House of Bone and Rain by Gabino Iglesias
I would like to thank Titan for a copy of this book in exchange for a fair and honest review
Publisher - Titan
Published - Out Now
Price - £9.99 paperback £5.03 ebook
For childhood friends Gabe, Xavier, Tavo, Paul, and Bimbo, death has always been close. Hurricanes. Car accidents. Gang violence. Suicide. Estamos rodeados de fantasmas was Gabe’s grandmother’s refrain. We are surrounded by ghosts. But this time is different. Bimbo's mom has been shot dead. We’re gonna kill the guys who killed her Bimbo swears. And they all agree.
Feral with grief, Bimbo has become unrecognizable, taking no prisoners in his search for names. As the boys strategize, a storm gathers far from the Puerto Rican coast. Hurricanes are known to carry evil spirits in their currents and bring them ashore, spirits which impose their own order.
There is a certain time in life when our friends are the most important people in our lives particularly as we are on the cusp of adulthood. They’re the people we tend to spend the most time with, are prepared to share our inner selves with and they seem to get us on a level that our parents do not any more. Those bonds are incredibly strong but how far would you go for them? Would you tell a lie? Protect them? Avenge them? Kill for them? This is the huge crux at the heart of Gabino Iglesias’ fantastic horror novel House of Bone and Rain where we meet five teenagers in Puerto Rico hit be a tragedy, pushed into a dark path of revenge and find themselves into a web of supernatural danger on top. It’s one of the best horror novels I’ve read in a while.
Gabe knows his friends are precious to him Paul, Tuvo, Xavier and Bambi have grown up together, live in each other’s houses and know each other’s lives intimately. They laugh, get high, play and also know when to stand up for one another be that when Tuvo gets attacked by his family for being gay or when Paul’s girlfriend gets unwanted attention. They’re all starting to find adulthood and Gabe’s own girlfriend Natalia starts to plan a new life for them in the US. But tragedy strikes when Bambi’s mother Maria is shot down at the nightclub she works at. She was a strong part of the boy’s lives and a surrogate to Gabe when his own father died in a storm. Bambi tells them that this was past of a gang attack and wants to find the people responsible and the boys out of a sense of honour follow on. Things soon get very bloody and point to a very dangerous gang which has a rumour of dark powers protecting them and while a huge hurricane called Maria bears down on the island the five find how far vengeance can push someone and also how destructive it can be too.
This story grips you in number of ways and in particular the feeling that it’s a whispered confessional. Gabe who is our primary narrator bar the odd chapter focusing on an external character Prather heart out in this story. A tough guy who is happy to also share vulnerabilities with us. The kind that only his friends, close family and girlfriend see. He plants a picture of this group that have lived in each other’s pockets, had to survive a hard life in Puerto Rico and yet will do anything for one another. For a tale that will move into horror, violence and intense drama the early chapters are also filled with a group that love one another as brothers. It’s quite key to how the rest of the story goes that we know how close these charters are and how much they are prepared to do for one another. These relationships are so tight that anything happening to one means the others will act. The bit we as the reader finds out is how far things go.
In many ways this could have been a crime thriller and it would on that still be excellent. Maria’s death is a catalyst where Bambi beseeched the others to help him find his mother’s killers. From trying to find the first witness things escalate and we as the witness to Gabe’s tale get to see the acts the guys are surprised to find they are prepared to get involved with. If these were tough gang members perhaps it would have lost its edge but the five really are not they’re just five teenagers on the verge of adulthood and we get shocked that Gabe a solid hard worker, muscled and wears glasses suddenly finds that he is very capable of violence and letting his own rage at events finally pour out. This tale is very much about the seductive power of revenge and anger but also importantly the consequences it has not just on those around you but the souls of those carrying it out. In many ways horror is often about surviving a monster and there are ones to are here but for me the heart of this story is will our own main characters survive and also prevent themselves becoming monsters forever.
What moves it beyond a crime thriller is the way the events we follow are tinged with a growing sense of the supernatural. In many ways Iglesias supports that by bringing Puerto Rican history and culture to life and then highlighting the strange ghost stories and superstitions of the island. This is a place where many religions cross paths and blend gods from Christian and African traditions and there are places people are afraid to go. Just as much as the appropriately named hurricane Maria beats down on the island we see these storms are known for bringing monsters and there are many dark interludes where we see these strange events take place and exact a high cost from the very young to the very old. It paints a picture that Gabe’s actions are all happenings against a backdrop of a powerful forces that may protect and seek to hard his friends. This builds and builds as we discover the gang that is responsible for Maria’s murder is well known for some mysterious rituals out at sea.
The final act of the book is brilliantly constructed with the crime elements being mixed with true cosmic horror and the tension rises and rises that we increasingly feel Gabe and his friends are out of their depth and going to be in trouble. Iglesias can turn a violent fight into something much more supernatural and terrifying which really hammers home how big these powers are and that drives us all to the book’s finale. It beautifully comes together as Gabe realises the price for his actions and keeps having to ask himself if this is worth it and the response he makes is often hitting us hard as to does he actually have any choices or is he going to be sucked into this dark world he finds himself now a part of. We are warned at the start we are all part of ghost stories but who is now being haunted?
House of Bone and Rain has the feel of an intimate confession told to us being whispered in the dark . Finely balanced like a knife being waved between the forces of love and friendship on one side and the dangers of violence and dark magic on the other. We’re never too sure either up to the end which way the knife is finally fall on. Intimate, powerful and genuinely unsettling it’s a beautiful story I very strongly recommend.
