345 pages
Published 2022
Read from November 5 to November 8
Rating: 3.5 out of 5
Young Beatriz lost her father when the first emperor of Mexico was overthrown; he was dragged before the firing squad for collaborating with Iturbide. When Beatriz, hoping for stability and safety, gets engaged to Rodolfo, a man high up in the party that executed her father, her mother disowns her. Beatriz has nowhere else to go but Hacienda San Isidro, her new husband’s estate. She is determined to make the hacienda hers, to assume its command as lady of the house, to leave her mark. But she quickly learns that not all is what it should be beneath the surface of San Isidro. And rumors swirl regarding the fate of Rodolfo’s first wife.
A classic Gothic plot set in Mexico, The Hacienda inevitably draws comparisons to Mexican Gothic. But the two are quite different. No mind-controlling mushrooms here. In their place is a world of witchcraft, possession, and hidden murders. There’s forbidden pining between Beatriz and Andrés, the young priest (and secret witch) whom she begs to cleanse the hacienda. It’s a more conventional Gothic business, but a satisfying novel all the same. Cañas’ descriptions are evocative, full of the sweep of the storm-shadowed countryside, and the claustrophobic terrors of possessed home and colonialist social hierarchies alike.
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