The Hacienda

Description

Mexican Gothic meets Rebecca in this debut supernatural suspense novel, set in the aftermath of the Mexican War of Independence, about a remote house, a sinister haunting, and the woman pulled into their clutches…

During the overthrow of the Mexican government, Beatriz’s father was executed and her home destroyed. When handsome Don Rodolfo Solórzano proposes, Beatriz ignores the rumors surrounding his first wife’s sudden demise, choosing instead to seize the security that his estate in the countryside provides. She will have her own home again, no matter the cost.
 
But Hacienda San Isidro is not the sanctuary she imagined.

When Rodolfo returns to work in the capital, visions and voices invade Beatriz’s sleep. The weight of invisible eyes follows her every move. Rodolfo’s sister, Juana, scoffs at Beatriz’s fears—but why does she refuse to enter the house at night? Why does the cook burn copal incense at the edge of the kitchen and mark the doorway with strange symbols? What really happened to the first Doña Solórzano?

Beatriz only knows two things for certain: Something is wrong with the hacienda. And no one there will save her.

Desperate for help, she clings to the young priest, Padre Andrés, as an ally. No ordinary priest, Andrés will have to rely on his skills as a witch to fight off the malevolent presence haunting the hacienda and protect the woman for whom he feels a powerful, forbidden attraction. But even he might not be enough to battle the darkness.

Far from a refuge, San Isidro may be Beatriz’s doom.“A thing of uncanny, chilling beauty. Hauntings, exorcisms, incantations, forbidden love — The Hacienda transports one to a world where love triumphs over demons.”
—The New York Times

“[R]omantic, frightening, claustrophobic, and entirely satisfying.”
—Vulture

“A tale of romance, dread, and supernatural menace.”
—Harper’s Bazaar

“[A] gothic tale of doomed love and vengeful spirits.”
—The Washington Post

“[A] chilling Mexican gothic horror, full of suspense that will have you tethered to each page.” 
—NPR

“This Gothic thriller is *impossible* to put down.”
—Cosmopolitan

“Looking for supernatural suspense, forbidden love and a history lesson set in the aftermath of the Mexican War of Independence? Pick up The Hacienda.”
—Parade

“Don’t read this gothic horror right before bedtime, especially if you’re prone to nightmares.”
—Good Housekeeping

“[A] dazzling debut….Yeah, this one will keep you up at night, muttering ‘one last page.”
—E! News

“A deliciously haunting novel that slithers into your mind and keeps you dreaming of it.”
—Buzzfeed

“After you read and enjoy Mexican Gothic, pick up this beautifully unsettling tale. Set in post-Independence War Mexico, this chilling suspense novel will leave you with chills as you follow the terrifying haunting at Hacienda San Isidro.”
—Glamour

“Pretty much the perfect Gothic novel… meaning it reads like a brilliant piece of historical fiction and a, ‘Okay, I’m gonna need to sleep with the lights on now,’ horror novel.”
—Jezebel

“The scary, atmospheric, gorgeous Gothic of my dreams.”
—Rachel Hawkins, New York Times bestselling author of The Wife Upstairs

“Gothic terror at its best, layered with tension: class, religious, and sexual. You will be so immersed in its skillful storytelling that the hours will vanish.”
—Simone St. James, New York Times bestselling author of The Sun Down Motel

“A haunted history, a gory gothic, a forbidden romance. This book kept me up at night, and it was worth every second of lost sleep.”
—Alix E. Harrow, New York Times bestselling author of The Once and Future Witches

“A hypnotic, sinister tale that is equal parts terrifying and luxurious. Cañas’s debut is a nightmare lined with velvet.”
—Roshani Chokshi, New York Times bestselling author of The Gilded Wolves

“The Hacienda is a perfect gothic and Cañas is not afraid to pull in the horror element. An impressive debut.”
—Jayne Ann Krentz, New York Times bestselling author of Lightning in a Mirror

“A haunting gorgeous tale of doomed love, vengeful spirits, and tortured faith that I could not put down.”
—S.A. Chakraborty, bestselling author of The Empire of Gold

“Lush, sinister, and darkly romantic. The Hacienda is a haunting and brilliant debut.”
—Alexis Henderson, author of The Year of the Witching

“Absolutely enthralling—I read it in one sitting because its vivid prose and spectacular twists and turns made it impossible to put down.”
—Genevieve Gornichec, bestselling author of The Witch’s Heart

“As romantic as it is terrifying, The Hacienda is a lush, atmospheric read that never pulls any punches. Horror fans, fantasy fans, and romance fans will all find something to love here.”
—Hannah Whitten, New York Times bestselling author of For the Wolf

“A stunning, spellbinding debut. The Hacienda is bone-chilling and gloriously gothic. Absolutely unmissable.”
—Rachel Harrison, author of The Return

“The Hacienda is a ghost story that also earns its place as literature. Cañas is a name to watch.”
—Daniel Abraham, co-author of The Expanse series

“[A] spooky Gothic story full of supernatural flourishes.”
—PopSugar

“Cañas clearly knows the genre, alternately deploying and subverting haunted house tropes. The result is a brilliant contribution to the new wave of postcolonial Gothics. Readers won’t want to miss this.”
—Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“Lush, beautiful, and completely deserving of the comparisons to Rebecca, The Hacienda is essential reading in the gothic revival.”
—CrimeReads

“[A] blend of horror and mystery with a gothic heart, complete with a heroine on the brink of madness, running into the night in fear. This chilling read exposes the rotting soul of colonialism and manages to be wildly entertaining while doing so.”
—Shelf Awareness

“Debut gothic thrills appropriately billed for fans of Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s Mexican Gothic and Oyinkan Braithwaite’s My Sister, the Serial Killer.”
—Library Journal

“If you love the Gothic Horror genre but are keen to see a heroine with more agency and a story with plenty of bite, The Hacienda just might be what you’ve been looking for.”
—Mystery & Suspense

“If you like gothic horror (creepy manors and the like), then you’ll love this highly anticipated thriller that takes place at a haunted hacienda.”
—Betches

“Reminiscent of both Jane Eyre and Carol Goodman’s The Widow’s House (2017), this can be offered to fans of Gothic suspense.”
—Booklist

“As much a historical novel with an underlying political commentary as it is a thriller with a good mystery at its core.”
—Book Riot

“[A] remarkable blend of suspense, horror, romance and supernatural gothic….[A] magical combination, not only of genres and vivid character and story arcs, but of ideas – explorations of racism, oppression, power, resilience and resistance. It’ll also scare the pants off you, its lush, hypnotic prose causing you to stare into the shadows.”
—Booktrib

“This gothic novel will pull you in with vivid language and drop you into a sinister world. Reminiscent of Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier in its setup, this story is infused with a much darker horror….Cañas  has created engaging characters in Beatriz, Andrés, and, yes, the house, but beware of blood and supernatural violence. The pages turn quickly to a faultless, satisfying ending.”
—Historical Novel Society

“[T]his haunted and haunting novel is just the terrifying gothic debut you want to read tonight.”
—Ms. Magazine

“It is quietly hopeful – a satisfying tone to end on for what is otherwise a tense and electrifying story – and marks her as a serious writer to watch.”
—The Harvard CrimsonIsabel Cañas is a Mexican-American speculative fiction writer. After having lived in Mexico, Scotland, Egypt, and Turkey, among other places, she has settled (for now) in New York City. She holds a doctorate in Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations and writes fiction inspired by her research and her heritage.Reader’s Guide
The Hacienda by Isabel Cañas
Discussion Questions:

1. In the beginning of the novel, Beatriz chooses to marry against her mother’s wishes. If you were in her position, what decision would you have made?

2. Which character did you relate to the most, and why?

3. Do you think that Juana or Ana Luisa were sympathetic characters? Why or why not?

4. Do you believe in ghosts of any kind? Why or why not? Have you had any experiences that sway your beliefs one way or another?

5. Did you trust Andrés when he was first introduced? Why or why not?

6. What did you think of the novel’s portrayal of religion?

7. Was Rodolfo a villain or a victim?

8. The Mexican War of Independence is a subject rarely taught in American high schools and universities. Did the novel’s historical themes (class, land ownership, and race, among others) change your perception of Mexican history? How so?

9. Andrés has a close relationship with his grandmother. Is there a member of your family, perhaps of an older generation, with whom you are close? Have you learned beliefs or stories from them that connect you to your family’s history?

10. Beatriz, Juana, and Paloma experience the world of Mexico in 1823 and the hacienda in different ways. What did you think of the novel’s portrayal of female autonomy in this historical period?

1

 

AndrÉs

 

Hacienda San Isidro

 

Noviembre 1823

 

The low sweep of the southern horizon was a perfect line, unmarred by even the smudge of horses tossing their heads in the distance. The road yawned empty.

 

The carriage was gone.

 

I stood with my back to the gates of Hacienda San Isidro. Behind me, high white stucco walls rose like the bones of a long-dead beast jutting from dark, cracked earth. Beyond the walls, beyond the main house and the freshly dug graves behind the capilla, the tlachiqueros took their machetes to the sharp fields of maguey. Wandering the fields as a boy taught me agave flesh does not give like man’s; the tlachiqueros lift their machetes and bring them down again, and again, each dull thud seeking the heart’s sweet sap, each man becoming more intimately acquainted with the give of meat beneath metal, with the harvesting of hearts.

 

A breeze snaked into the valley from the dark hills, its dry chill stinging my cheeks and the wet in my eyes. It was time to turn back. To return to my life as it was. Yet the idea of turning, of gazing up at San Isidro’s heavy wooden doors alone, slicked my palms with sweat.

 

There was a reason I had once set my jaw and crossed San Isidro’s threshold, a reason why I passed through its gates like a reckless youth from legends of journeys to the underworlds.

 

That reason was gone.

 

And still I stood in the center of the dirt road that led away from San Isidro, away from Apan, my eyes fixed on the horizon with the fervor of a sinner before their saint. As if the force of my grief alone could transcend the will of God and return that carriage. Return the woman who had been taken from me. The echo of retreating hoofbeats and the clouds of dust they left curled in the air like copal incense, mocking me.

 

It is said that mortal life is empty without the love of God. That the ache of loneliness’s wounds is assuaged by obedience to Him, for in serving God we encounter perfect love and are made whole.

 

But if God is the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, if He is three in one in the Trinity, then God knows nothing of loneliness.

 

God knows nothing of standing with his back to a gray morning, of dropping to his knees in the dust. Of his shoulders slumping beneath the new weight of knowing what it meant not to be alone, and an acute awareness of his chest’s own emptiness.

 

God knows nothing of loneliness, because God has never tasted companionship as mortals do: clinging to one another in darkness so complete and sharp it scrapes flesh from bone, trusting one another even as the Devil’s breath blooms hot on their napes.

 

Sharp pebbles dug into my kneecaps through my worn trousers as I knelt, my breathing labored, too exhausted to sob. I knew what the maguey felt. I knew the whine of the machete. I knew how my chest gave beneath the weight of its fall. I knew how it felt to have my heart harvested, sweet aguamiel carving winding wet tracks down my hollowed chest. My wounds sinful stigmata, flinching and festering in the sun.

 

God knows nothing of being alone.

 

Alone is kneeling in dust, gazing at an empty horizon.

 

In the end, it was not the ink-slick shadows and echoing, dissonant laughter of San Isidro that broke me. It was not fear that carved my chest open.

 

It was losing her.

 

2

 

Beatriz

 

Septiembre 1823

 

Two months earlier

 

The carriage door creaked as Rodolfo opened it. I blinked, adjusting to the light that spilled across my skirts and face, and took the hand Rodolfo offered me as gracefully as I could. Hours of imprisonment in the carriage over rough country roads left me wanting to claw my way out of that stuffy box and suck in a lungful of fresh air, but I restrained myself. I knew my role as delicate, docile wife. Playing that role had already swept me away from the capital, far from the torment of my uncle’s house, into the valley of Apan.

 

It brought me here and left me standing before a high dark wooden door set deep in white stucco walls, squinting under the blinding sweep of azure September skies, the broad shoulders and steady hands of Don Rodolfo Eligio Sol—rzano at my side.

 

In the sunlight his loose curls gleamed bronze, and his eyes were almost as light as the sky beyond. “This is San Isidro,” he said.

 

Hacienda San Isidro. I let my eyes drag over the heavy door, its wrought-iron accents, the high dark spikes on the front of the walls, the wilting bougainvillea that wound through them, blossoms and thorns alike drained of color and dying.

 

It was not quite what I expected, having been raised in the verdant, lush gardens of an hacienda in Cuernavaca, but it was my new conquest. My salvation.

 

Mine.

 

 

When I first met Rodolfo, dancing at a ball to celebrate the founding of the Republic, he told me his family had owned an hacienda that produced pulque for nearly two hundred years.

 

Ah, I thought, watching the sharp panes of his clean-shaven face flirt with the shadows of the candlelit ballroom. So that was how your family kept its money throughout the war. Industry will rise and fall, men will scorch the earth and slaughter one another for emperors or republics, but they will always want drink.

 

We danced the next round, and the next. He watched me with an intensity I knew then was a priceless tool.

 

“Tell me about the hacienda,” I had said.

 

It was a big house, he replied, sprawling over the low hills north of Apan, overlooking sharp-pointed fields of maguey. Generations of his family had lived there before the war of independence from Spain, cultivating the agave and producing pulque, its sour beer, to be shipped to the capital’s thirsty markets. There were gardens filled with birds of paradise, the air thick with swallows, he said, and broad, bustling kitchens to feed all the tlachiqueros and the servants and family. They celebrated feast days in a capilla on the property, a chapel adorned with paintings of saints and an altar carved by the scion of the family in the seventeenth century and gilded by later, wealthier generations.

 

“Do you miss it?” I asked.

 

He did not answer, not directly. Instead, he described the way the sun set in the valley of Apan: first rich golden, deepening to amber, and then, with a swift, sure strike, night overtook the sun like the extinguishing of a candle. The darkness in the valley was so deep it was almost blue, and when thunderstorms slinked over steep hills into the valley, lightning spilled like mercury across the fields of maguey, silvering the plants’ sharp tips like the peaked helmets of conquistadors.

 

It will be mine, I thought then. A flash of intuition that swept me with the strong, trusting arm of a lover into the next steps of the dance.

 

And mine it became.

 

For the first time since March, a house was mine.

 

So why didn’t I feel safe when the enormous door of Hacienda San Isidro groaned open and Rodolfo and I walked into the first courtyard of the estate?

 

A delicate tremor, the tremble of a monarch’s wings, fluttered at the back of my throat as I took in the hacienda.

 

Its buildings were muscular and ungainly, the awkwardly splayed limbs of a beast frozen halfway into adolescence. The rainy season was ending; the garden should have been shades of emerald at this point in September, but what scarce vegetation grew in the outer courtyard was as brown as the earth. Wild magueys scattered weed-like and drooping on either side of a grayed capilla-it must have once been white-and dotted the lawn that led up to the house. Rotting birds of paradise crowded in scattered beds, their heads submissively bowed before us as our boots crunched up the gravel path. The air felt heavier inside San Isidro’s walls, thicker, as if I had stepped into a strange, soundless dream where the stucco swallowed even the songs of the birds.

 

Outside of the chapel, we passed into an inner courtyard. Here, Rodolfo gestured to two rows of servants who stood at attention in front of their quarters and kitchen, waiting to greet us. Before they dipped their heads, a dozen pairs of black shining eyes swept over me, cool and assessing.

 

After explaining that the tlachiqueros were in the fields until dusk, Rodolfo made introductions: JosŽ Mendoza, once the right-hand man to the dismissed foreman Esteban Villalobos, had acted as record keeper for over a decade. He was the chief authority when Rodolfo was in the capital. Mendoza removed his weather-stained hat and placed it on his chest; his hands were gnarled with age and work. He looked old enough to be my grandfather.

 

Ana Luisa, the head of household, was a woman of about fifty, her steel-gray hair parted severely in the center, her plaits wound tightly around her head in a solemn crown. Her daughter, Paloma-Ana Luisa’s double with raven black hair and rounder cheeks-stood at her side. Other names rolled over me like water; I heard them but remembered none, for a figure caught my eye at an arched doorway at the far entrance to the servants’ courtyard.

 

A woman strode toward us, tall as a soldier and possessing all the same swagger. She wore a faded blue skirt that was short enough to reveal leather riding boots, stained with sweat; a wide-brimmed hat hung down her back by a cord around her neck, but if her complexion was any indication, she rarely wore it. Her skin was bronze and her hair streaked gold from long hours in the sun.

 

Stay out of the sun or you’ll never get a husband, T’a Fernanda once whispered snidely, pinching the skin on the back of my hand. Though she had never met my father, and my mother refused to reveal any information about how mixed his heritage was, it didn’t matter to T’a Fernanda: my hair and face gave her enough ammunition to find me undesirable. To refuse to let me stand next to her cream-pale daughters at the ball where I had met Rodolfo.

 

In the end, Fernanda’s behavior meant that I had a golden husband, and her daughters did not. Fate had been unkind to me, but sometimes, its pettiness worked in my favor.

 

The woman stopped directly in front of me. Her pale eyes were the mirror of Rodolfo’s, and her hair was the same color, sun-gilded and windswept. She gave me a swift, frank look from polished black shoes-quickly gathering dust-to my gloves and hat.

 

“You’re early,” she announced. “Is this my new sister?”

 

My lips parted in surprise. Who? Rodolfo had only ever mentioned a sister once in passing. She was called Juana; he said she was a few years younger than his own twenty-eight years, an age that led me to assume she was married. Never once had he mentioned her in the same breath as San Isidro.

 

“You look displeased,” Juana said after Rodolfo introduced me, a hint of amusement in her voice. It was not warm. “Did Rodolfo not warn you about me?” Her lips were dry, and thinner than was considered attractive. They disappeared entirely when she smiled; her teeth were almost too bright, even and ivory as a set of piano keys. “Don’t worry, I keep to myself. I won’t even be underfoot-I live over there.” She jutted her sharp chin over the line of servants, to a set of low buildings between the house and the capilla.

 

Not in the family’s house? “Why?” I blurted out.

 

Juana’s face shifted, resettled. “The house is terribly drafty this time of year,” she said lightly. “Isn’t it, Rodolfo?”

 

Rodolfo’s face looked a bit strained as he agreed and returned her smile. He was embarrassed by her, I realized with a start. Why? She was unusual, to be sure, but there was a frankness to her that reminded me of Pap‡’s no-nonsense manner. A simple, easy kind of authority, one that drew the attention of all the servants to her.

 

I could almost feel the air shift around me, toward her and her undeniable gravity. Rodolfo was not the master of this house.

 

Juana was.

 

A breathless fear uncurled in my chest; in response, I adjusted my posture, drawing my shoulders back as my father used to. There was nothing to be afraid of. This hacienda was mine. I married its patr—n, and Juana chose to live among the servants. I ought to be glad Juana was so embarrassing to Rodolfo that he barely spoke of her. She was no threat to me. Let her stay in this middle courtyard, in the servants’ quarters. The main house would be mine to rule. My domain.

 

Those thoughts quieted the unsettled lurch of my gut as we chatted with Juana for another moment longer, and then left the servants to their work and walked through the arched doorway into the innermost courtyard.

 

Rodolfo had asked me twice if I wanted to stay in the capital, in his family’s old Baroque apartment, but I refused. I wanted the house. I wanted to steal Mam‡ away from T’a Fernanda, bring her here and show it to her. I wanted to prove to Mam‡ that marrying Rodolfo was right. That my choice would open a door into a new life for us.

 

And now, as I at last faced the house, the slant of its gap-toothed roof, its dark windows and age-weathered white stucco walls, a feral feeling seized me.

 

Get back.

 

My spine stiffened. I wanted to fling myself back from the courtyard as if I had been burned.

 

But I refused to let myself falter. I tightened my grip on Rodolfo’s hand and banished the feeling. It was foolish. I was taken aback by Juana, but that was no reason to flee. Not when I had won so much.

 

Not when I had nothing to run to.

 

The air was thick and silent, our footsteps the only sound as we reached a set of low, broad steps leading up to the front door. I stepped onto the first, then froze, a gasp stealing the breath from my lips.

 

A dead rat splayed across the third step, its head tilted back at a broken angle, its stiff tongue jutting through yellowed teeth. Perhaps it had fallen from the roof, but its skull had split open as if it had been flung from a height with incredible force. Shining brains spilled onto the stone step, a splatter of rotten pink covered with crawling black flies.

US

Additional information

Dimensions	0.8000 × 5.4000 × 8.1900 in
Imprint	Berkley
Format	General Trade
ISBN-13	09780593436707
ISBN-10	0593436709
Author	Isabel Cañas
Audience	General / adult
BISAC	FIC015000, FIC031070
Subjects	paranormal books, horror books, libros, mystery thriller suspense, fiction books, mysteries and thrillers, historical fiction books, paranormal mystery, horror fiction, horror novels, suspense thriller books, best books, gothic fiction, new york times best sellers, best books 2022, Mexican history, gothic horror, gothic books, Mexican books, FIC015000, gothic, horror, thriller, fiction, suspense, paranormal, supernatural, novels, crime, thrillers, book club, historical fiction, scary books, FIC031070, booktok, thriller books, suspense books