Certain Dark Things is a re-released 2016 novel by best-selling author Silvia Moreno-Garcia. Part noir and part horror story, this vampire tale takes place in an alternate reality Mexico City where two lonely souls try to survive the dangerous streets of a town riddled with trouble. Domingo doesn’t mean to start a conversation with the…
Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s Mexican Gothic was one of my favorite books of 2020, so I was excited to review her latest novel, Velvet Was the Night. This classic noir narrative is a beautifully written snapshot of one of the darkest times in Mexican/American history. 1970s, Mexico City. Maite has a dead-end secretarial job and is barely…
COVID-19 has made us more aware than ever of the importance of the spaces we call our own. That makes this the perfect moment to read the uncanny, absorbing Mexican Gothic, a tale about the kind of location in which you most definitely wouldn’t want to shelter in place. Wealthy socialite Noemí Taboada had planned…
We Unleash the Merciless Storm is the sequel to 2019’s We Set the Dark On Fire, a Mexican-inspired young adult fantasy novel with a fabulous female/female relationship at its core. The first installment did end on a rather sizable cliffhanger, so I’ve been eagerly awaiting the release of book two. This is a duology that…
In the far-flung future, Medio has been run for thousands of years on the principle of the ancient legend of the thieving Salt God and the financially ripe Sun God. The upper crust of society are the descendants of the Sun God and his two wives; women are expected to behave in either the manner…
A conquistador/indigenous Totonec romance novel? I had to give that a try. The Spaniard’s Innocent Maiden sees Benicio Villafuerte sets sail for the West Indies in the hopes of becoming wealthy enough to support his beloved Luisa. Once there, he joins Cortes on his first expedition to Mexico. Tula, in search of fish to help…
Here’s something you may not know about Carla Kelly: She has a BA in Latin American History and an MA in Indian Wars history. Which makes her pretty much the perfect person to write this book; it is about an Indian War which takes place in 17th Century New Mexico. But it is more than…
What most people know about the Maya begins and ends with the facts that they lived in Central America, they had bloody sacrifices, and the world will end in December. Beautiful Sacrifice takes the apocalyptic paranoia and turns it into a fast paced and interesting mystery surrounding violent human sacrifices, missing artifacts, and the mysterious…
It was a dark and spooky book. Divine Madness is the perfect kind of book to get into the Halloween mood. A story of a mad, evil man relentlessly pursuing a preternaturally beautiful woman – I would have gladly given it a good grade if it weren’t for its muddled first half. When eighteen-year-old Ninon…
The early sections of The Book of True Desires set up a premise so tantalizing I actually experienced a giddy rush of anticipation. But while Betina Krahn takes readers on an interesting journey in this romantic adventure, I ultimately couldn’t help thinking that some better company would have improved the trip. In order to fund…