Not of This Brood

Sometimes the darkness you know feels safer than the truth you don't...

At twenty-nine, Elio Moretti has built his life around what feels safe: routines, solitude, and the careful distance he keeps from those around him. His mother's abandonment was only the first fracture in a life shaped by grief, loss, and the quiet certainty that everyone eventually leaves.

After a summer in a psychiatric ward following a suspected overdose, Elio returns to the chrysanthemum farm on the outskirts of a small Irish town, where years earlier he found refuge under the care of his benefactor, the kindhearted Signora Bianchi, and her closest friend, Olga, both Italian immigrants like himself and the closest thing he has ever known to family.

But the place that once offered sanctuary no longer feels the same.

As the quiet order of the farm begins to unravel and long-buried tensions rise to the surface, Elio finds himself drawn into the mystery of a decades-old disappearance whose roots reach deeper than he ever imagined-forcing him not only to question the women who once saved him, but also to confront the past he has spent years trying to outrun.

Because the only place that has ever felt like home may have been built on truths he was never meant to uncover, Elio must reckon with the devastating possibility that belonging and love have always come at a cost.

NOT OF THIS BROOD is an atmospheric novel about family, grief, identity, and the human need to belong. Blending an intimate character study with a suspenseful mystery, it explores generational trauma and the enduring weight of our choices-and how they echo through the lives of those who come after us.