The Weight of the Heart

Written by Susana Aikin

Narrated by Maria Liatis

Set in contemporary Spain, Susana Aikin’s latest novel is a colorful, beautifully written examination of
memory, romance, and the intricacies of family duty.

On a sweltering August day in Madrid, Anna, Julia, and Marion return to their childhood home. The once grand
mansion, furnished with exotic objects and art that reflected the cultures of their English father and Spanish mother,
once bustled with visitors. But since their father’s death, all three sisters have been reluctant to go back, still feeling
the weight of his domineering influence. Julia believes that before the house can sell, it needs to be cleared of negative
energy, and she has planned a limpieza, or cleaning ritual.

Marion, the oldest, fears what the ceremony might unleash. Anna, the youngest and most capable and ambitious
of the trio, is skeptical of the Cuban santera hired by Julia. Still, she is wary of antagonizing her siblings, or of stirring
up old resentment.

But as the ceremony progresses, guilt and recrimination become impossible to ignore. And if there’s a chance of
bringing their house and their lives out of the shadows, it rests in the sisterhood, strength, and indomitable love that
remains when the ghosts of the past surrender at last.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Recorded Books, Inc.
• Release date: May 26, 2020
• ISBN: 9781980075721

Susana Aikin

Susana Aikin is a writer and a filmmaker who was educated in both England and Spain. She studied law at the University of Madrid and, later, creative writing at Manchester Metropolitan University. In 1986, she started her own independent-film production company, Starfish Productions, producing and directing documentary films that won her multiple awards. She started writing fiction full time in 2010. She lives between Brooklyn and the mountains of north Madrid, and she has two sons.

Reviews for The Weight of the Heart

[stevelindahl · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

The Weight of the Heart is a beautifully written story of three sisters, their domineering father and the house in Madrid where the girls came of age. The novel is told from the point of view of the youngest sister, Anna and within a unique situation that makes the story fascinating.The story of the three sisters is expressed with clarity, as Susana Aikin carefully explores their relationships with each other, with their lovers, and most importantly, with their overbearing father. But that said, there is also another soul that is explored, the soul of a house.The time has come for the sisters to sell the home they inherited. They put the house on the market after their father has been gone for a couple of years, but they don't find a buyer. All three of the women believe this failure is due to the fall-out from the conflicts and tragedies that occurred within those walls. Julia, the middle child, finds someone she believes can solve this issue.“This time, though, Julia has gone over the top. She’s been hammering me [Anna] about bringing in this woman to cleanse our haunted house. And insisting that this person whom she calls a santera, an energy healer of sorts, and whom, mark you, she is picking up from a nursing home this morning, has supernatural powers capable of overcoming today’s conked-out real estate market and propitiating a sale. What word did she use? A limpieza?”Anna, Julia, and the oldest sister, Marion, meet at the house with Delia, the santera, and her assistant, Constantine. Delia and Constantine begin the process of cleansing, while the sisters are left to ponder the memories the house contains. The most important of these are the ways their father affected their lives.“His love was in his fight to provide for us: food, a beautiful house, a bountiful education. His gifts, money and things money could buy. But his passion could only be channeled through jealousy, through possession. And loving him back was difficult, a balancing act between standoffish devotion and a terror of disappointing him. Even as girls we knew that we had a wounded animal for a father.”Although The Weight of the Heart explores Anna's dysfunctional family in a captivating manner, there is more to Susana Aikin's novel. The calm, dedication of Delia, the santera, to her spiritual mission is riveting. So are the relationships of the sisters with their lovers, each unique, yet sharing a common tragedy. And, as with Aikin's first novel, We Shall See the Sky Sparkling, her poetic prose is a joy to read.