LOS ANGELES—The Armenian Genocide novel, Orhan’s Inheritance, by Aline Ohanesian was recently chosen as Amazon’s Best Book of the Month for April 2015, listed alongside works by literary giants like Toni Morrison. Orhan’s Inheritance has also been selected by the independent book-selling community as the #1 Indie Next pick for April and by Barnes & Noble for their Discover Great New Voices program for summer 2015.

Algonquin Books is thrilled by the reception for this debut novel, and especially at how an Armenian Genocide novel will be front and center in every bookstore in the county. National media attention is forthcoming in the New York Times Book Review, Elle, Entertainment Weekly, National Public Radio, and much more.

Ohanesian will be launching her national book tour on April 7 at 7:30 p.m. at Skylight Books in Los Angeles. The general public is welcome to attend. Ohanesian will continue on to 15 additional stops around the country as part of her national book tour.

Ohanesian was a finalist for the prestigious PEN/Bellwether Award for Socially Engaged Fiction founded by Barbara Kingsolver. A descendant of genocide survivors, Ohanesian spent six years researching the novel, and even traveled to the region of the Ottoman Empire, known as Sepastia to Armenians and Sivas to Turks, where the story takes place.

Not only is Orhan’s Inheritance a profoundly moving and beautiful story, but it also gives voice to millions of silent victims and a forgotten part of history. When Orhan Turkoglu’s grandfather passes away, he returns to the village of Karod, Sivas, for the funeral, only to discover that his grandfather left the family home to a total stranger, Seda Melkonian, in a Los Angeles nursing home. Left with only Kemal’s ancient sketchbook and intent on righting this injustice, Orhan boards a plane to Los Angeles. There he will not only unearth the story that Seda so closely guards but discovers that Seda’s past now threatens to unravel his future. Her story, if told, has the power to forever change the way Orhan sees himself, his family, and his country. Moving back and forth in time, between the last years of the Ottoman Empire and the 1990’s, Orhan’s Inheritance is a story of passionate love, unspeakable horrors, incredible resilience, and the hidden stories that can haunt a family for generations.

The book will be published by Algonquin Books, a branch of Workman Publishing, on April 7.