Reviews - The Seventh Veil of Salome

1.69k reviews for:

The Seventh Veil of Salome

Silvia Moreno-Garcia

3.94 AVERAGE

c_jael's review against another edition

4.25

medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

aprilson_reads's review against another edition

4.0

I really found Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s take on Salome story really fascinating. The contrast between the sleazy Hollywood scene and the corrupt Biblical backdrop is pretty intriguing. The novel is about three women, but it’s really two separate stories that come together at the end: one about a 20th-century film where a Mexican actress playing Salome tries to sabotage her, and the other about the real Salome. The Hollywood storyline is the main focus and it’s both gripping and dark. The book explores the drama, the spread of rumors, behind-the-scenes conflicts, and the challenges faced by non-white performers of that era.

The book was a bit sad and thought-provoking, which was a refreshing change.

aprilson_reads's review against another edition

4.5

inspiring slow-paced

jfontaine's review against another edition

5.0

emotional 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: Complicated

jiggityjog's review against another edition

4.5

challenging dark emotional informative mysterious sad tense fast-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

abditoryalive's review against another edition

4.0

challenging emotional tense slow-paced

I lifted the needles and played this melody. For remembrance. Once I told Vera about the transmigration of souls. Existence is a wheel and upon itself it turns, like a record turns. And she's a melody now, and she's a flash of colour on the screen.

🎥Setting: Old Hollywood glamour meets the golden age of cinema. A world of dazzling illusions, romance, darkness and the intoxicating pull of fame. The Seventh Veil of Salome is beautifully researched and absorbing, evoking both opulence and decay.

"But it could also be resplendent. A time of legends and mythmaking"

🍇Feminist retelling: The focus here is not the dance of the seven veils, but about agency, power and survival spanning two different time periods when women's choices were limited -> non existent. All three POV's Salome, Nancy and Vera explore aspects of this. Whether in ancient palaces or the smoke-filled studios of Old Hollywood, each woman fights to reclaim her own narrative in an era that seeks to define her.

🎥 Slow Pacing: Some sections drag, particularly Salome's. I was the least interested in her POV as I feel her story leans more into mood/aesthetic reading rather than momentum or driving the plot forwards.

🍇 Nancy: She is compelling, deeply flawed, and utterly frustrating. She’s ambitious, knife sharp, and a woman willing to do whatever it takes to survive in a cutthroat world. I loved her, I hated her - and could not look away from her POV for a minute - like watching a car crash.

🎥(SIDE NOTE:) This is my ... sixth Silvia novel (I will read anything this woman writes at this point) and I'm really noticing she writes 'mother' characters in a very particular way. Morally grey, somewhere between prison warden and protector - which makes sense in context but is also kind of terrifying. Her mother figures are the pragmatic survivors of the worlds they live in. Honestly makes me appreciate
my own mother more.

🍇 Bittersweet Ending. Silvia Moreno-Garcia style - always haunting, with a melancholic weight, I always know she's going to hurt me. Her endings are consistently beautiful, inevitable and coloured with quiet tragedy - and this one is no different. There's no neat resolution, no perfect justice, just the lingering echoes of choices made, power reclaimed, and the ghosts of what might have been. The conclusion stays with you, unsettling but somehow still satisfying (much like life sometimes).

💋Fans of: Madeline Millers Circe, Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo