Silver Nitrate

By: Silvia Moreno-Garcia

Narrated by: Gisela Chípe

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • From the author of The Daughter of Doctor Moreau and Mexican Gothic comes a fabulous meld of Mexican horror movies and Nazi occultism: a dark thriller about the curse that haunts a legendary lost film—and awakens one woman’s hidden powers.

“No one punctures the skin of reality to reveal the lurking, sinister magic beneath better than Silvia Moreno-Garcia.”—Kiersten White, author of Hide

LOCUS AWARD FINALIST • A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: The New York Times Book Review, The Washington Post, Tordotcom, Polygon, CrimeReads, BookPage, Book Riot

Montserrat has always been overlooked. She’s a talented sound editor, but she’s left out of the boys’ club running the film industry in ’90s Mexico City. And she’s all but invisible to her best friend, Tristán, a charming if faded soap opera star, though she’s been in love with him since childhood.

Then Tristán discovers his new neighbor is the cult horror director Abel Urueta, and the legendary auteur claims he can change their lives—even if his tale of a Nazi occultist imbuing magic into highly volatile silver nitrate stock sounds like sheer fantasy. The magic film was never finished, which is why, Urueta swears, his career vanished overnight. He is cursed.

Now the director wants Montserrat and Tristán to help him shoot the missing scene and lift the curse . . . but Montserrat soon notices a dark presence following her, and Tristán begins seeing the ghost of his ex-girlfriend.

As they work together to unravel the mystery of the film and the obscure occultist who once roamed their city, Montserrat and Tristán may find that sorcerers and magic are not only the stuff of movies.

Old Mexican Power Rangers

The beginning was somewhat slow but it does pay off! This was an entertaining, funny, and a lovecraft-ian style book. This author is a great story teller and I haven’t experienced that in awhile with recent books.
I’m Mexican myself and enjoy lovecraft, but also am put off because he was a racist guy. This kind pokes at that in an entertaining way.

You meet some older characters throughout the story and I just kept picturing them as aged Mexican actors. It was awesome and hence the title of this review.

The narrator was very choppy. To me it felt like someone forced to read in class after being picked up popcorn style.
To my partner, it seemed like someone who just took a Spanish class and wanted to show off the words they can say right.
You get used to it, but it makes the beginning slower because you have to get used to them.

This is my 3rd book by this author and I’m looking forward to listening to more.

Slow burn-great story!

It felt like Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade meets the Skeleton Key meets The Ninth Gate. Loved the characters and their development. Great story that kept me interested!

I liked it!

This was recommended to me by a coworker and although her description was a little off, I still enjoyed the story :)

the Quick and the... is it over?

I really enjoyed this story and the narrator but it's a lot of foreplay for a short and quick climax.

Less story and more factoids

I really wanted to love this novel. I could tell the author was building up a strong independent female protagonist and I am a huge horror fan. But there was more time focused on technical details and factoids about film sound and production and Nazi history than actual character development or description of the present moments. Even the dialogue was very dry and often used as a tool to regurgitate research and historical data instead of a natural flow of conversation. The book could probably be about a half or third of the actual length if you cut out all the sterile research and made it more human. Obviously a capable writer but I’m not sure what audience she’s writing for exactly. Maybe people who want more of a documentary than straight fiction just not my thing.

Emocionante

Me ha gustado, es el segundo libro que leo de esta autora y la verdad es que disfruto mucho leyéndola, me encanto que la trama se desarrolla en la ciudad de México, en Polanco para ser mas específicos asi que bueno, yo sentía que podía ver a los personajes ahí caminando en las calles y llevando la acción y los diálogos enfrente de mi. También me encanta el cine y aquí se mencionan varias películas viejitas de terror así que bueno, yo mas que en mi elemento. me ha fascinado eso de la magia y los conjuros. En fin, todo el libro me ha encantado! sin duda lo volveré a leer muy pronto.

Fun little read..

there’s a good mix of surrealism, magical realism, and a little bit of horror thrown in for good measure... The narration was great!

Slow and steady

This book is rich in real-world building - Mexico in the 1990s, and films. And that is impressive. But as a “scary” story for me it quite misses the mark, and leaves some explanations undone and some characters doing things that seem out of character.

I listened to this book and the narrator was phenomenal though!

good story teling!

I loved it characters are developed well. story flows nicely and the performance was well done.

two thumbs up

just spooky enough to induce the right amount of shiver at the moments

the eerie and macabre subject matter is subtle and carefully understated somewhat casually without being overplayed or too excessive in gore/shock value

definitely not too overly romantic or racy

believable and empathetic characters

great narrator

very, very well done 👍👍

thank you guys