The Queen of the Cicadas

I wouldn't quite call this horror, more weird dark fiction. It was a solid read though. 

I like books that blend weird horror with the real horrors of racism/homophobia/etc and this did a good job of that. 

I think the atmosphere could have been darker though. There was some seriously fucked up stuff happening but the main characters seemed to just take it in stride. This lead to things being much less tense and it never got my heart rate going like top tier horror can. 

I liked that the cosmic horror <spoiler> ended up being an anti-racist force for good and liberation of indigenous mesoamericana culture </spoiler> but the <spoiler> chosen bloodline/founding a new religion arc </spoiler> of the last few chapters felt rushed and a bit contrived given the much slower pacing of the rest of the book. 

I'd definitely read more of her books. 

A mesmerising read, the beautiful writing by Castro is sure to pull in any fan of folklore horror stories. Most people must have heard of Bloody Mary or The Candyman, the La Reina de Las Chicharras myth is similar, say her name into a mirror three times and you’ll see her, an event you’re sure to regret. I recently saw the TV series Penny Dreadful City of Angels and was really looking forward to seeing that Mexican/American Folklore come to life on the screen, in the end I was disappointed, a very flat story that was rather muddled…. The Queen of The Cicadas meets everything I wanted from that series. It is dark, devastating and sexy, the myth of La Reina de Las Chicharras was absorbing and I could hardly put down the book, I was always telling myself “one more page”.

The story follows Belinda and Hector in present day time experiencing a paranormal event, their research pulls them into the history of a farmworker, Milagros, who is brutally murdered in the 1950’s and a series of vengeance attacks on those responsible and on them that ignored the crime. I found myself siding with the Queen which is not something you usually expect when dealing with these Urban Legends, the punishment she deals out seemed perfectly reasonably to me. As the story progresses I really liked how Castro uses modern technology to enable the existence of the Queen to go viral, it made her feel more life like, one day there might even be videos of her on Twitter.

The writing is impeccable, the violence was graphic just enough to make the point, and the violence dealt to Milagros had me sitting there with my mouth open, even the scenes with sex were very tasteful, a lot of books can make you cringe with awkward sex but there is none of that here, each scene was beautiful. The book builds up your fear ready for big reveals, there lots of things happening out of the corner of eyes, which keeps you on the edge of your seat.

I have really enjoyed this, it has left me wondering why I don’t read more horror, I really need to get out there and look for more, V. Castro has moved onto my favourite authors list and I’ll be looking at what else she has.

Blog review: felcherman.wordpress.com/2021/06/29/blog-tour-the-queen-of-the-cicadas-by-v-castro/