The Fortune Tellers of Rue Daru

Olesya Salnikova Gilmore is an author I’ve been wanting to read since her debut, The Witch and the Tsar. Now her third novel is out: The Fortune Tellers of Rue Daru takes place in 1924 Paris, where a Russian immigrant family is haunted (literally!) by the past. With a decades-old murder mystery or two, out-of-control séances, and three generations of formidable women, this is a fascinating and dark historical fantasy.

What I Liked:

• Everything related to the occult. Telling fortunes, conducting séances, reading coffee beans, tarot cards, sensing auras—I loved all of the mysticism here. Even with demonic presences and ghosts, it never actually felt that spooky, but still, I enjoyed the vibes, especially when combined with the setting of 1920s Paris.
• Russian and French culture. Baba Valya grew up in Russia and had her daughter there. We get to see Russia in the latter half of the nineteenth century, but the rest of the book takes place in 20th-century France. I liked getting to see this Russian immigrant community in Paris, holding onto their language, food, and customs while also assimilating into France in certain ways. Zina has only known Paris, so she often seems to identify as more French than Russian, adding another layer of complexity to the characters.
• Two cold cases. When she was just a baby, Zina’s mom Svetlana was killed, leaving Zina in the care of her grandmother. (She’s never known her father.) Twenty-four years later and the case remains unsolved. Another mystery is what happened to the Grand Duc, father of fellow Russian émigrés Olga and Alec, who died around the same time. Are Svetlana’s and the Grand Duc’s murders related? Who murdered whom? Who else was involved?

What Didn’t Work for Me:

• Descriptions and dialogue. A lot of conversations Zina had, especially with Olga and Alec, sounded unnatural to my ears. I’m not sure why, but it often felt stilted, and Zina’s responses were odd. I also found the descriptions of characters—again, especially of Olga and Alec—repetitive. Alec is constantly compared to an eel or some other slimy creature; Olga is described as icy and like glass again and again.
• Forced love connection between Zina and Inspector Gabriel Allard. Look, I usually love any kind of romance, even in books that lean more horror or mystery. But here, the side romance between Zina and Gabriel just didn’t feel believable. I wanted to like them together, but unfortunately that relationship seemed off.
• Slow pacing. With so much going for the book, The Fortune Tellers of Rue Daru should have held my interest really well. But alas, it was slow getting through it and I found myself distracted while reading it. I felt like not enough was happening, or at least not enough new events.

Final Thoughts

The Fortune Tellers of Rue Daru has a lot of great qualities, but for me, it fell short in many ways, too. Normally I would eat this kind of book up, but it didn’t reach my expectations. Regardless, I will try out more books from Olesya Salnikova Gilmore, and hopefully they’ll connect with me better than this one did.

Special thanks to the publicists at Penguin Random House, Berkley, and NetGalley for providing me with an ARC of this book!

Get the Book

You can buy The Fortune Tellers of Rue Daru here – it’s available as a hardcover, ebook, and audiobook.

The Fortune Tellers of Rue Daru by Olesya Salnikova Gilmore
Audience	Adult
Genre	Gothic; Horror; Historical Fiction
Setting	France
Number of Pages	416
Format I Read	Audiobook & Ebook (NetGalley ARCs)
Original Publication Date	March 24, 2026
Publisher	Berkley

Official Summary

A fearless fortune teller in 1920s Paris must use her powers to divine who she can trust when an exiled Romanov princess and her brother come to her seeking answers about a decades-old mystery…

Spirited Zina and her secretive grandmother, Baba Valya, own a tearoom on rue Daru in Paris, where they have lived quietly since Zina’s mother’s untimely death. By day, the women serve tea, mostly to members of the bustling Russian émigré community, but when dusk falls, they divine fortunes and perform séances for their loyal clientele.

Then the charming Princess Olga and her brother arrive, searching for knowledge about the disappearance of their father, the exiled Grand Duke, cousin of the last Tsar of Russia. Zina, eager to learn more about the spirit world and her powers, performs the séance. She is able to summon the Grand Duke, but to her horror, he starts to haunt the shop, and he seems to know something sinister about her mother’s death.

As Zina delves into her family’s hidden past, dark secrets are unearthed, threatening the home and tearoom Zina and her grandmother have worked so hard to build, not to mention their very lives.