Books: Mexican Gothic ~ Silvia Moreno - Garcia

 

Title:Mexican Gothic
Author: Silvia Moreno - Garcia
Publisher: Jo Fletcher Books
Publishing date: 30th of June 2020
Number of pages: 301 p.
Sort of story: Standalone
Age Category: Adult
Genre: Horror, Gothic

About Mexican Gothic

Noemí is asked by her father to investigate what is happening with her cousin Catalina, after her father received a very disturbing letter from her. Noemí sets of to visit her cousin at High Place. A beautiful gothic mansion, on top of a mountain. After her arrival she feels that there is definitely something going on in High Place, but her notions and actions are countered at every turn. There are lots of secrets at High Place, secrets that should not be meddled with. Noemí is a tough and smart and will not back down until her cousin is in safety.

My Thoughts onf Mexican Gothic

At first glance I really did not like Noemí, I thought she was a spoiled bratt with no character to her at all. This is Noemí at Mexico City. The Noemí we meet throughout the rest of the book is an entirely different story. She is smart-mouthed and not scared of breaking the rules of High Place. She doesn't understand High Place, nor the English family who lives there. The Doyles. 

The Doyles are peculiar from the start, they are quiet all the time, the staff does not talk, Florence is a pain in the arse. And nobody seems to want her to stay at High Place. The athmospere is definitely hostile. Noemí's cousin Catalina is very sick, but the Doyles do not seem to do much to help her get better. It is Noemí who asks the doctor in town for a second opinion, even though she was allowed to, she got reprimanded for bringing a stranger into the house.

There are lots of incidents like this throuhgout the book, and it helps build the story, the wonder, the mystery of it. And it makes you feel for Noemí at times I felt so bad for Noemí, I didn't know if I wanted to keep reading, but the story was so delicious that I could not stop. I wanted to know how it would end. Even if it meant reading it at night, which makes the creepy things in the book even more creepy. This is just my kind of horror. It is slowly build, something I did not mind. The ending was action packed, and beyond anything I had imagined. I have watched my fair share of horror movies, but this was a new one for me.

There were some little things that bothered me a bit. Like for instance that Noemí got told not to smoke in the house and yet did it a first time and a second time. But particularly there was one scene were I thought she could have gone about it a bit smarter. Now if you don't want spoilers please stop reading here. So there is a scene were Noemí has obtained a tincture for Catalina which supposely should help her sleep. At this point Noemí has been in trouble a lot of times, and Catalina told her to keep it secret from the Doyles. What happened is that Catalina took to much of the potion and she got a seizure. What I would have done if I were Noemí was make sure the bottle of tincture was not to be found in the room. For a smart women I would have thought she would have learned her lesson by now and hid the bottle, instead she left it on the dresser, in plain sight for Florence to find.

I really didn't understand this, and it is my only critisism of the book, the ending made a lot of sense, but I would have liked some things a bit different. I would have liked to see the aftermath, which is something we are not getting. It leaves some bits of the story unresolved, and might even be an opening for the author to return to if she would want to make a series out of this story. It is not that I don't like the ending it is just that I wanted a bit more of the story, I guess.

Conclusions

This was a perfect horror for me, if you like the slow build, building tension/dread kind of horror story than this is for you. It reminds me a little bit of (I am kind of scared to even mention this comparison) Rose Red, yes I know it is also a haunted house horror story by the king of Horror, but what these stories have in common is the slow build, through learning the history of the house and it's inhabitants. Through the history we in the end figure out what is happening and the grand finale is worth the wait. 

This book is absolutely phenomonal and I hope to find more books like this. At times it did got very intense and kind of scary but nothing too bad. Beside from the "haunted house" trope I did think it was very original. Also I loved that it was set in Mexico instead of the USA for once. For me this is a 5 star read, perfect for the spooky season, or to curl up on the couch with a hot cup of tea and a blanket on aa dreary day.