Hispanic Heritage Month arrives just as our reading tastes start turning toward haunted houses, old gods, family curses & restless spirits.
So we went looking through some of the newer releases and recently reissued/translated books by Hispanic, Latine, and Latin American writers that venture toward the darker side of the bookshelf. The result stretches from Mexico City and Guadalajara to Colombia, Brazil, the Dominican Republic, Argentina, and the American West—with gothic horror, folklore, surrealism, monsters, witchcraft, and a few books that are much harder to categorize.
Some are outright horror. Others simply have something unsettling moving beneath the surface. Here’s what caught our eye.
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Don’t Wake Up
Cassandra Ramos-Gomez
Don’t Wake Up by Cassandra Ramos-Gómez sends a group of kids up against El Cucuy — the boogeyman half of us grew up being threatened with at bedtime — in a fast, funny, genuinely creepy middle grade adventure.
Espiritu
Aiden Thomas
Espíritu by Aiden Thomas picks up the story from Cemetery Boys, with Julian and Yadriel chasing down vanishing spirits and an old demon that’s come back for round two. If you loved the first book’s mix of found family and ghost-hunting, this is exactly the sequel you want.
The Bewitching
Silvia Moreno-Garcia
The Bewitching by Silvia Moreno-Garcia is the kind of layered, slow-build gothic she does better than almost anyone. If you’ve read Mexican Gothic and want more of that atmosphere, start here.
Alicia Is in the Basement
Santiago Eximeno
Alicia Is in the Basement by Santiago Eximeno is short, strange, and hard to shake — a father’s unraveling as he searches for a missing child.
The Summer of the Serpent
Cecilia Eudave, Robin Myers (Translated by)
The Summer of the Serpent by Cecilia Eudave, translated by Robin Myers is set in Guadalajara and reads like a fever dream.
Asmodeus
Rita Indiana
Asmodeus by Rita Indiana, translated by Achy Obejas, follows a demon losing its grip on power, hunting for a new host in a Santo Domingo.
Electric Shamans at the Festival of the Sun
Mónica Ojeda, Sarah Booker (Translated by)
Electric Shamans at the Festival of the Sun by Mónica Ojeda, translated by Sarah Booker — the National Book Award finalist is back with a blazing, psychedelic novel about girlhood and the loss of innocence. Not an easy read, but a brilliant one.
Rooted
Leopoldo Goût
Rooted by Leopoldo Goût follows a woman’s return to Mexico City as she starts pulling at the layers of a forgotten past and the Aztec gods she may have accidentally woken up. From the author of Piñata.
The Eye of Goliath
Diego Muzzio, Rahul Bery (Translated by)
The Eye of Goliath by Diego Muzzio is a strange, inventive riff on Jekyll and Hyde — Argentine horror by way of war trauma and the thin line between sanity and its opposite.
Ten Sleep
Nicholas Belardes
Ten Sleep by Nicholas Belardes puts a young Mexican American woman on a cursed cattle drive through modern-day Wyoming, stalked by things that shouldn’t exist. Weird Western horror? Count us in.
Filth Eaters
Ito Romo
Filth Eaters by Ito Romo tangles empire, greed, and climate collapse together, but underneath all of it is something simpler and much more human: the ache for a love that means something.
The Sleeping Sisters
Jennifer Givhan
The Sleeping Sisters by Jennifer Givhan follows a threatened mother and a relentless detective as a string of murders wakes something old and buried in the New Mexican desert. If you’re a Carmen Maria Machado or Stephen Graham Jones reader, add this one.
An Immaculate Deception
Isabela Livino
An Immaculate Deception by Isabela Livino is a gothic debut set in 1870s Brazil — a pregnant woman trapped in her lover’s isolated family home, and a bargain with the devil that goes exactly as badly as you’d expect.
Tapeworm
A.P. Thayer
Tapeworm by A.P. Thayer is our one true wildcard — From Dusk Till Dawn meets The Thing.
Bochica
Carolina Flórez-Cerchiaro
Bochica by Carolina Flórez-Cerchiaro gives us a real haunted mansion, a young aristocratic woman trying to outrun her own past, and a family history that keeps surfacing no matter how deep it’s buried.
Have you read any of these? If not, we’d love to know which one you’ll pick up first!
