Being a huge fan of Garcia’s Certain Dark Things I was excited to read this new novel . A reimagining of the gothic suspense this book is fabulous . Taking place in 1950s Mexico Noemi a beautiful young socialite receives a letter from her newly married Cousin begging for help . She arrives at the strange , decrepit isolated mansion where her cousin lives and the weirdness begins and doesn’t let up. I’ve not read anything else quite like the horror in this novel . Scary, suspenseful and emotional all make for an original page turner

NetGalley ARC | June 2020 had some seriously creepy novels, and Mexican Gothic is certainly one of them. If you love historical gothic fiction and want to armchair travel to Mexico, discover a spooky mystery in a haunted house...that literally seems to come alive at night. Man, this is one messed up family.

With all of the clues leaning towards mushrooms and poisons, this women's fiction novel will completely set you off balance. Innovative and brilliantly written with a vivid ambiance, I wouldn't skip this June 2020 book release.

My one criticism is that the pacing seemed a tad off about 60% in--I could have done without about 50+ pages of the book; that could just be me and this crazy time we are in right now, though.

Find the full review on The Uncorked Librarian: https://theuncorkedlibrarian.com/june-2020-book-releases/

Thank you so much to the publisher for providing me with a free advanced copy in exchange for a fair and honest review.

Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia is a 2020 Del Rey publication.

An exciting new approach to Gothic Horror fiction!

I rarely ever comment on a book cover- but this one is stunning! It’s an eye-catcher for sure- but you know what they say about judging a book by its cover. So, the question is- Does the story measure up to that magnificent cover?

Mexico City- 1950s

Noemí Taboada, a young socialite, who wishes to achieve more in her life than marrying a man her father approves of, is given the chance to secure her dreams of attending university, if she will travel to “High Place” to check on her cousin, Catalina, who has been writing strange, alarming letters, suggesting she is either quite ill or in grave danger.

Upon her arrival to the crumbling mansion, Noemi receives a very frosty greeting from Catalina’s husband, Virgil, and the limited staff. Even more disconcerting to Noemi, is her cousin’s fragility, and the fierce opposition others have to Noemi’s spending time alone with Catalina.
Capping things off is the house itself- which offers no modern accommodations, not even common basics, and appears to be rotting at the seams. If that isn’t unsettling enough for you- wait until you get a load of Virgil’s ancient Uncle Howard!!

Almost immediately, Noemi begins having extremely vivid, highly sexual, and lurid dreams or hallucinations. Virgil shrugs this off as ‘sleepwalking’ episodes. However, as time passes, the atmosphere in the house becomes even more claustrophobic, and the staff’s demeanor never thaws toward Noemi. One would think they were trying to scare Noemi away, but instead they are becoming more and more insistent that she remains in the house….

As horrifying as that prospect might be, Noemi is also intrigued- by the legends, Virgil, and with the youngest member of the family, Francis- the only friendly face on the entire estate. With Francis’ reluctant help, Noemi is determined to learn the history of the region and to free her cousin from the grasp of her oddly mesmerizing husband and the curse of 'High Place'.

This is one super creepy novel! The atmosphere is off the charts spooky and the imagery is incredibly vivid. The blurb calls this a ‘re-imagining of the classic Gothic suspense novel’. Go with that description and think about what that word ‘re-imagining’ might mean.

This book has been compared to ‘Rebecca’ by publicists, promoters, and editorial or professional reviewers. Naturally, I’m going to have to agree to disagree about that comparison. Why? Both novels are, without a doubt, Gothic literature. But… I never viewed “Rebecca” as a horror novel. The supernatural tones one senses in that novel, is not at all like what one will experience when reading this novel.

If I could rewrite the blurb, I would substitute the word ‘Suspense’ with the word “Horror”. The book is very suspenseful, but you are getting a true horror novel experience here, and not one that is merely implied.

While ‘re-imagining’ is a great way to describe this modern spin on the classic genre, in more ways than one it is pure traditional Gothic Horror!!

The author did a fabulous job marrying Gothic and Horror, creating a complex and hypnotizing tone, keeping me glued to the pages- especially during the last quarter of the book. That said, keep in mind that Gothic fiction is not known for its blistering pace. However, I felt like this one moved along at a nice clip, despite a lag here and there.

It’s dark and ghastly, replete with classic Gothic Grotesquerie, and lots of mind tripping chills and thrills, plus, a little bit of romance for balance and lightness.

Overall, this is the best Gothic horror novel I’ve read in ages!
2

This cover is one of my favorites of the year. The blurb had me very curious and I was lucky enough to get my wish granted on NetGalley.

It's hard to figure out what to expect when it comes to a book like this. The plot was nothing I would have ever imagined and the twists were ones I didn't see coming at all. The author weaved so many different strings to create this intricate plot that had me utterly disturbed but also intrigued the further I got into the story. (The first 50% or so was slow going for me as I had a hard time really connecting with the characters or plot.)

Noemí is strong-willed and even though it's not always the best trait to have, it really worked in her favor for this. I'm not sure how she coped with any of the things that were going on because I would have been in breakdown mode like her cousin.

The gothic house is filled with many people and all of them, besides Francis, are just strange. The more you get to know certain characters, the more you start loathing them. They each have a part to play and sometimes their part isn't what it seems.

There is a tad bit of romance but it does not take up much of the plot. I did like the relationship between the two characters and thought that it molded nicely into the rest of the plot.

Overall, this was everything that a gothic novel should be. It may have taken me a bit to get into but the ending was worth the wait.

This was one of my very most anticipated books of the year, and it delivered so perfectly! What I love is a book that GOES FOR IT, and this book 100% does. It's working in the gothic tropes that lovers of the genre will know and anticipate, but it's recontextualized via the setting.

The basic premise is that a young Mexican socialite goes to rescue her cousin from a mysterious old mansion in a mining village, and then gothic things start happening. Gothic manors in other novels, like Jane Eyre or Rebecca, are always weird monuments to extracted wealth, and this one is no different, only it has more proximity to the damage it wrought, being set in Mexico. So this book is more about how rotten capitalism is than the institution of marriage, which is often the takeaway reading gothic novels. But this book does make very plain the way capitalism, inherited wealth, marriage, and childbearing all come together in horrific fashion.

But it does all this with a totally bananas plot that is EVERYTHING I want in a novel. I LOVE how different details get meted out to the reader, so we can try to guess what's going on if the novel is working in the "supernatural explained" mode (like Jane Eyre, for example, where the ghostly presence has a non-supernatural explanation). Give me ghosts, cursed families, mysterious potions, prophetic dreams, give me all of it!!!

And I truly, truly loved how it ended. I think it honors the genre and is immensely satisfying.

***Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for providing an ARC in exchange for an honest review.***

A gothic novel set in the fifties in Mexico.So haunting so atmospheric so well written.I was drawn right in read late into the night.A book I will be recommending.#netgalley#randomhouse

Set in the early 1950s, in an English estate in a former silver mining village in the Mexican countryside, this story is haunting you will think about it for days after.

Noemí Taboada, a rich, beautiful, Mexico City socialite is sent to find out if her cousin has gone mad or is actually in need of rescuing after Noemí's father receives a frantic letter from Catalina asking for someone to save her. Having just barely met Catalina's new husband at the wedding, Virgil Doyle is a stranger and so is his family. Once at High Place, Noemí doesn't know what to make of the once opulent English estate which is now a dark, moldy, ruin.

Once settled Noemí realizes Catalina's fears are real as the house begins to invade her dreams and the secrets the Doyle's keep hidden begin to surface.

In the vein of Daphne DuMaurier and Shirley Jackson with a healthy sprinkling of hallucinogenic mushrooms.

It is March of 2020 and I have been unable to read anything good for a few weeks, but this book broke me out of my slump of mediocre thrillers. It helps that it is exactly my thing, gothic and suspenseful, then full on surreal. From the title it's clear what Moreno-Garcia is aiming for and she's hit the mark incredibly well. There are echoes of your favorite gothic novels here, but just like Jackson was able to move us from the English manor to the rural US, Moreno-Garcia moves us to mid-century Mexico.

Noemí is a high society girl floating through a frivolous life until her father dispatches her to the country, to the home of her cousin's new husband. Her cousin Catalina has sent a strange letter and it is Noemí's job to check on her and make sure this new husband isn't harming or taking advantage of his new, young, wealthy wife. Once she arrives, the family is strange and unwelcoming, and so is the house. Catalina is not herself but the mysteries only get deeper the longer Noemí stays.

The gothic themes here play in beautifully with the themes of the destructive force of colonization (the husband and his family are, of course, English, brought to Mexico to make their fortune off a silver mine that exploits the local population's labor) and patriarchy. Misogyny has often been a force under the surface of gothic fiction, but Moreno-Garcia is happy to bring it right out into the open. The genre agrees with her, and she particularly understands the way the worst fears can also be intertwined with desire. I hope we get more books like this from her.

Noemi is a college student living a privileged life in Mexico City. She likes to party and have fun with her friends, but also has the ambition to be more than somebody’s wife. Her father informs her that he has received a disturbing letter from her cousin Catalina, who recently married the son of a former silver miner and moved to live in the mountains. Noemi travels to see her cousins to investigate why Catalina claims that there is something terrible happening at her new home and something is making her sick. Noemí discovers the family’s peculiarities and almost loses her life doing so. The books is well written, however, the plot moves very slowly the first half of the book, with much repetition. The real action doesn’t begin until the last third of the book. The scientific facts throughout the books were a nice addition. Recommended!

This book was an absolute ride. It's not often that I'm in the mood for a haunted house, psychological thriller, but this fit the bill so well. I feel like these kinds of narratives are so difficult to pull off in a book, it really makes you realize how much thriller films will rely on music, pacing of takes, and visual cues to build a sense of dread, and novels don't have any of that. Moreno-Garcia is able to bake in moments that are tense, spooky, and strange until it all culminates into an explosive finale. Also the aesthetic and atmosphere of the setting and time period added an extra layer to sink your teeth into. Definitely would recommend this to anyone who likes spooky and creepy books. I like how this was able to make commentary on gender relations, gender power, generational trauma without relying on age old tropes that are usually weaponized against women in horror.

Remote house, creepy family, mushrooms. This book reminds me of the haunting of hill house and rebecca. It also has a good dash of fairy tales. Sometimes the atmosphere of the house and family being visited by the main character were very heavy, but that's correct for a gothic.

After reading (and loving) Silvia Moreno-Garcia's "Gods of Jade and Shadow," I was all in for her next book. What a treat that it comes in such a beautiful cover! I don't often read suspense / mystery books but I couldn't help but be interested in this one. It did not disappoint. I could not put this book down and it kept me guessing until the very end. I loved the time and place that this book was set in—1950s Mexico. Plus the house on the hill was the right amount of atmospheric and creepy. I've already told friends about this book and got them all interested in reading it come June.

This is my third read by the author (yes, by now you can say I’m a fan) and it’s by far the darkest most disturbing one. So many kudos to her for just…going there. Gothic fiction has certain parameters, you go in knowing what to expect…the creepy mansion past its best by date, the creepy denizens of it, the shadowy corners, the mysteries, the darkness, all the things that go boo and creep and scream in the night. Mexican Gothic doesn’t disappoint there, in fact it delivers on all accounts, the only difference is, as the title advertises, it is set in Mexico. Though to be fair, the novel takes place mostly in English, in an English estate. Possibly as a nod to the genre classics. Possibly just because the traditional British aesthetic is so creepy by nature. But the protagonist Is Mexican, Noemi Taboado, a young woman from a good family, as boundary pushing and daring as a young woman from a good family can be in the late 1950s in Mexico City. She set off for a remote estate and yes it has a name, of course it has a name, High Place, owned by Doyles, a family of some renown in silver business that has seen a decline in recent years, a family into which the Noemi’s cousin married all too quickly, drawn in by the charms of their handsome scion Virgil. So Noemi arrives to High Place and it’s…well, it’s just as creepy as you’d imagine. It and everyone in it with the exception of Francis, the family’s youngest son. The cousin is in distress, under duress and hears voices in the walls. The wallpaper ambles around in a way wallpaper ought not to. The family’s presided over by a grotesque of a man, so much so that his obsession with eugenics might actually be the least disturbing thing about him. And so it goes on, Noemi desperately trying to help her cousin, the Doyle family preventing her at every turn and the High Place messing with her mind one nightmare at a time. Which is to say that the first 2/3 of the novel read pretty much like Crimson Peak meets Yellow Wallpaper. And yes, I usually frown upon descriptions like that, ones that use popular preexisting media to define the context (it’s an easy way out, reductive and so on), but here it was just so apt. So much so it had me thinking at the author…come on, you can do more with this. And then the last third (pretty much exact science at 66%) the novel pivot into a terrifying nightmare of epic proportions. It goes so dark so fast and stays there ratcheting up the terror and macabre and gore in a mesmerizingly disturbing way. I don’t want to give a single thing away, you just have to read it for yourself…and also incest and mushrooms doesn’t sound as scary by themselves. But just wait until you read what the author did with all of that. What a gloriously disturbed imagination. This turned radically original on a dime. And way to go. Way to infuse some fresh blood (through various bloodlettings, of course) into a classic and classically fairy staid genre. What a ride this one turned out to be. I read the first two thirds of the novel during the day, wishing it was darker, but finished the book late into the night, which was absolutely the perfect time to read it. Gothic is typically associated with darkness and this one especially needs the cover of night, the quiet stillness of midnight to make it come to life all the more in all its horrifying splendor. So yeah, read it at night, if you dare. Genre fans, anyone craving some high caliber literary frights, this one’s for you. Excellent read. Loved it. Recommended. Thanks Netgalley.

This book was both exactly what I hoped for and wholly unexpected. The 1950s setting and classic gothic setting was perfection. I loved the main character and her fire. The creepy setting of the house was wonderful and the journey of her in the house was exactly what I wanted from this book. However, the reveals were totally unexpected...with some reveals I was taken aback at first like "wait what?" but after taking a moment to process and be like, okay this is where the story is going...I was totally onboard and really enjoyed the story.

In some ways, Mexican Gothic reminded me of The Tenth Girl by Sara Faring. They both have that eerie Gothic creepy atmosphere. I don't know what I expected going into the book and I'm still not exactly sure how I feel about it. I'm not really a big fan of Historical Fiction or Gothic Fiction and I think that's why I can't give a more accurate review. The cover is gorgeous and what originally drew me in. I would love to see this turned into a movie eventually.

Thank you to Netgalley and Random House Publishing Group - Ballantine (the only faction of Random House who seems to approve my requests 🙏🏻) for approving me for one of my most anticipated 2020 books. I wish I could have given a better review.

This is an excellent book. The setting is 1950s Mexico and the story is delightfully creepy and gothic. I would recommend to readers who like spooky, strange books in a different setting than a manor in England.

An atmospheric page-turner set in a British manor house in rural Mexico. Socialite Noemí travels to High House to care for her ailing cousin who has recently married the owner’s son, only to discover a house full of secrets and brimming with malice.

This book is incredible. I read it in a single day because once I started I couldn't put it down. The darkness and horror sucked me in, to a degree that I felt genuinely surprised to look up into light, bright surroundings and not a damp, dark gothic house of horrors. I will be definitely be looking into more of Morena-Garcia's works after reading this.

I loved the new take on the classic Gothic novel and moving the setting to Mexico. Noemi starts as this flighty, pampered character thrusted into a difficult situation trying to help her cousin. Completely unprepared she has little time to figure out what is going on and quickly finds out not only her cousin is in danger but her life is as well! Horror fans will enjoy this as well as those looking for books set in a different country,

I judged this book by its cover and I was not disappointed. As a huge fan of gothic fiction, I've read some modern entries that don't quite succeed, but Mexican Gothic does and then some. It has everything I love about the genre: a beautiful girl in an old, decaying house, family secrets, forbidden love, supernatural elements, and a creeping sense of dread. The writing is lush and transporting; I was by turns enchanted and thoroughly creeped out while reading. This was the first book I've read by Silvia Moreno-Garcia, but I can't wait to get my hands on the rest.