Mexican Gothic
a mesmerising historical Gothic fantasy set in 1950s Mexico
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4.0 • 2 Ratings
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- $4.99
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- $4.99
Publisher Description
He is trying to poison me. You must come for me, Noemí. You have to save me.
When socialite Noemí Taboada receives a frantic letter from her newlywed cousin begging to be rescued from a mysterious doom, she immediately heads to High Place, a remote mansion in the Mexican countryside, determined to discover what is so affecting her cousin. Catalina has always had a flair for the dramatic, but her claims that her husband is poisoning her and her visions of restless ghosts seem remarkable, even for her.
Tough and smart, Noemí possesses an indomitable will, and she is not afraid: not of her cousin's new husband, who is both menacing and alluring; not of his father, the ancient patriarch who seems to be fascinated by Noemí; and not of the house itself, which begins to invade Noemi's dreams with visions of blood and doom.
Her only ally in this inhospitable abode is the family's youngest son. Shy and gentle, he seems to want to help, but might also be hiding dark knowledge of his family's past, their once colossal wealth and a faded mining empire.
As Noemí digs deeper, she unearths stories of violence and madness, and she may soon find it impossible to leave this enigmatic house behind . . .
PRAISE FOR MEXICAN GOTHIC
'The subversive, seductive, satisfying haunted house story I didn't know I needed' - Alix E. Harrow, author of The Ten Thousand Doors of January
'Moreno-Garcia's gothic plot is as sharp as a razor and twice as dangerous' - A. J. Hackwith, author of The Library of the Unwritten
'Masterful . . . a gloriously moody adventure.' - Victor LaValle, author of The Changeling
'Darkly brilliant and captivating . . . Moreno-Garcia enthralls with this twisty tale of love and betrayal' - Yangsze Choo, New York Times bestselling author of The Night Tiger and The Ghost Bride
'Moreno-Garcia is a master who writes with a deft hand and a flare for beautifully evocative details' - Jenn Lyons, author of The Ruin of Kings
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Moreno-Garcia's energetic romp through the gothic genre (after Gods of Jade and Shadow) is delightfully bonkers. In the 1950s, Noem , a flirtatious socialite and college student, travels from Mexico City to rescue her cousin Catalina from the nightmarish High Place, a remote Mexican mountain villa. Catalina has recently married the chilly, imperiously seductive Virgil Doyle, heir to a now defunct British silver mining operation. Beset by mysterious fevers, Catalina has written to her uncle, Noem 's father, telling him, "This house is sick with rot, stinks of decay, brims with every single evil and cruel sentiment." Noem clashes with Virgil's father, Howard who subscribes to theories of eugenics along with a set of oddly robotic British servants. Beset by horrifying dreams and visions, and unsettled by a peculiar fungus that grows everywhere, Noem soon fears for her own life as well as Catalina's. In a novel that owes a considerable debt to the nightmarish horror and ornate language of H.P. Lovecraft, the situations in which Noem attempts to prevail get wilder and stranger with every chapter, as High Place starts exhibiting a mind of its own, and Noemi learns that Howard is far older than he appears to be. Readers who find the usual country house mystery too tame and languid won't have that problem here.
