Synopsis:
When a demonic presence awakens deep in a Mexican silver mine, the young woman it seizes must turn to the one man she shouldn’t trust…from bestselling author Isabel Cañas.
In 1765, plague sweeps through Zacatecas. Alba flees with her wealthy merchant parents and fiancé, Carlos, to his family’s isolated mine for refuge. But safety proves fleeting as other dangers soon bare their teeth: Alba begins suffering from strange hallucinations, sleepwalking, and violent convulsions. She senses something cold lurking beneath her skin. Something angry. Something wrong.
Elías, haunted by a troubled past, came to the New World to make his fortune and escape his family’s legacy of greed. Alba, as his cousin’s betrothed, is none of his business. Which is of course why he can’t help but notice the growing tension between them every time she enters the room…and why he notices her deteriorate when the demon’s thirst for blood gets stronger.
In the fight for her life, Alba and Elías become entangled with the occult, the Church, long-kept secrets, and each other… not knowing that one of these things will spell their doom.
Review:
Hello again dear reader or listener, midway through summer and my contrarian nature is calling for spookies and gloomies so what better read than a Gothic historical horror from an author whose evocative work I’ve loved in the past?
With thanks to the Berkley Publishing Group for offering this eARC to our team here at BWG, let me tell you, dear reader, why I pounced on Isabel Cañas’ upcoming book, The Possession of Alba Dìaz.
You see, even though I am yet to read The Hacienda, which I am fairly certain I will love as it’s got many of my favorite elements, I have read and absolutely adored Cañas’ previous book, Vampires of El Norte. It was romantic, seeped in folklore and myth, Romantic, as well as a nuanced and emotionally intelligent story that touched on many an important topic from class disparity to feminism. If you want to read more of my gushing on that particular book you can find it here.
What about this new entry in what I hope will be the author’s very long bibliography? In very short: Possession is an intriguing and atmospheric tale that will keep you hooked till the very end, even if the romance plot in particular didn’t feel as transporting as in her previous work. It does however fit perfectly within the demonic possession subgenre.
Let me elaborate, will you?
I don’t believe every book by an author should be run through the achievements of their predecessor, for one. I do however feel that once an author sets a bar for their writing, the reader will inevitably have set expectations to be met, and it is perfectly alright if the author doesn’t always meet that exact mark because they’re trying things a little differently. I welcome the change because I love seeing how an author will flex their skills in varied ways, so long as they keep the core of what made me love their writing in their first place. Cañas certainly does this with her newest book even if it didn’t have all of the elements that made me love the previous one. Which is why I will still be reading every new thing she writes!
I have been vague, so let’s get to the meat of it, without any actual plot spoilers!
With Possession, the reader is presented with a tale and setting that feel much more intimate and contained than the sweeping story that was Vampires. In fact, the reader spends most of the story near a Mexican silver mine that is isolated in the mountains. Not far off from the author’s debut, The Hacienda, focusing on a single location to aid the claustrophobic and inescapable feelings that would give that much more depth to the story. Interestingly enough, I didn’t find this to be entirely the case in this book, as I felt the mine itself to be more of an ominous presence to the edge of our proverbial periphery rather than the truly claustrophobic, dangerous, and more relevant set piece that I originally expected. Given the direction of the narrative focus though, it does feel like this book leaned more on inner character work rather than setting to render its story, and that is perfectly fine as well. It all played well with the hidden dangers of mercury, a highly toxic substance, key to the story both literally and metaphorically, and cleverly woven into one of the overall themes in this book, i.e. facing up with the cost of one’s actions and deciding their worth.
The dynamic between the two protagonists may not have been as strong in its yearning as the one we’d been treated with in Vampires but that doesn’t mean it didn’t work well or that they lacked chemistry. There was a lot of softness in the ways the author brought these two people together, and especially in the ways in which Elìas shows himself to be the right match for Alba purely out of being the only one to treat her in a polar opposite way to other people in her life. This is something the author has thematically touched on before as well, showcasing the various forms of consent and agency, by way of one character being the vehicle for the other to truly emphasize their autonomy on the matter. That said, while Elìas as a character lacks no depth (just as much as Alba), the author breezed over an aspect of the story, namely his affinity for the occult, that I feel deserved some more time and exploration, and would’ve made his connection to Alba ring that much truer.
In fact, Cañas returns to themes of female autonomy and the fight that it was (and embarrassingly still is in some places, let’s be real). She doesn’t shy from the maneuvering, posturing, and manipulation that was society in the Eighteenth century, the world over. And, even more effectively, she plays really well with reader expectations when it comes to the topic of religion, through a priest character. I’d actually argue, that this was my favorite part of the whole novel in ways I wasn’t even expecting. Truly, even though I thought I knew how it would go and how that character would develop, Cañas actually managed to seed true doubt in me till the final act, in a display of masterful and clever writing craft. So much so that I wasn’t even mad when the final plot twist that I had semi called at the very beginning turned out correct! Because that is exactly the same kind of manipulation that her characters fall for and the reader is fully immersed in it! Who is the real villain of this story? Is what you keep asking yourself till the final act and the answer is not only satisfying, but also not singular in nature!
I have no doubt that there will be lots of commentary on this aspect of the book, be it for the metaphors, the tropes, or even the analysis of what organized religion – in this particular context Catholicism – was at the time the story is set in (again, still is in some places, but that is a very big and nigh endless can of social commentary worms I won’t unleash here).
I do however want to mention one thing and that is the way the author presented a common undertone in almost every possession story that has an exorcism of the Catholic variety within the story. More studied and well-read people than me will tell you about the inherent violence against the innocent that is the core of these types of narratives. They will better explain the nuance found within the images of the righteous priest who harms the possessed in the name of ridding them of the demon, because even if they suffer and die, at least their immortal soul will go to Heaven. But what really stuck with me was that Cañas not only displays the horror of losing one’s bodily autonomy in the form of protagonist Alba being possessed and all that it entails, but in the invalidation and hurt that comes from those who are supposed to be your allies, hurting you in the name of their ideals. Or the even worse betrayal of those who are supposed to love you, letting you be hurt and doing nothing to actually make sure you are not merely being tortured, because they’re deferring to a perceived higher authority. Tacit support/endorsement through inaction is a powerful and painful message, and one that should never be overlooked.
While pairing themes of female autonomy, struggle, and agency, with plots of possession and ensuing exorcisms is not in any way novel, Isabel Cañas offers a truly powerful entry in that literary niche that hits right to the core, with lines that are deceptively simple. The difference between what is imposed onto a person and what is wanted is stark, and the way that the author shows this by giving the reader two opposites who seem to work toward the same goal but only the one that is rooted in consent is the one that can work to solve the issue, is downright poetic if not brilliant.
That sentence may have gotten a little away from me, I’ll admit. Frankly there is so much yet to say about this book and how the author brought forth plots of rotten family legacy, redemption, the fraught path toward forgiveness or understanding, or even personal sacrifice, but this review has already run way too long and I don’t want to spoil anything!
The Possession of Alba Dìaz comes out August 19th and if you’ve enjoyed this author’s work before you will certainly like this. So long as you go into it with fresh eyes and expectations for the romance aspect, as it is good but very much secondary to the other (very important) themes present in this story. And if you haven’t yet read Isabel Cañas, what treats you have ahead! If you love atmospheric language and engrossing narratives, steeped in culture but also pervaded by a sense of the uncanny and eerie, not to mention her nuanced handling of very important themes, then this author is for you!
Until next time,
Eleni A.E.
