it was their former friends who were taken away and shot as traitors. They blamed it on the war where casualties are to be expected, but there is a difference between war and genocide, a fact that needs to be acknowledged when a population of 1.7 million is reduced to 300,000.

Based on the memories of the author's grandmother, Orhan's Inheritance gives us a glimpse into the mind set of those who live in Turkey, a modernized Middle Eastern country with one foot still in the past.

A thank you to Algonquin Books and Netgalley for providing this ARC in exchange for an honest review. 4 stars.

Thank you for the opportunity to read and review this book. However, I am unable to read electronic books apart from the Kindle format, and as my e-mail inquiries as to the availability of such a format have gone unanswered, I regret that I will be unable to read or review this title.