The Steps

The first time Derek was ever actively afraid of the

De Luca children was two or three weeks in, when Angelo

screamed at them for ruining his life, and headbutted the

plate in front of him until it was shrapnel .

Sophie and her five children, still raw from tragedy, relocate from

Canada to her partner Derek's childhood home. There they attempt

to forge a new life together - but their new family is shadowed by

grief, myth, and a lingering sense of the uncanny.

Through shifting perspectives, from Jules, the delicate middle

child, to fierce Ema, to volatile Angelo, debut author Juliano Zaffino

paints an unforgettable portrait of love, loyalty, and the stories we tell

ourselves to survive.

Blending psychological suspense with intimate family drama,

and with echoes of Virginia Woolf and Shirley Jackson, The Steps is

both deeply moving and eerily unsettling, a meditation on trauma,

family bonds, and the thin line between tenderness and violence.