BINGO: Diaspora!
hot take the horror vibes are stronger with this one, but the issue is that we know the monster is real and therefore are just waiting for the shoe to drop.
I was so into Mexican Gothic that I keep picking up Moreno-Garcia’s work, hoping to find the same spark. That being said, I find in general that her writing doesn’t quite grab me, and the plot usually falls a bit flat, so they end up being pretty consistently 3* works.
I should also note that in Mexican Gothic, I also found the plot a bit “yelling at the screen” with our main character constantly suffering hallucinations and yet insisting on drinking the funny tea that has an odd taste. Like, STOP DRINKING TEA in the WEIRD MUSHROOM HOUSE. It is no fun being creeped out and also exasperated at the same time. And yet, even though I was annoyed with the MC, I found the entire vibe of the book to be sufficiently creepy that I couldn’t help but continue. What exactly is wrong with the house?
Here, however, there’s a bit of a “when the light hits the villain it’s all sort of silly” issue. We know that witches are real, because that’s literally in the blurb of the book (and, if I recall, some of the early pages?). So all that’s left is figuring out who are the witches, and trying not to be spoiled when they’re exactly who you think they’ll be–the too-clever, too-successful, too-evasive, too-‘don’t look there’ of the characters.
Will I keep reading Moreno-Garcia? Probably 50/50, as before.