Reviews with content warning for Infidelity - La Hacienda

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La Hacienda by Isabel Cañas

30 reviews

rachelunabridged's review against another edition

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dark mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

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honeywine's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.0

This book is definitely vibes, though I struggled to get into it until around the halfway mart. The historical part of the historical fiction was pretty neat and enjoyable.

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macknificent's review against another edition

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dark mysterious tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.75

This story had great bones but it just didn't work for me.

I did find myself fully immersed in the scary scenes, to the point that I could only read this in daylight. Unfortunately, I wasn't much interested in the rest. Neither the mystery, nor the romance were compelling and sometimes it felt like the author didn't really know her characters. The horror/magic didn't seem to have any rules either, which made the ending a bit anticlimactic.

This was a debut novel so I'm willing to try this author again in the future.

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rbash2391's review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious reflective tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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rorikae's review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

'The Hacienda' by Isabel Cañas is a haunted house tale reminiscent of Rebecca and The Little Stranger.
Fleeing unfortunate circumstances, Beatriz arrives at Hacienda San Isidro, the new bride of Don Rodolfo. Hoping to find respite from her previous life, Beatriz instead finds a house haunted by Rodolfo's last wife. She begins to see strange things that disappear when she turns around. Confiding in the local priest, she begins to learn more about the late mistress of the house and why her spirit may still haunt the walls.
Cañas has written an incredibly evocative haunted house tale that builds off of previous works like Rebecca and Bluebeard to create something new yet familiar. The strongest part of this story is the atmosphere. As Beatriz explores the Hacienda, we get to see through her eyes apparent horrors and frights. Unlike Rebecca, these haunts are more overt though the watching eye of the former wife is an important piece of the story.
The narrative weaves between two narratives, Beatriz's and the local priest, who has had run ins with the house before as well as its past mistress. This did a good job of keeping the mystery through Beatriz's eyes while also peppering in insight from the priest.
Despite a really strong story, I did feel that the ending fell a bit flat. It didn't live up to the incredible atmosphere of the rest of the book and ultimately, Beatriz did far less than the story felt like it was setting her up for, which was a letdown. Even so, the atmosphere of this book is great and I think it would be interesting to see an in-depth piece that looks at it in the light of haunted house tales, especially those that deal with dead wives.

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