Mexican Gothic
After receiving a frantic letter from her newly married cousin Catalina — a letter that speaks of poison, of ghosts, of a house that will not let her go — Mexico City socialite Noemí Taboada is sent into the mountains to find out what has become of her. What she finds is High Place, the mouldering mansion of the Doyles, an English family whose silver fortune ran out long ago and whose grip on the surrounding town has not.
Noemí is an unlikely rescuer. She is a glamorous debutante whose gowns and red lipstick are better suited to cocktail parties than to a house with no electricity and a rule of silence at dinner. But she is stubborn and she does not frighten easily — not of Catalina's handsome, menacing husband Virgil, not of Howard Doyle, the ancient patriarch who watches her a little too closely, and not of the house itself, which soon begins to enter her dreams.
Set in the Mexico of the 1950s and rooted in the real mining towns the British left behind, Silvia Moreno-Garcia's novel turns the furniture of English gothic — the isolated manor, the imperilled young woman, the family with a secret — back on the empire that built it. It won the Locus Award for Best Horror Novel, the British Fantasy Award and the Aurora Award, and was a finalist for the Bram Stoker, Nebula and Shirley Jackson Awards.
A glamorous Mexico City socialite and anthropology student who travels to High Place to check on her cousin.
The ancient patriarch of the English Doyle family, who presides over High Place and takes an unsettling interest in Noemí.
Howard's son and Catalina's new husband, by turns charming and menacing.
Howard's niece and Francis's mother, the rigid keeper of High Place's household rules.
Noemí's cousin, newly married to Virgil Doyle; her frantic letter home is what begins the story.
The mansion and its surrounding town are inspired by real-life locations in the Hidalgo mountains of Mexico, such as the town of Real del Monte, which retains a distinct historical influence from British mining operations.
While a limited series adaptation was previously in development for Hulu, the project is no longer moving forward and will not be produced.
The book has been recognized with several honors, including the Locus Award for Best Horror Novel, the British Fantasy Award for Best Horror Novel, and the Aurora Award for Best Novel.