Title: The Haunting of Chavez RavineAuthor: Debra Castaneda
Series: Chavez Ravine Stories #3
First Published: August 6, 2024
Publisher: Self-Published
Pages: 87
Genre: Historical Fiction, Horror
Format: Ebook
Source: Kindle Unlimited
Rating:
Synopsis:
Los Angeles, 1948. Lily Bantacorte's life at home is unbearable. Her little brothers are demanding and her lecherous stepfather won't leave her alone. So Lily turns to her estranged aunt in Chavez Ravine for a place to stay, but her timing couldn’t be worse.
Lily isn’t the only new arrival in Chavez Ravine. La Llorona, the legendary ghost of Mexican folklore, has taken up residence too. Aunt Lencha is a famous healer, and maybe even a witch, and the community is counting on her to save them from the ghostly weeping woman. As encounters with La Llorona escalate, Lily must confront her fears and beliefs if she’s going to survive.
Get the Book: AmazonReview
The Haunting of Chavez Ravine is a haunting novella about a young woman named Lily living in a poor community in 1940’s Los Angeles haunted by the dreaded La Llorona. I instantly adored Lily and was immediately invested in her as a character, the ordeals that she faces were truly horrifying and the ending had me in a chokehold. The book was impossible to put down!
The story had so many things that I love: horror ✔, history ✔, and folklore ✔; all topics that I always enjoy deep diving wrapped up in one divine novella. I love when a fiction book can teach me about a place and a history that I knew nothing about. At the center of this story is a community on the brink: Chavez Ravine used to be home to a Mexican-American community that was eventually forced out to build what is now the Dodger Stadium. Debra Castaneda reveals in the afterword that her family once lived in that very community, and the love that she has for that place shines through. Through her prose I felt like I was transported back in time and fully immersed in the setting.
This was my second book by Debra Castaneda and it sealed it for me that she is an author for me. I loved this book to pieces and have been obsessing over La Llorona from the second I put the book down and I’m excited to read more stories about her. I absolutely plan to read the rest of the Chavez Ravine Stories that Castaneda has published and am so happy that I found this book.
Quote
“Even with La Llorona in Chavez Ravine, her mother’s house—with Emiliano—was a scarier place to be.”
Content Warnings
View Spoiler »About the Author
About Debra Castaneda
Debra Castaneda is an award-winning horror and dark fiction author based on the central coast of California.
Her works include “The Devil’s Shallows,” “The Root Witch,” “The Copper Man,” and “Circus at Devil’s Landing” which comprise the Dark Earth Rising series of standalone novels, and “The Monsters of Chavez Ravine,” an International Latino Book Awards gold medal winner.
Debra loves writing character-driven stories about people who experience scary things, and how they react when confronted with the unexpected. She’s committed to representing Latinas and Latinos in her books.
For inspiration, she draws from her experience as a TV and radio journalist, and as a third-generation Mexican American. Over the years, she’s lived in Los Angeles, Dallas, Chicago, Salt Lake City, Portland, and the San Francisco Bay area.
Debra now lives in Capitola, California with her husband. She enjoys rediscovering the Mexican dishes of her childhood and texting her two daughters about her latest binge-watch.
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