A House Without Memories

Every morning, an elderly woman wakes up at the same time and goes into a remote forest, where she finds a twelve-year-old boy. The boy is alive and healthy, but unable to explain what happened to him: he does not speak at all. The only person who can help is Pietro Gerber, a Florentine hypnotist and specialist in working with traumatized children. Gerber, barely surviving everything that befell him in the novel “The House of Voices,” takes on the case. The boy’s voice returns—and it tells a terrifying story that is not his own: abductions, disappearances, murders, explosions, and orcs. Gerber listens, gradually descending into the nightmare, while a storyteller, a keeper of blood-chilling tales, watches him.This is the sequel to the series about hypnotist Pietro Gerber, which began with the novel “The House of Voices.” The book’s main focus is on its psychological elements and family drama. The author explores the brain’s capabilities and plasticity, while also showing how hypnosis can be both an art and a dangerous weapon. Carrisi masterfully weaves every detail and minor element into the narrative, while the plot centers on the question of whether we can trust our own memories and how far a person will go to protect themselves from the truth. The novel keeps readers on edge until the very last page.It will appeal to fans of psychological thrillers with a mystical element, where reality intertwines with nightmares—in the vein of Lars Kepler and Stephen King. The book will resonate with those interested in the workings of the subconscious, hypnosis, and the capabilities of the human brain, as well as those ready to immerse themselves in a dark, psychologically complex story.Donato Carrisi is an Italian writer and screenwriter whom critics call the “king of the Italian thriller.” Born in 1973 in the municipality of Martina Franca, he studied law and criminology. His debut novel, “The Promiscuous,” instantly became a bestseller and was translated into dozens of languages.