The execution of Beatriz’s father happened during the Mexican War for Independence. After his death, she and her mother lost everything. So when Beatriz meets Don Rodolfo Solórzano, she seizes the opportunity to make an impression. Soon, they’re married, and she is on her way to Hacienda San Isidro, hoping she can build a life for herself and bring her mother to join her.

But Beatriz discovers quickly that the hacienda is not the sanctuary she hoped for. Instead, she feels the house in her bones: the cold that seeps from its walls, the voices calling out to her, and the darkness that weighs on her mind and threatens to suffocate her.

No one else is in the house at night, but she can’t take it. Juana, Don Solorzano’s sister, is cold and brutish. Ana Luisa, the head of the household staff, is unapproachable, remaining only in the kitchen and never staying after dark. So, Beatriz is alone when gory, haunting visions begin to appear. Her only savior is Padre Andres, a young priest who seems to be the only other person able to feel and see what Beatriz is experiencing.

The Hacienda is more than a gothic tale set in 19th-century Mexico; it also explores the ghosts of colonialism that remain long after the conquerors leave. The effects of violent invasion, forced assimilation, the casta system imposed by the conqueror, and the loss of tradition can leave a native population grasping for spiritual salvation in its many forms.

“It started because I am afraid of the dark,” Cañas explains in the opening of her author’s note. But it doesn’t end there. This fear, coupled with the author’s historical research into the period immediately following Mexico’s War for Independence, creates an intense and haunting setting for a horror story. As is the case with historical periods, Cañas writes, they are made up of more than dates of battle and political maneuvering in affluent capitals. It is also “the rhythms of daily life in towns that are silenced, the spirits that move in the shadows cast by the conquerors’ history books.” And when paired with the supernatural effects of gothic fiction, it makes for a literary horror story unlike any other.