Title: Black Heart
Author: Peter Fritsi
Genre: Contemporary Fiction
Publisher: Vulpine Press
Rating: 3.8/5
Hello, hello!
Today, I have a review of the book Black Heart by Peter Fritsi. It was originally in Hungarian, and this is the English translation. The blurb urged me to read the book, and so here I am! Many thanks to the author, Peter Fritsi, for the ARC!
Check out the blurb.
In a rainy Hungarian mining town in 1979, Ria lies awake listening for her husband to come home.
By morning, she knows her marriage is over. Her husband János-once charismatic, ambitious, and full of life-has become unpredictable, reckless, and increasingly absent.
She believes the hardest part will be leaving him. Instead, she finds herself trapped in a bitter struggle over money, property, and custody of their young son, while János and his domineering mother work to dismantle the life she built piece by piece.
Isolated and increasingly desperate, Ria finds herself fighting for her dignity, her livelihood, and her grip on reality itself.
Black Heart is a powerful family drama about marriage, motherhood, and the brutal cost of survival.
Péter Fritsi’s Black Heart is a gripping domestic thriller that masterfully showcases the terrifying reality of a marriage gone toxic. The story revolves around Ria, a woman who reaches a painful realisation that her marriage to her husband, János, is completely over. Gathering whatever little courage, she files for divorce. However, what she hopes will be a clean break quickly transforms into a waking nightmare. János refuses to let her leave peacefully, vowing to make her suffer.
The novel is about a brutal, emotionally exhausting custody battle for their young son. Fritsi brilliantly captures the heavy, claustrophobic atmosphere of a domestic war zone. Ria is a deeply sympathetic protagonist. As she attempts to maintain some semblance of normalcy, working her job and caring for her son, she is relentlessly compromised at every turn.
To make matters worse, her mother-in-law joins in and tries to isolate Ria. The book highlights how the wounds of domestic abuse begin with words. Fritsi’s writing is unapologetic, forcing the reader to feel Ria’s desperation and her fierce instinct to protect her son.
Black Heart is a slow-burn domestic thriller that keeps you on the edge of your seat, highlighting the extent to which Ria goes to keep her son and to survive this ordeal. An impressive read.
