Mexican Gothic

April 1, 2020

When Mexico City debutante Noem� Taboada receives a desperate letter from her newlywed cousin Catalina, she heads to High Place manor in the Mexican countryside to investigate. As a socialite accustomed to the best that life in the 1950s has to offer, Noem� is appalled at the state of the isolated property and the deteriorating health of her cousin. When Catalina's English husband, Virgil, and Dr. Cummins, the family physician, answer her inquiries evasively, Noem� befriends Francis, the skittish, outcast youngest son who is eager to escape his family's legacy. As the clues about the manor's cursed, violent history and its patriarchal powers compound, Noem�'s chances to escape, and rescue her cousin, fade. Do the answers lie within the pulsing walls of the manor, the flora of the grounds, or the cryptic, coded dreams of its inhabitants? As clarity becomes elusive and hope of outside rescue wanes, Noem� confronts the predestined, secretive pathos of the family, hoping to rectify its corruption. VERDICT This original, well-paced novel from Moreno-Garcia (Gods of Jade and Shadow) has great gothic elements with a little VanderMeer creativity thrown in. [See Prepub Alert, 12/9/19.]--Tina Panik, Avon Free P.L., CT

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April 6, 2020
Moreno-Garcia’s energetic romp through the gothic genre (after Gods of Jade and Shadow) is delightfully bonkers. In the 1950s, Noemí, 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, Noemí’s father, telling him, “This house is sick with rot, stinks of decay, brims with every single evil and cruel sentiment.” Noemí 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, Noemí 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 Noemí 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.

May 1, 2020
Moreno-Garcia offers a terrifying twist on classic gothic horror, set in 1950s Mexico. Inquisitive 22-year-old socialite and anthropology enthusiast Noem� Taboada adores beautiful clothes and nights on the town in Mexico City with a bevy of handsome suitors, but her carefree existence is cut short when her father shows her a disturbing letter from her cousin Catalina, who recently married fair-haired and blue-eyed Virgil Doyle, who comes from a prominent English mining family that built their now-dwindling fortune on the backs of Indigenous laborers. Catalina lives in High Place, the Doyle family's crumbling mansion near the former mining town of El Triunfo. In the letter, Catalina begs for Noem�'s help, claiming that she is "bound, threads like iron through my mind and my skin," and that High Place is "sick with rot, stinks of decay, brims with every single evil and cruel sentiment." Upon Noem�'s arrival at High Place, she's struck by the Doyle family's cool reception of her and their unabashed racism. She's alarmed by the once-vibrant Catalina's listless state and by the enigmatic Virgil and his ancient, leering father, Howard. Nightmares, hallucinations, and phantasmagoric dreams of golden dust and fleshy bodies plague Noem�, and it becomes apparent that the Doyles haven't left their blood-soaked legacy behind. Luckily, the brave Noem� is no delicate flower, and she'll need all her wits about her for the battle ahead. Moreno-Garcia weaves elements of Mexican folklore with themes of decay, sacrifice, and rebirth, casting a dark spell all the way to the visceral and heart-pounding finale. Fans of gothic classics like Rebecca will be enthralled as long as they don't mind a heaping dose of all-out horror.

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May 1, 2020
Moreno-Garcia applies a Mexican-inspired twist across a variety of genres, most recently to crime fiction with Untamed Shore (2020). Now she takes on gothic suspense with a shiver-inducing tale combining touches of Northanger Abbey with bits of the Gormenghast trilogy thrown in for good measure. Noem� Taboada, privileged daughter of a wealthy Mexican industrialist, is a high-spirited flirt who is not prone to flights of fancy and not in the habit of believing in the supernatural. When Noem�'s father sends her to check on her cousin who may be suffering delusions?or could be in danger from her new spouse?she finds a small, tight-knit family with strict rules and a troubled past, living in a mold-infested manor house. They are ruled by a dying patriarch with strong beliefs in eugenics who is oddly delighted to have another young lady come to their isolated estate, despite her inferior blood. The ever-present imagery of twisting vines and snakes swallowing their tails blends with ghostly memories of death and disease to create a fascinating atmosphere of dark dreams and intrigue.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2020, American Library Association.)