Tag Archives: Silvia Moreno-Garcia

Published in 2015 by Solaris Books, with a nice new paperback edition released in 2022, Signal to Noise was Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s debut novel, an intriguing tale of music, magic and the recklessness of youth that introduced the world to her genre-swapping talents. In Mexico City in the late 80s, three school friends – Meche, Sebastian and Daniela – learn how to cast spells by listening to vinyl records, using their newfound power to get the things any teenager wants: money, attention, love, freedom. Twenty years later, Meche returns to Mexico City for the funeral of her absent father, and finds herself reliving those early years, and the inevitable pain that came as a result of her dabbling in power she didn’t understand.

Set in Mexico City in the 70s, Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s historical noir Velvet Was the Night – her seventh novel, released in 2021 – is tale of two very different people struggling for identity in a city wracked by political turmoil. In the wake of disrupted protests and violence on the streets, tensions in Mexico City are running high. When Maite, an unhappy secretary who spends her free time reading romantic comics and collecting records (and occasionally stealing little trinkets from her neighbours), agrees to feed her neighbour’s cat for a few days, little does she realise the peril she’ll soon be in, or what it will do to her. Dangerous men are looking for her neighbour, Leonora, and one of them – a Hawk named Elvis, who prefers music to violence – finds himself drawn to Maite even as he struggles to understand his role, and who he wants to be.

Originally released in 2020 on a small press (Agora Books), Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s fifth novel now has a much-deserved wider publication (in the UK via Jo Fletcher Books), giving more readers the opportunity to enjoy this dark, slow-burn noir set in Baja California. Viridiana is a dreamer, determined to find her way out of her dull life in Desengaño and into something brighter, worried that if she doesn’t then she’ll find herself swallowed up by the tedium of her family and small-town life. When she begins working for a trio of wealthy American tourists, she’s quickly swept up in the glamour and romance of their lives, enchanted by the possibilities that life with them might offer. When one of the Americans dies though, Viridiana finds herself tangled up in a dangerous game that she’s not sure she’s prepared for, and forced to choose who she really wants to be.

First published in 2017, Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s The Beautiful Ones is back in print in a lovely new 2021 edition from Jo Fletcher Books (or via Tor in the US), and deservedly so. With the carefully observed characters and social customs of a novel of manners, set in a fictional world influenced by late-19th Century Europe and with a dash of telekinesis added in for a little bit of a fantasy edge, it’s a rich and characterful social drama, a slow-burn romantic love triangle, and a tale of conformity and conflict. The story begins in the city of Loisail during the Grand Season, with its glittering balls attended by the Beautiful Ones – the cream of society – and revolves around a trio of characters caught in a tangle of history, passion and deception.