Jenni Kane

WOW!!! I finished this book yesterday and needed a full 24 hours to process it before I went ahead and wrote a review. In that time frame, I raved about it to my friends, yelled about it on twitter, and followed my roommate through the house while singing its praises. I can't easily articulate just how much I loved this book. I immediately marked all of Moreno-Garcia's other books as "to read." Noemi is a clever, mercurial debutante from Mexico City who just wants to enjoy all the pleasurable things in life while also maybe being an anthropologist or a famous pianist. This needs to be put on hold, however, when a frightening and rambling missive arrives from her newly married cousin Catalina. At the urging of her father, and in exchange for the chance to go to University, Noemi must travel to a rotting Victorian mansion in a rural mountain town to investigate. I was sucked in from the first! Noemi is such a wonderfully deep protagonist and made of much sturdier stuff than the standard wilting gothic heroine stereotype. She's a very welcome departure from the expectation. This was a page-turner, and I was loath to put it down even to eat. I was forced to, however, because the book is so absolutely tense and at times outright uncomfortable to read in the best of ways. If you enjoy gothic horror, this is a must-read.