NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • “It’s Lovecraft meets the Brontës in Latin America, and after a slow-burn start Mexican Gothic gets seriously weird.”—The Guardian IN DEVELOPMENT AS A HULU ORIGINAL LIMITED SERIES PRODUCED BY KELLY RIPA AND MARK CONSUELOS • WINNER OF THE LOCUS AWARD • NOMINATED FOR THE BRAM STOKER AWARD • NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The New Yorker • Vanity Fair • NPR • … THE YEAR BY The New Yorker • Vanity Fair • NPR • The Washington Post • Tordotcom • Marie Claire • Vox • Mashable • Men’s Health • Library Journal • Book Riot • LibraryReads
An isolated mansion. A chillingly charismatic aristocrat. And a brave socialite drawn to expose their treacherous secrets. . . . From the author of Gods of Jade and Shadow comes “a terrifying twist on classic gothic horror” (Kirkus Reviews) set in glamorous 1950s Mexico.
After receiving a frantic letter from her newly-wed cousin begging for someone to save her from a mysterious doom, Noemí Taboada heads to High Place, a distant house in the Mexican countryside. She’s not sure what she will find—her cousin’s husband, a handsome Englishman, is a stranger, and Noemí knows little about the region.
Noemí is also an unlikely rescuer: She’s a glamorous debutante, and her chic gowns and perfect red lipstick are more suited for cocktail parties than amateur sleuthing. But she’s also tough and smart, with 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 even 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 Noemí, but might also be hiding dark knowledge of his family’s past. For there are many secrets behind the walls of High Place. The family’s once colossal wealth and faded mining empire kept them from prying eyes, but as Noemí digs deeper she unearths stories of violence and madness.
And Noemí, mesmerized by the terrifying yet seductive world of High Place, may soon find it impossible to ever leave this enigmatic house behind.
“It’s as if a supernatural power compels us to turn the pages of the gripping Mexican Gothic.”—The Washington Post
“Mexican Gothic is the perfect summer horror read, and marks Moreno-Garcia with her hypnotic and engaging prose as one of the genre’s most exciting talents.”—Nerdist
“A period thriller as rich in suspense as it is in lush ’50s atmosphere.”—Entertainment Weekly
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Worth the Wait!
Be patient with this novel. The first two-thirds is a slow-burn that may put some people off. Don’t let this happen to you because you’ll miss the last third of the novel which is amazing. Like some of Peter Straub’s novels, the author takes her time to set the stage, and, like Straub, it is worth the investment. In the end, you’ll discover an excellent read!
If you were like me and devoured the Mary Stewart gothic/suspense novels as a teen, all those books about spunky young women visiting spooky houses and dealing with wealthy men who were potentially shady, but you wished there was something truly uncanny about them and not just atmosphere, this is the book for you.
I wouldn’t have thought this was my kind of book from the publisher description (they forgot to mention Mary Stewart) because I don’t like horror and scary things, but I ended up devouring it. It’s just so beautifully atmospheric. I could see the setting so vividly. One thing I absolutely loved was that the heroine was allowed to be smart. There was never a point when I found myself trying to give her advice or telling her not to go there or not to do that. She made all the right moves, based on the information she had available, but she was up against something bigger and weirder than she could have realized, so even while doing smart things she ended up having to struggle. I appreciate that so much because I get frustrated by plotting that relies on dumb characters who cause their own problems to create conflict. I also enjoyed the setting. I remember liking the globe trotting of those old Mary Stewart books that allowed me to visit interesting locations, and this one gives us a view of Mexico that’s very different from the usual American pop culture depictions (and my own experiences visiting border cities).
I don’t know if this book has been optioned for film, but it would make an amazing movie because it’s so visual. I’d love to see the heroine’s wardrobe on the screen, and then there’s that house that’s the sort of project production designers drool over.
Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s Mexican Gothic was not what I expected at all. Had somewhat of a hard time getting into it. Slow but entertaining. Would recommend it for those who enjoy Stephen King’s books or a paranormal thriller.
This books takes your average haunted house story and adds so much weirdness that readers can’t help but inhale the story. You simply have to know what is happening and why! It becomes a compulsion. Plus, I personally adore anything involving creepy plants.
I absolutely loved this book. It was original and kept me turning the pages long into the night. Can’t wait for her next book!!
“Mexican Gothic” is a wonderful tale that takes into account the hidden “caste system” of Mexico: Indios, Mestizos and Hispanos. Add that to a forbidding mansion isolated from practically everything, a well-born family rooted in evil and veiled in secrecy, and a heroine who has been sent to the house to see what has happened to her cousin, who has married into the family and has stopped communicating. It’s a great read, and the “secret that must be kept” will suprise and amaze you.
This is a lush, layered story. I love Noemí as the main character and how she gets drawn into the web of the Doyle family. The historical details and the worrisome thoughts on superiority are very well-done.
The read is sinister (but, thankfully for me, not super horrific). This tale is atmospheric, and I really got immersed into finding out what was happening to Noemí and her cousin.
A supernatural story that is both delightful and haunting.
What a disappointment. I guess I’m in the minority where this book won a Goodread’s Choice 2020 Winner award but this book is boring, not scary, and not super gothic. I was excited to read this book based on the hype but I literally fell asleep every time I tried to read it. The first 75% of the book drags on so slowly that the last 50-60 pages where stuff actually happens are not satisfactory enough to makeup for the slow slog to get there. The characters are very one dimensional. I did appreciate the thought put into the “twist” but the themes at play are nothing new.
As one Amazon reviewer D. D. Montee put it, “No sense of the time period (the 1950’s), no sense of location (most of the characters are British! So why even set it in Mexico?), no real sense of atmosphere (except for the usual clichés: fog, bad dreams, dark corridors, old cemeteries, assorted fungi), and no real narrative drive…This is the most over-hyped ‘horror’ novel since BIRD BOX. But maybe that’s just because most readers don’t really want to be haunted by their horror reads.” (I liked Bird Box, actually.)
If you want a truly terrifying/chilling gothic fiction, I highly recommend The Silent Companions by Laura Purcell.
I was soooo disappointed in this book. I do not understand the hype surrounding it. It’s been a very long time since I’ve liked the first half of a book more than the second. This book broke that streak.
Like how do you go into a “haunted” house and fall in love?
Don’t bother wasting your time. Pick up another book.
Beautiful prose around a creepy gothic setting. The main character was a little bland to me, but she did encapsulate how insane and frustrating the story was! If you want to be creeped out by eugenic-obsessed racists and mold, this is the book for you!
oh wow!! This was one hell of a book full of scary twists and turns!! One of the best I read in 2020!
I really wanted to like this book, but I just didn’t. I don’t understand all the hype that was built around it. The story drug on until the last few chapters. I literally had to make myself finish this book. I hate giving a bad review, but I won’t lie about my thoughts. While some people loved it, I just did not.
4.5 stars. I really enjoyed most of this book—part Stephen King, part Wuthering Heights. The story drew me in immediately and as the mystery surrounding High Place grew, I found I couldn’t put the book down. Toward the last 1/3 there were some really disturbing scenes and I felt like I needed to put the book down for a bit to get past them. So if you’re triggered by cannibalism (I mean, who isn’t? ), you might want to skip this one.
meh
Overall I ended up enjoying this book. It started a little slow for me at first and so I didn’t breeze through it like I do most books. Once it picked up, I get why they wanted to give you so much detail, a slow build to prepare you for the weird that was going to happen. The creepy things that happened throughout the beginning of this book, I never imagined the scenario that the author reveals towards the end of the book. This book definitely gave me a creepy feeling.
One of my reading goals for 2021 is to read more horror, and so when Amazon recommended Mexican Gothic, by Silvia Moreno-Garcia, I ordered a copy. I didn’t realize until I did a little research today for this review that MG is actually a bit of a phenomenon–a best-seller, and apparently it will soon be a mini-series on Hulu. Well, I can see why, because it’s a fascinating and entertaining novel. It’s something of a haunted house tale, told with a lot of panache.
Mexican Gothic is the story of Noemí Taboada, in her early twenties and the daughter of a wealthy industrialist in Mexico City in the early 1950s. Her life is a whirlwind of dances and balls, flirtation and men. She does have a serious side, though she rarely shows it–she’s studying anthropology at the University of Mexico, and can be quite strong-willed when she needs to be. Her cousin, Catalina, who grew up in her house, was married six months previously to Virgil Doyle. Now Noemí’s father has received a letter from Catalina in which she claims her husband is trying to poison her. The letter is written in such an unhinged manner that Noemí’s father suspects Catalina is mentally ill. Then again, maybe Virgil is after Catalina’s money. He decides to send Noemí to the Doyle family estate, called High Place, to visit Catalina. Noemí is to keep her ears and eyes open while she’s there, to try to figure out what’s really going on.
High Place turns out to be a run-down old mansion in an isolated mountainous area, paid for by the proceeds from a nearby silver mine that’s been closed down since the Mexican Revolution in 1910. The Doyle family was originally from England and moved to Mexico in the 1880s, and the ancient patriarch of the family, Howard, is still alive and runs High Place dictatorially, although he’s ill and near death. He demands that guests follow a number of rules–they can’t go to the nearby town without his permission, everybody must remain quiet at all times, and Noemí must always be accompanied by a member of the family if she goes anywhere.
Noemí quickly finds that the Doyle’s are a strange family, and the longer she stays and the more she learns of them, the stranger and sicker it gets. It seems one reason the mine shut down was that the Doyles…umm, needed the bodies of the miners. And while Catalina isn’t exactly being poisoned, what the family is doing to her is not far off. Eventually Noemí discovers that the Doyle family would rather she not leave and reveal their secrets, and it may be that even the house itself doesn’t want her to go. Will she be able to escape this bizarre, cloistered world with her cousin and return to her happy life?
One disappointment for me in Mexican Gothic was that it’s really not all that…Mexican. Certainly Noemí is Mexican, and we see a bit of her homelife at the beginning of the novel–the endless rounds of social events of an upper-class socialite in Mexico City in the early 1950s. But Howard and his children and grandchildren at High Place are all English, and all except for the grandson Francis (Noemí’s sole ally in the family…if she can trust him) are unable to speak Spanish. The house is modeled on an English manor house, and the food they eat and clothes they wear are all English-style. We see a bit of contrast when Noemí goes to the local Mexican village, but that is not a large part of the book. Still, this has more to do with my own expectations of the book going in, and doesn’t detract from the book’s quality in any way.
I do wonder if there may be some sort of subtle comparison of English (standing in for American?) and Mexican values in Mexican Gothic. Howard and his family, despite living in Mexico their whole lives (well, for Howard, for many decades), haven’t bothered to learn the local language, while Noemí speaks English flawlessly. All the evil, controlling, materialist behavior of the Doyle family is conducted in English, and common, humane, normal life only takes place when Noemí is able to speak in Spanish with Francis or with the local villagers. But maybe this is reading too much into what’s basically an entertaining horror tale.
Overall, I liked Mexican Gothic a lot. It starts off as a bit of a slow burn, but about two-thirds of the way through the pace really picks up as we learn the perverse family history of the Doyles and what they’re willing to do to protect themselves. I would recommend it to any adult looking for an intelligent and stylish horror book that’s more creepy than scary.
This one was weird, very weird but it didn’t scare or feel spooky to me. It was well written, but just fell flat for me. I was looking forward to it a lot. That is me and a lot of people love it, so you might too.
Sorry I spent money on this goofy book. Maybe for teenagers.
This is such a good book. So good that I couldn’t put it down or go to sleep until I finished. I was so invested in main character Noemi Taboada I couldn’t let it go until I knew what happened and how things turned out. Set in Mexico during the 1950s, I really appreciated the attention to detail when it came to historical period as and the growing feminist sentiment around education, independence, and self-awareness.
These are fairly dry subjects but not for Noemi. There is an urgency around her embrace of these values – by the end of the book it’s clear her clear belief in herself and her decision making are what saves her. As a heroine, Noemi Taboada didn’t let me down once. She is smart, headstrong, and the kind of grit and self-determination I always look for in a good book.
It wasn’t just the Noemi who had me enthralled. The sense of place was absolutely immersive. I was there in the house, the cemetery, the small town that is Noemi’s respite. I’m trying really hard not to spoil the book for another reader because I think not knowing what happens could ruin the feeling of being caught up in the events. The book itself casts a hypnotic spell and I don’t want to ruin that for anyone.
There are many fantastical turns, but the pace of the revelations is so steady that my reason was suspended. The words caught me up and brought me along. It’s a good feeling knowing that books like this one are out there to read. I’ve already put some of the authors other books in my TBR pile. My challenge will be resisting the urge to read them all back-to-back.
My Review of Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia; Published by Del Rey
Silvia Moreno-Garcia has brought gothic horror to new heights. The protagonist, Noemi’, is a bold, independent, and fearless young lady who stands tall throughout her harrowing journey. Mexican Gothic is creepy, horrifying, and oh so dark. It’s definitely not for the faint at heart! Silvia is able to describe some of the most grotesque details that actually made me set aside my snack at one point. A book that is able to invoke a sense of foreboding can really strike a cord. Enjoy Mexican Gothic, if you dare.