If you’ve read Gods of Jade and Shadow, Mexicsn Gothis is a testament to Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s breadth and versatility as a writer. This is a departure into Gothic romanticism and horror with a refreshing twist of being set in mid-20th century Mexico with a hint of scifi. Not to mention one of the most stunning covers in the past year.
For those unprepared, as I was, the book does rely heavily on the threat of sexual assault and body horror as a driver of the chills. This can be especially excruciating when deployed with perfectly executed Gothic descriptive pacing. Noemi is a vibrant protagonist and the strengths lie in those twists away from damp, dreary Victorian Gothic, into the glimpses of colonialism and racism in Mexico,

The story is wonderfully written and I was left with a lingering discomfort and uneasy, which, as horror goes, is a success. Though I prefer the mechanism of chills not to rely so heavily on my own experience as a self-identifying woman of “passing” color like Noemi,,that is exactly what makes it so effective as a horror novel. Moreno-Garcia lulls you into sedation with vivid descriptions of Noemi’s life as a vibrant young woman in urban, priviliged life, her interactions with the comforting people of the village outside of the house of slowly unveiling horrors. And then hits you themes of racism, assault and loss of agency with velvety, dulcet tones exactingly deployed in the style of the colonizer’s themselves.

Silvia Moreno-Garcia masterfully crafts a fully classic piece of Gothic literature, with all the familiar tropes, but set in 1940's Mexico, for an unexpected twist on the form. Noemi, our heroine (full of sass and moxie), is summoned to the remote manor of High Place by a hysterical letter from her cousin - the ramblings of a mad woman? Or is there more to this manse and the waifish English family that lives there than meets the eye? As Noemi gets to know the family her cousin has married into, and uncover the secrets of High Place, she herself starts to feel like she may be losing her mind. Mexican Gothic is dark, creepy, and delightfully eerie, drawing on many classic pieces of gothic literature (one of my favorites was an allusion to The Yellow Wallpaper), weaving familiar references with inspiration drawn from Mexican tradition and folklore. I loved it.

This one is out June 30th from Del Rey. Major thanks to the publisher and to @jordys.book.club and @bostonbookfanatic on Instagram for supplying an early copy of the title as part of a book club promotion.

I FINALLY FOUND A REAL SPOOKY HOUSE BOOK!!! I started the year with a tangential spooky house story (The Other People) and then read a couple of books I thought would fill my spooky house itch that ended up taking other turns, The Little Stranger and Home Before Dark (also out June 30 from Dutton Books). But this is it, y'all!!! A spooky house book! And it's pretty darn weird and spooky, y'all.

Also, not to be that person who tags something as "For fans of Get Out," but this would be perfect for fans of Get Out. I can't go much more in depth without spoilers but know I don't give the comp lightly.

Finally, in my screaming praise of this book, I love watching a badass Latina narrator shatter stereotypes and own her space against White eugenicists. (Much better than my earlier foray into White eugenics - Master Class - where the author seemingly discovers eugenics and other racist practices for the first time and then applies them as a sort of White-on-White suburban crime.)

There was a little confusion for me on some smaller plot details, and the book earns its "Gothic" label with a more classical style that takes a minute to break into. BUT I really cannot recommend this enough if your looking for a spooky story for your Summer or Fall with the Own Voices that everyone is finally actively seeking out.

MEXICAN GOTHIC is an elegant and haunting story that blends traditional spooky horror elements and fairytales with the new weird.

After receiving a disturbing letter from her beloved and newly married cousin Catalina, Noemí travels to a decrepit estate in a small town to assess Catalina’s health and safety. Catalina acts odd, displaying strange symptoms, and her husband’s family restricts Noemí’s access to her. As Noemí navigates her new weird world, she finds allies in Frances, a relative of Catalina’s husband, the local doctor, and Marta the witchy town herbalist while the secrets the moldy manor holds draw Noemí in ever deeper.

After reading another of the author’s novels, CERTAIN DARK THINGS, I couldn’t wait to dig into MEXICAN GOTHIC. Silvia Moreno-Garcia is a talented author and editor whose mastery of multiple genres shows in her beautiful prose, memorable characters, and well-crafted plot, not to mention the immersive gothic world with a heathy dose of the kind of new weird found in books like Jeff VanderMeer’s ANNIHILATION. My favorite character in the story is Marta, who has plenty of mystical remedies and the scoop on the townspeople. The 1950’s timeline works and Noemí’s glamorous, moneyed background add the the richness of the story world. She’s a strong, beautiful woman, which makes her a well-suited protagonist for the story. Fans of fantasy, science fiction, horror, noir, and historical fiction will find plenty to love in this novel.

I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

Thanks to NetGalley and Del Rey, an imprint of Random House, for providing an Advance Reader Copy.

This book is getting a lot of buzz, and for good reason. After receiving a frantic letter from her newly-married cousin, Noemi heads to a small town in the Mexican countryside and to the isolated mansion where her cousin lives with her husband's family. The family mansion is built next to an abandoned silver mine where many workers died from illnesses. Noemi can sense something is strange when she arrives, but what she discovers is more than she could have ever anticipated.

This book is creepy, gory, and wonderfully horrific. It won't be for people who dislike horror. I loved the atmospheric settings and I could imagine being with Noemi in the gothic mansion. I think a lot of people will be captivated with this engrossing story.

This book just didn't work for me; I felt like I was reading literally-translated Spanish and couldn't quite get myself to care about the uuuuultra-fresa characters. Three stars because I recognize it's just not for me.

"I pray I'll see you again. You must come for me, Noemí. You have to save me."

WHEW. You think you know where this book is going, and then it goes there. Mexican Gothic begins in such an unassuming way, where you think you're walking into a traditional haunted house story, and then everything shifts to pull you under like a riptide that doesn't loosen until you turn the final page. Before I dive into my review, I think it's fair to note that the majority of this book is atmospheric, character driven, and the slowest burn imaginable; for me, this worked spectacularly well, as I love to feel completely absorbed into the narrative in horror novels. And yes friends, this is most definitely a horror novel. I'll include content warnings in a spoiler tag below for those who are interested.

"Noemí's father said she cared too much about her looks and parties to take school seriously, as if a woman could not do two things at once."

Maybe the reason why this slow burn worked so well for me is because I instantly connected with Noemí; she is confident, intelligent, and the life of the party. When her father receives a suspicious letter from Noemí's cousin, Catalina, he sends Noemí to investigate and report back. As expected, everyone involved gets more than they bargained for, and what begins as a handful of unusual occurrences slowly morphs into a whirlwind of horrifying circumstances.

"This house, she was sure, was haunted. She wasn't one for believing in things that go bump in the night either, but right that second she firmly felt every spook and demon and evil thing might be crawling about the earth, like in Catalina's stories."

One of the things I loved the most about this story is how vastly different the haunted house felt. The author has successfully blended the traditional aspects of the old, decrepit, ghost filled residence and a new, more modern aspect, one I won't go into detail of for fear of spoiling the big twist. I think she nailed it on the head when she stated in her Goodreads interview that this book is for the reader who is both classy and trashy, because it has the high entertainment value that fast fiction lovers rejoice in, but it is also filled with beautifully devastating prose. If you, too, have a love affair with all things that go bump in the night, Mexican Gothic should be your top priority this summer. I cannot recommend this book highly enough to those who have a desire to spend long hours in a derelict house and an iron stomach.

"The truth was she was afraid of going to bed, of what nightmares might uncoil in the dark. What did people do after witnessing the horrors they had seen? Was it possible to slip back into normality, to play pretend and go on? She wanted to think this was exactly the case, but she was afraid sleep would prove her wrong."

MEXICAN GOTHIC was a creepy Gothic story with a unique setting and fun heroine. I really loved how Moreno-Garcia took very common Gothic tropes, like the isolated mansion, the mysterious and perhaps evil family, and the plucky girl who cracks the facade wide open. And by having it take place in 1950s Mexico gave the story the opportunity to touch upon colonialism, racism, and misogyny that Gothic tales may not always touch upon otherwise. I don't want to give too much away, but I like seeing Noemí slowly discover the dark secret that the Doyle family has, and seeing how Imperialism compounds that threat even more. The romance between Noemí and one of the Doyle family members, Francis, was something that I WANTED to like, but it didn't quite get there as the messy socio-political issues regarding this family's intentions and the racism involved kind of undercut it. That said, I felt like Francis, and a few other of the Doyle family members, were actually pretty well explored and didn't feel like two dimensional villains.

Overall, a really fun and spooky Gothic story it was. If you love the genre, definitely give MEXICAN GOTHIC a spin!

Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia is a book that absolutely drips with Gothic atmosphere! Highly recommended to those who love a good, dark story. The characters are well-developed, especially the protagonist, a young Mexican socialite who is dispatched by her wealthy father to check up on a family member who recently married into an English family. There are shades of fairy tales and classic, Gothic stories throughout this book. Highly recommended!

Full of decaying glamour, dark secrets and a good amount of gnarly blood and guts, Mexican Gothic more than met the already high expectations I had for it.

I’ve been a big fan of Silvia Moreno-Garcia since picking up Gods of Jade and Shadow last year. One of the best things about her as an author is that she’s sort of genre-fluid (a term I just made up). Gods was a Mexican/indigenous fantasy taking place in the 1920s, Untamed Shore was a noir set in Mexico in the 70s, and now we have Mexican Gothic, a Gothic horror novel from the 1950s that’s set in....you guessed it, Mexico.

Honestly reading the first third or so of this book, I was nervous I wouldn’t love it. Moreno-Garcia is so gifted in writing locations and time periods, but the beginning was a lot of Noemí just walking around an old, moldy house. Obviously this just ended up being a set-up for the absolutely insane stuff that happens later in the novel, but if you’re reading Mexican Gothic right now and it feels a little slow, then keep going! I promise it will start to pick up and the tension will only increase.

It’s a little bit mystery, mixed with some horror and supernatural elements. There’s
historical context, plus it’s totally dripping in gothic tone. I loved it, and I’m so grateful to have gotten to review an early copy. Mexican Gothic is equal parts menacing and suspenseful, with plenty of bite—check it out when it’s released later this month!

For fans of gothic suspense novels, this is a must-read. The characters, the setting, the twisted patriarchal system that rules the countryside estate called High Place -- all these factors collude to create a classic gothic suspense tale set on a mist-shrouded mountain in 1950s Mexico. Heroine Noemí Taboada must visit High Place in order to learn the circumstances that have led her favorite cousin Catalina to write an alarming letter to Noemí's father. Catalina has married into the once-powerful Doyle family, the Anglophile owners and longtime inhabitants of High Place. A socialite used to bending wills to get her way, Noemí finds herself stifled by the odd Doyles as well as by the crumbling estate itself. 
[I received a digital ARC of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.]

I loved this new twist on the classic gothic trope of woman stranded in a spooky house! What a story! A real page-turner. A must read for any fan of the genre.

A Gothic Classic. This tale is complete with old women who mix potions and a daring debutant. Noemi is a bit spoiled and fearless and use to getting her way. Not yet ready to marry she toys with the young men around her social circle. Forced to return home early from a social event, she assumes the summons from her father concerns her choice of escort. She is surprised to learn her father need her to go to a remote village to check on her cousin, who much to the family’s dismay met and married a young man and now is asking for help from the family. Noemi travel to the remote house found high on a hill in a once thriving silver mining town. The Doyle’s are a family transplanted from England to run the silver mine. The owners were brothers who were brutal . The mining operation was subject to two outbreaks of a mysterious disease the ultimately ended the mines operation and the Doyle’s fortunes. Upon arrival Noemi finds the hounded run by Florence a sisters-in-law who has strict rules in maintaining the house. She finds that her cousin is at times unresponsive and at other times a spark of her old self. As the days unfold she enlists a second opinion of her cousins illness only to have this opinion tossed aside and her efforts called into question by her cousins husband Virgil Doyle. All through this story you feel a heaviness descending on Noemi as she tries to navigate a way to free her cousin. Unbeknownst to her she like her cousin are being drugged and their resistance is softening. A truly chilling revelation comes through a series of conversations Noemi has with Howard Doyle the patriarch of the family. It seems the young play a very necessary role in his tenure in the house. The reason no one ever leaves will have you breathing heavy and leaving the lights lit. Happy reading

Starts out as a wonderfully creepy gothic suspense novel and then veers off into way out there crazy horror. Disappointed and not expecting that. There’s a difference between suspense and horror and I wish it were noted more clearly in the book summary as to which this is. I loved the beginning of the story and the whole fungus premise but would have preferred a more realistic, medical explanation of its effect. It just got too wacky for me. Still, it is a well written book with great characters and atmosphere. Readers who enjoy the horror genre will probably love this.

Thanks to Ballantine and NetGalley for the free e-ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Mexican Gothic by Sylvia Moreno-Garcia follows Noemi Taboada, who travels to the Mexican countryside to save her cousin from a mysterious situation with her new husband. This book is atmospheric, moody, and just the right amount of mysterious for me. I'm not a big horror or sci-fi reader, so this was perfect for me. I enjoyed the mystery, the characters and the creepy-house setting.

I also read Untamed Shore by this author and really enjoyed it, so I'll be on the look out for her other books.

Mexican Gothic is about a girl named Noemi going to check on her cousin after a mysterious letter is sent to her family.

To me, a good mystery is built on good tension, compelling writing, good characters, a unique ending, and a good atmosphere.

The tension was a little inconsistent for me. The book starts off good and ends well, but ten chapters in this middle seem to repeat the same thing: Noemi demands information, she gets nowhere, and she goes about her day.

I found the writing compelling and I wanted to keep reading more. The only thing that took me out of the story was the use of modern language in 1950s Mexico.

I found the characters easy to follow and understand their motives. I just wish there was more depth to a few of them, or more background given to them. Some characters happened to have stereotypical arcs, where you can see the moustache twirling villain. That being said, they were interesting characters that I do want to know more about.

I enjoyed that the big mystery or premise of this book was something unique and not overdone. I didn't find anything to be predictable. If anything, there could have been more done with this premise that made this book even better. I would definitely be okay with a book being written about the life of Howard Doyle.

I found the atmosphere fitting for the story and it made me want to read more. It did remind me of Rebecca by Daphne duMarier, actually. I'd like to see Silvia Moreno-Garcia do more work with intense atmospheres like this.

4/5

A very spooky and atmospheric book with beautifully written scenery and descriptions of Mexico. Dynamic and believable characters. A must read.

20% in and I'm just kinda bored... I need to feel a little more like something is happening. This one was highly anticipated for me but it's just not grabbing me.

This is an extremely timely novel. With the release of AMERICAN DIRT books by the LATIN-X community were heightened to a higher stage. MEXICAN GOTHIC stands in its own light and is a story that with both lure and fascinate.

People horror done in the best fashion. Horrible mentalities lead to horrors and tragedies. There were times where obvious actions could have been taken and the end result reached earlier, but I enjoyed my read regardless.