Hardcover, 336 pages
Published July 18, 2023 by Del Rey.
Montserrat has always been overlooked. She’s a talented sound editor, but she’s left out of the boys’ club running the film industry in ’90s Mexico City. And she’s all but invisible to her best friend, Tristán, a charming if faded soap opera star, though she’s been in love with him since childhood.
Then Tristán discovers his new neighbor is the cult horror director Abel Urueta, and the legendary auteur claims he can change their lives—even if his tale of a Nazi occultist imbuing magic into highly volatile silver nitrate stock sounds like sheer fantasy. The magic film was never finished, which is why, Urueta swears, his career vanished overnight. He is cursed.
Now the director wants Montserrat and Tristán to help him shoot the missing scene and lift the curse . . . but Montserrat soon notices a dark presence following her, and Tristán begins seeing the ghost of his …
Montserrat has always been overlooked. She’s a talented sound editor, but she’s left out of the boys’ club running the film industry in ’90s Mexico City. And she’s all but invisible to her best friend, Tristán, a charming if faded soap opera star, though she’s been in love with him since childhood.
Then Tristán discovers his new neighbor is the cult horror director Abel Urueta, and the legendary auteur claims he can change their lives—even if his tale of a Nazi occultist imbuing magic into highly volatile silver nitrate stock sounds like sheer fantasy. The magic film was never finished, which is why, Urueta swears, his career vanished overnight. He is cursed.
Now the director wants Montserrat and Tristán to help him shoot the missing scene and lift the curse . . . but Montserrat soon notices a dark presence following her, and Tristán begins seeing the ghost of his ex-girlfriend.
As they work together to unravel the mystery of the film and the obscure occultist who once roamed their city, Montserrat and Tristán may find that sorcerers and magic are not only the stuff of movies.
As always, a fun jaunt to Mexico by Moreno-Garcia, however this foray into "horror" was not my thing. The magical lacked the detailed complexity I would have expected from the author. She did write one of the protagonists, Tristán, masterfully as a total dick.
I want to like Moreno-Garcia’s novels so badly. I really want to. I think she is a good writer overall; where she fails, every time, is in the plotting and pacing of her work. This work is no exception. The general plot, which is somewhat similar to Gemma Files’ Experimental Film, is not uninteresting. But the pace of the story is so sloooooooooow. Literally hundreds of pages go by in which nothing really happens. This would have made an interesting novella, perhaps—but there just isn’t enough story for a 300+ page novel.
The characters themselves are truly awful—not just unlikeable antiheroes, but insufferable, obnoxious representations of people. Why should we care if they succeed? Why should we want them to win? You got me, dear reader, you got me.
And that’s pretty much it. Each novel by Moreno-Garcia just leaves me feeling disappointed, saddened by the wasted potential. Maybe …
I want to like Moreno-Garcia’s novels so badly. I really want to. I think she is a good writer overall; where she fails, every time, is in the plotting and pacing of her work. This work is no exception. The general plot, which is somewhat similar to Gemma Files’ Experimental Film, is not uninteresting. But the pace of the story is so sloooooooooow. Literally hundreds of pages go by in which nothing really happens. This would have made an interesting novella, perhaps—but there just isn’t enough story for a 300+ page novel.
The characters themselves are truly awful—not just unlikeable antiheroes, but insufferable, obnoxious representations of people. Why should we care if they succeed? Why should we want them to win? You got me, dear reader, you got me.
And that’s pretty much it. Each novel by Moreno-Garcia just leaves me feeling disappointed, saddened by the wasted potential. Maybe the problem is that, even though I really want to like Moreno-Garcia’s novels, I just don’t.
Silvia Moreno-Garcia provides another horror novel, also steeped into Mexican culture, in this case, the movie industry, mixed with occultism, and Nazis. She also includes the usual plucky heroine leading the action. She's an engaging writer.
