Mexican Gothic

 by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

This book has been on many recommended lists but it was listed as a horror book so I was a bit leery as I don't like gore.  Fortunately it was what I would call a gothic horror, light on violence.  I was surprised when I saw it is written by a BC author.

The story takes place in Mexico.  A girl's father receives a strange letter from a niece who recently married.  She sounds distraught and a bit weird.  The man sends his daughter up to a remote mine site in northern Mexico where the woman is living with her husband and his family.  The mine is out of business.  The house is in disrepair and the young woman is told many rules about being quiet, not talking, not opening windows.  

She is shocked when she sees how weak and confused her cousin is, the cousin still implies she is in danger.  The family daughter tells the girl her cousin has consumption. The cousin asks the girl to go into town and get a bottle of something special from a herbalist.  The girl does that but when she give the medicine to her cousin she drinks more than the prescribed amount and goes into seizures.  The family are furious when they found out that the young girl did this.

While all this is happening the young girl has strange dreams, she seems to see mould moving around n the wall paper.  She is befriended by a young man of the family.  The young woman hopes to escape the house, with her cousin, with the assistance of the young man, but eventually he tells her that she and her cousin will never be able to leave.  The house has them entrapped.

The girl later finds out that a strange fungus lives under the house and seems to have invaded the house. The mine failed because many workers died from it.  She also learns that the patriarch of the family has actually lived several lives by transporting his consciousness into other members of the family.  He has fathered children with several of his female relatives to keep creating bodies into which he can transmigrate.  He plans to use the young girl as breeding stock.  We find out that the family doctor is in on the strange things that have been going on.

However, with the help of the young man she and her cousin are able to escape and the house gets set on fire and is destroyed.

It was an interesting read, scary but not terrifying.