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A review by atomic_tourist
The Hacienda by Isabel Cañas
There's promise to the premise behind THE HACIENDA: Beatriz, a young woman whose father was killed in the aftermath of the Mexican War of Independence, is forced into marriage with the wealthy Rodolfo. Only, unbeknownst to her, Rodolfo's hacienda is haunted, and now she finds herself alone in a house filled with angry ghosts & spirits who would wish her harm.
But it's hard to pull off a good haunted house story, and Isabel Cañas's writing failed to deliver the suspense & subtlety that separate a good horror novel from the crowd. The plot was a tad obvious (in a good mystery, the reader shouldn't be able to piece together the ending!) and sometimes Cañas forgot to "show rather than tell" (What does it *mean* when the house "shifted"?).
That said, I do not want to come off as a hater. Cañas's love & admiration for the genre of horror is evident at points throughout the novel. She references Shirley Jackson and Daphne du Maurier as influences in her author's note-- this section also clarifies how much research she put into her writing.
In short: this book was not for me, but I can see why some others might like it!
But it's hard to pull off a good haunted house story, and Isabel Cañas's writing failed to deliver the suspense & subtlety that separate a good horror novel from the crowd. The plot was a tad obvious (in a good mystery, the reader shouldn't be able to piece together the ending!) and sometimes Cañas forgot to "show rather than tell" (What does it *mean* when the house "shifted"?).
That said, I do not want to come off as a hater. Cañas's love & admiration for the genre of horror is evident at points throughout the novel. She references Shirley Jackson and Daphne du Maurier as influences in her author's note-- this section also clarifies how much research she put into her writing.
In short: this book was not for me, but I can see why some others might like it!