Latine Titles Perfect for Fall
Witch of Wild Things by Raquel Vasquez Gilliland
Sage Flores has been running from her family for years—after the death of her younger sister Sky 3 years ago she took off. Now she is back in Cranberry, Virginia with only what she could fit in her van, some basil starts, and the ghost of her dead sister who only shows up when she cries. Oh, and one other thing about Sage’s family? They were cursed by Old Gods, and now all of the women of the family have been touched by magic. With Sage’s own magical connection to plants, another sister’s emotional control of the weather, and Sky’s ghost not behaving the way ghosts are supposed to, Sage feels more than a little in over her head. Matters are even more complicated when Tennessee Reyes also shows up—the boy her broke her heart over AIM over a decade ago, but he doesn’t know it. With a ghost to shepherd to the other side, a burgeoning romance, and family relationships to mend, Sage uses all her gifts to make everything right in this warm, spellbinding, romantic journey.
Cemetery Boys by Aiden Thomas
When his very traditional Latinx family struggles to accept his true gender, Yadriel sets out to prove that he is a real brujo by summoning the ghost of his murdered cousin. Aided by his cousin and best friend Maritza, he is able to successfully preform the ritual. Only, he doesn’t summon the ghost of his cousin—instead the ghost of Julian Diaz appears. Julian—resident bad boy of their school—doesn’t want to leave once summoned, and tasks Yadriel with helping him tie up some loose ends. But the more time the boys spend together, figuring out what happened to Julian and trying to uncover the mystery of Yadriel’s cousin, the less and less Yadriel wants Julian to disappear. This is a story of heart-warming new romance, family drama, and good ol’ fashioned murder mystery, layered on top of the rich tapestry that is Eastern LA’s Latinx culture. This paranormal teen romcom blends the anxiety of self-acceptance with the desire to uphold tradition in an affirming and downright enjoyable romp.
The Inheritance of Orquídea Divinia by Zoraida Córdova
I read this book over two years ago now, and I still think of its beautiful story and enthralling imagery, and if you want a softer family story that doesn’t shy away from the thorns of grief and pain—this is the book for you. The Montoyas are used to living a life without explanations—why their pantry never emptied, why their grandmother, the matriarch, always refused to leave their home in Four Rivers, not even for baptisms, weddings, or graduations. But when she calls the whole family back for her funeral and to collect their inheritance, they are only left with more questions when she turns into a tree. Seven years pass and the grandchildren’s inheritances manifest in different, magical ways, but when a shadowy figure begins picking off members of the family one by one, three of them decide they must return to Ecuador, their grandmother’s birthplace, to find answers and to hopefully save their family’s line. Alternating between Orquídea’s past and her grandchildren in the present, this story is magical and immersive, showing the power to be found in family history but also in leaning into the help of your loved ones.
Family Lore by Elizabeth Acevedo
The Elizabeth Acevedo, the YA powerhouse novelist, has published her adult debut, and we here at Dog-Eared Books could not be more excited about it. Family Lore is about one Dominican American family, told from the perspective of several of its women as they all await a living wake that will change their lives. A living wake you say? Yes—one of the women, Flor, has a gift of knowing when someone will die. So when she contacts her sisters and tells them she wants to have a living wake to bring together all their friends and family in just three days, her sisters can’t help but wonder whose death she’s seen, but she won’t say another word about it. Flor isn’t the only one with a secret, though, and every generation of this family has problems and secrets of their own to wrangle with. Weaving together the voices of different generations, jumping from Santo Domingo to New York City, past to present, this story shows how leaning into family and friends is how to best navigate the mess we call life. Wise, funny, and full of compassion, Acevedo transforms the written page into a home for anyone who needs it.
Piñata by Leopoldo Gout
Described as A Head Full of Ghosts (which, wow, my favorite horror novel of all time) meets Mexican Gothic (a genre-defining modern classic), Piñata follows Carmen Sanchez as she goes back to her home country, Mexico, to oversee the renovation of a beautiful, ancient cathedral into a trendy boutique hotel. She is joined by her teenaged daughters, Izel and Luna, who are left largely unsupervised to explore what is to them a foreign city. But problems don’t stop arising when the locals treat the Sanchez women like outsiders and the contractors openly defy Carmen and try and sabotage her hard work. After Luna is nearly injured at the construction site, Carmen decides she and the girls have had enough and pack them up to go back home to New York. But their bad luck seems to have followed them back to the states, and malevolent, unexplainable things keep swarming the Sanchez family, and it might already be too late to escape what’s been awakened. Inspired by the true history of Spanish conquistadors using piñatas to force Aztec children to break their gods, this is a possession horror story about how the repercussions of the past can return to haunt us. Thought-provoking, unique, and violent, Gout has written a modern-day possession story you won’t soon forget.
The Haunting of Alejandra by V. Castro
Alejandra struggles with her identity—to her husband she is a wife, to her children, a mother, to her adoptive mom she is a daughter, but none of them can see the darkness that threatens to consume her. And absolutely no one else can see what Alejandra seems when the despair truly threatens—an apparition of woman crying in a tattered white gown. In therapy, Alejandra begins exploring her family’s history, including that of her birth mother she never knew. As she digs deeper and deeper into the lives of her biological family, she realizes heartbreak and tragedy are not the only things she has in common with her ancestors—the crying woman followed them too. This ghost is La Llorona the vengeful, murderous ghost of Mexican legend, and she won’t leave until Alejandra follows her into the darkness just like all the women in her family before her. But Alejandra didn’t just inherit her family’s pain—she inherited their strength, too, and she will have to call on all of it to survive. An intricate tale of folklore, generational trauma, colonization, and the horror at the heart of motherhood, if you haven’t picked up V. Castro yet—take this as your sign.
