A short book about a insidious crime. About what you would expect. Was surprised at the length. Kind of like the crimes depicted in an hour on ID tv and the like. ( )

The Deadly Soap-Maker of Correggio: The True Story of Leonarda Cianciulli a Superstitious Mother Who Turned Victims Into Soaps and Cakes By Genova Ortiz

This book was received from LibraryThing under the Early Reviewers program.

This is the second book in True Crime Explicit series that I have read. Leonarda Cianciulli is not your average Italian girl, she is rebellious and stubborn. Going against tradition, she picks her own husband and then believes her own mother cursed her for not marrying someone selected for her.
Misfortune befalls her as she is sent to jail, an earthquake destroys her home, and after seventeen pregnancies has only four children who reach adulthood.
Giuseppe, her oldest son and her favorite child, tells his mother that he thinks he will join the army. She goes nuts and decides she must make human sacrifices to keep her son alive. After inviting women to her shop, the axe comes out, and she starts using parts for soaps and cakes. A relative notices her sister in law has disappeared and Leonarda is caught and goes to jail. Her killing career is a short one.
Moral of the story, watch what you eat! ( )

I know the story but I have yet to read the book. Just putting up my review to edit later.

I read this book via an Amazon KU [KINDLE Unlimited] download.
These days, while I’m a rather voracious reviewer of nonfiction Christian books, being a Christian woman, I’m also a Christian blogger and author. Yet, I can’t resist allowing myself to engage in reading and reviewing books dealing with the gene of True Crimes as I did when my old secular self. Being a Christian woman, I’m more fascinated than ever as to whys anyone would commit such heinous acts, especially those who are women.

I find it imaginable how a single woman could have perpetrated such an evil act of murdering individuals and turning their corpses into soaps and cakes. The individual here is Leonarda Cianciulli. In this outing, True Crime author Genoveva Ortiz does a superb job of giving her readers a detailed accounting of what brought about this murderer’s acts of depravity without a sign of remorse.

In the description for this book, we’re told of suicide attempts, claiming her mother cursed her, miscarriages, and losing ten of her fourteen children; Leonarda’s life wasn’t easy. Protecting her four surviving children became something of an obsession for the woman. Perhaps tragedy loosened her grip on reality, or the fear of losing her oldest to war caused her to experience a mental break.

By giving her readers, like me, a detailed expose of what might have caused the murderous acts of Leonarda Cianciulli and giving them a better understanding of the origins of such acts; I’ve given Ms. Ortiz 5 STARS for her endeavor here. ( )

An interesting and quick read, but not an easy read, about an Italian serial killer. I do wish the book went into a little more depth about Leonarda's life, but some of that may be due to lack of records. This woman clearly went through a lot of trauma in her childhood and did not have an easy life.

I received an ebook copy of this title through LibraryThing in exchange for a review ( )