Hardcover, 301 pages
English language
Published June 30, 2020 by Del Rey.
From the author of Gods of Jade and Shadow comes this reimagining of the classic gothic suspense novel, a story about an isolated mansion in 1950s Mexico--and the brave socialite drawn to its treacherous secrets.
He is trying to poison me. You must come for me, Noemí. You have to save me.
After receiving a frantic letter from her newlywed cousin, Noemí Taboada heads to High Place, a distant house in the Mexican countryside, unsure what she will find. Noemí is an unlikely rescuer: She’s a glamorous debutante, more suited to cocktail parties than amateur sleuthing. But she’s also tough, smart, and not afraid: not of her cousin’s new English husband, a stranger who is both menacing and alluring; not of his father, the ancient patriarch who seems fascinated by Noemí; and not even of the house itself, which begins to invade Noemí’s dreams with visions of blood and doom. …
From the author of Gods of Jade and Shadow comes this reimagining of the classic gothic suspense novel, a story about an isolated mansion in 1950s Mexico--and the brave socialite drawn to its treacherous secrets.
He is trying to poison me. You must come for me, Noemí. You have to save me.
After receiving a frantic letter from her newlywed cousin, Noemí Taboada heads to High Place, a distant house in the Mexican countryside, unsure what she will find. Noemí is an unlikely rescuer: She’s a glamorous debutante, more suited to cocktail parties than amateur sleuthing. But she’s also tough, smart, and not afraid: not of her cousin’s new English husband, a stranger who is both menacing and alluring; not of his father, the ancient patriarch who seems fascinated by Noemí; and not even of the house itself, which begins to invade Noemí’s dreams with visions of blood and doom. Noemí's only ally in this inhospitable place is the family’s youngest son. But he too may be hiding something dark. For there are many secrets behind the walls of High Place, as Noemí discovers when she begins to unearth stories of violence and madness. Mesmerized by this terrifying yet seductive world, Noemí may soon find it impossible to save her cousin—or even escape this enigmatic house.
Very gothic old school style horror complete with a crumbling house up a mountain, shrouded in mist and riddled with mycelium. I found this very creepy and engrossing, and the details of the mystery at hand kept me wondering.
This ended up being the third of 4 stories I read this year that were all variations on the Fall of the House of Usher (including the original), and I think it's my favourite. The slow pace with which the protagonist (and by extension us the readers) learn what exactly is up with the house felt realistic and made for great tension because there's such a long period in which it's clear that something is Very Wrong but not what it is. And along the way Moreno-Garcia gets in some choice digs about what colonisers are and do, including to themselves and each other. Deliciously gruesome.
#SFFBookClub May 2023
This is objectively the better "fungus manipulates people" book, the more literary one, and I love it but I don't see it being a book that I pick up over and over again to read in the way Kingfisher's could be. Perhaps because the real monsters in the story are the people, and they're a very real sort of monster that we're dealing with in the world today.
That said, it is very much worth at least one read, and is an excellent novel filled with suspense and gothic horror.
It was interesting to read this book so soon after reading What Moves the Dead. I can see why Ursula Vernon wrote about it in her afterword as being a similar setup and recommended that everybody go read it immediately.
The book itself is immensely creepy and I found it very compelling. The plot setup is that socialite Noemí is asked by her powerful father to go investigate what's going on with her cousin Catalina's marriage in an isolated rural mansion. The creepy atmosphere is spectacularly well done: a decrepit remote mansion, very little electricity, locked windows, strange dreams, family secrets, suspicious local history, the overly strict housekeeper with too many rules (silence! no hot baths! no coffee!), also the household's obsession with eugenics and "superior races".
The book's pacing was excellent for me. There is a slow build of mystery and unexplainable occurrences. Backstory is slowly revealed, but there's …
It was interesting to read this book so soon after reading What Moves the Dead. I can see why Ursula Vernon wrote about it in her afterword as being a similar setup and recommended that everybody go read it immediately.
The book itself is immensely creepy and I found it very compelling. The plot setup is that socialite Noemí is asked by her powerful father to go investigate what's going on with her cousin Catalina's marriage in an isolated rural mansion. The creepy atmosphere is spectacularly well done: a decrepit remote mansion, very little electricity, locked windows, strange dreams, family secrets, suspicious local history, the overly strict housekeeper with too many rules (silence! no hot baths! no coffee!), also the household's obsession with eugenics and "superior races".
The book's pacing was excellent for me. There is a slow build of mystery and unexplainable occurrences. Backstory is slowly revealed, but there's more questions than answers and Noemí is not sure she can even trust her own experience. And then, suddenly, there's a gut punch reveal and the action shifts, leading into the climax of the book. The mystery reveal felt exceedingly well-crafted to me; rather than cheapening the spooky atmosphere, if anything everything got even creepier once the mask was off, and it fully justified all of the atmospheric details that led up to that point.
That was a very [VERY] boring read for me. Almost no character development and an interesting background story, <spoiler> symbiosis of humans and fungi for immortality!!, <spoiler> that just was neither well explored nor written in a playful or gripping style, at least for me [seems like everyone else did love it though?].
Starts slow but eventually delivers a weird and ultimately satisfying tale of nightmarish horrors and awakening to the face the realities of the world with eyes wide open.
Mareno-Garcia presents a lush and atmospheric excursion into the gothic genre. Noemí Taboada is a wealthy strong-willed Mexican socialite who finds herself playing the uncanny hero after receiving a bewildering letter from her cousin, Catalina. The letter propels Noemí to travel to her cousin’s new home, High Place – an isolated English-style mansion – to check on Catalina’s mysterious behavior. Noemi is greeted by moldy wallpaper and in-laws bent on eugenics. Her stay at High Place only feels more and more menacing with each passing night as the unimaginable horrors become more and more richly detailed. Recommended for avid horror or suspense readers who just finished and loved “The Death of Jane Larence” by Caitlin Startling or “Tripping Arcadia” by Kit Mayquist for the creepy underpinnings and culturally diverse characters.
After finishing the big Expanse space opera, I needed something different so I picked this up based on the reviews. I liked it a lot. It's exactly as advertised: gothic, so if you know gothic lit, you'll be in familiar territory. There's a Lovecraft vibe in there too except the racism and eugenism lie clearly with the "bad guys", not shoehorned but entirely in character for the old British colonial type.
A nice page-turner.
