I remember waiting and waiting to get a copy of this book, eager to see what Silvia Moreno-Garcia would do with the subject matter at hand. I’d loved Mexican Gothic and Silver Nitrate, and was intrigued by the blurb of the story. Little did I know just how much I would love this book, and how it would overtake all other favorite books I’d read so far this year In fact, just after I finished reading it, I started it over again just to go through it one more time. I’d done that with a few books before, most importantly The Brothers Karamazov, The Shining, and 100 Years of Solitude

One could simply relay the plot here and most reviewers would be content to do that and give you a yay or nay and leave it be. But I’m not most reviewers am I? No, no. I’m not anywhere near that boring. And besides, what would that actually tell you about this book? I can’t tell you if you would like it or not. After all, I don’t know you well enough for that kind of thing yet, do I? No, not at all. And I can’t impart just what makes this book special or important by going through the plot.

But what I can do is tell you what I liked about it. What made this glom to me, and become a passion. For one, the immersiveness of the writing is all consuming. You feel like you are there, in that place, in that moment, in those seconds. Not just a visual mind’s eye movie, but immersed and submersed in a way only a good novel can do. Hell, even short stories can’t do this, they don’t have enough room to envelope you completely like a novel can. Especially a good novel, a great novel, a well written and poetic novel.

The language has to do more than describe. It has to carry a rhythm like a tide, grabbing you undertow and pulling you under. It needs to be sharp, and do more than just paint pretty pictures. There has to be poetic subtext between the words, an interplay. Something that creates more than what is written, and this book does that phenomenally. Very rarely is this done in horror, usually it’s the stuff of more literary novels. Books like this are why I think virtual reality headsets are a poor simulacra of the virtuality of a good book. You are there, in a good book. There in a way nothing else can match.

The characters, too, and the plot, are things I find charming and unnerving and wonderful, in the way all good horror moves. There is darkness here, yes. Twisted love that should give you red flags early on who the real villain is, but is portrayed so well that you too are charmed by him until it’s too late and you realize how icky and wrong and…

Yes, getting into spoiler territory here. We’ll move on. The characters and story are great as well. This book fires the mind and lights it up with sparks of night. Another thing that I loved about it- the loopiness of time, the moving across three generations of people marked and hunted by witches.

But my most favorite thing is the magic. It’s that folkloric magic, that kind of magic that works on the subconscious level. The kind that feels dark and dangerous, but has no guidelines, no rulebook, no sacred geometry to prop it up. You won’t get the Sandersonian kind of video gamey magic here. It’s wonderful and I love it. This is what I love about folk horror, this kind of magic.

Sticking bloodied pins in the corpse of a dove. Scissors at the foot of your bed. Tie a knot, say a name, draw him towards you. Magic that feels dangerous and electric and true. What Theodora Goss called Deep Magic. This book is filled to overflowing with it and I absolutely loved it.

Now, if you excuse me, I’m going to go and read it yet again. And maybe again and again.