This is the first of Gabino Igleasias books that I’ve read and it certainly won’t be the last. I’ve taken a little while to write this as I was toying with whether or not to give this 5 stars or not. I’d say this is a 4.5 read for me.

The book is focuses around a group of five childhood friends and their quest to avenge one of their mothers who was brutally gunned down and left for dead. To say that this story is raw, emotional, violent and disturbing is probably an understatement. And I ate it up, page after page. Igleasias has the power to transport you straight into a story, and feel that everything is completely authentic, even at the more supernatural and mythical elements of the book started to come into play, I questioned nothing. Everything fit so perfectly. There were many times this book made me sit up and go “sorry what just happened”, and that’s the kind of twists I love.

I would say that although I picked this up expecting to just get a horror novel, more unfolded than I initially expected. The story is told mostly through Gabes perspective and he takes you along for the ride, every time I thought it was too dangerous, it took a darker more twisted turn. Probably one of my most surprising and favourite reads.

Thank you to Titan Books and NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This book is one of the most emotional books I think I have read in a long time. It’s brutal and yet beautiful. It explores so much be it both mythical and real and everything in between but at the heart it is coming of age story that focuses on the cruelty that is in the world but also the beauty.

The writing is absolutely fantastic. I am not sure I’ve ever read anything like it in the way that Iglesias captures the human condition but also the brutality of not only nature but humanity as well. It’s tense and yet emotional. Dark and yet light. I will admit it took me longer to read than normal but that was because I think this book needs to be savoured, to really understand what the author is showing and the story.

Everything from the characters to the writing is perfect and I can honestly say this was an easy if emotional 5 stars.
As always thank you to Titan Books and Netgalley for my copy. My review is always honest, truthful and freely given.

I read an eARC of this book on NetGalley so thank you to the author and publisher.

This book was so powerful, shocking and raw. It’s incredible. The intensity starts from the first page and it doesn’t let up for even one minute. It’s a rare talent that can maintain that level of intensity without becoming overwhelming and losing tightness of plot, but this one manages it so well.

This book perfectly blends both human, supernatural and natural world threats. There is no safety for the characters as they try to survive a hurricane, the violence of people and a threat that begins to unveil as they walk down a path there is no return from.

We follow a group of friends who seek to support one of their number after his mother is murdered. And really, this is a story of friendship, of the close bonds formed through stepping up for your friends when they need you, through the way a good friend can make all the difference. This is a touching, emotional, often brutal story with a thread of hope in the darkness through the kindness and companionship.

This book was excellent. I couldn’t put it down.

Back in 2023 I read Gabino Iglesias’ The Devil Takes You Home and said at the time it was one of my books of the year. Stunning, I think I called it.

And now we have House of Bone and Rain.

If you’ll permit me a short outburst? If you’re of a delicate nature, look away now.

Holy *fuck*. THIS BOOK. OMG.

Ahem.

Actually, if you’re of a delicate nature and that offends you, this book is not for you. Know only that you’re missing out on something incredible.

I thought (and still think) that The Devil Takes You Home is incredible, and chances are if you’ve spoken to me at any point over the past year and mentioned books even in passing, I’ll have got this kind of semi-crazed look in my eyes and said you HAVE to read this.

Brace yourselves, cos Iglesias has got a new one. He has a way with language and setting and you can just feel the thunderstorm rising and the shadows moving and what’s that in the corner OMG RUN RUN NOW RUN FAST.

It’s brutal and dark and heartbreaking and spiritual and tense and a whole load of other words that just end up with me, semi-crazed eyeball guy, going JUST READ THIS.

Add it to your list folks. Write it down in block capitals, in your best pen or pencil, and underline that title twice. Heck, make it three times.

I can’t recommend this highly enough.

I was really excited for this one and the first third lived up to expectations with jarring violence and great narration, but with the passing of hurricane Maria, the story stagnated and Gabe and the plot drifted into a repetitive cycle, which the last quarter of the book couldn't make up for.

Iglesias is clearly a talent and a boon to the industry given his propensity to elevate others, but this doesn't live up to the likes of Zero Saints and genuinely felt like something that would feel more powerful if it were 150 pages shorter.

This was fine. I don't think I was the intended audience as some parts were confusing however that's more cultural.

"All stories are ghost stories"

This book broke me. I finished it then cried. I cried out the emotion and the tension and the sheer beautiful brutality of it. This author has a powerful relationship with language and it shows in every part of the storytelling.

"Revenge is the most beautiful, most destructive ballet in the world"

This is a story about vengeance but it is also a story about the power of friendship and the endurance of pain, both emotional and spiritual. It is honest and dark and incredibly moving, also brutally realistic and heart stoppingly tense.
It has fantastical elements but they feel like they exist in reality just outside our perception of the world, I haven't read anything for a long long time that got to me quite like this story and these characters did.

In The Devil Takes You Home there's a scene I could describe to you in intricate detail even years after reading it. House Of Bone and Rain has about five such scenes. This tells me that Gabino Iglesias is only just getting started. And thank goodness for that.

Highly Recommended. But be prepared to go without sleep and don't look behind you.

House of Bone and Rain is a novel about revenge, as five Puerto Rican friends must come together to face the horrors in their lives. Five friends—Gabe, Xavier, Tavo, Paul, and Bimbo—in Puerto Rico are used to death, hearing all stories are ghost stories, but when Bimbo's mother is killed, they agree to help him avenge her. As they fight their way to get information, a hurricane comes, and the lines between revenge, natural disaster, and otherworldly happenings are blurred.

Though positioned as a horror novel, House of Bone and Rain is more complex than that (the comparisons with Stand By Me perhaps reflect this fact well). The narrative is told mostly from Gabe's perspective and it offers a complex picture of not only these friends, but others around them, and the lives they lead. Gabe, for example, is torn between his home, his friends, and the memory of his father's death, and his girlfriend's dream of leaving Puerto Rico. Even as Gabe is drawn into the violence of revenge and taking on a drug kingpin, he is also looking for purpose, and also sees the mystical happenings that show the world not to be as simple as some paint it.

The narrative is a coming-of-age story mixed with a classic revenge narrative: boys growing up and violence begetting violence, but also the undercurrent of colonialism and ecological collapse. It feels like a crime thriller film mixed with horror and I really enjoyed that, and the fact it didn't shy away from the weird side of the horror as well. If you go into the book just expecting horror, you might find a lot of the book quite a different tone, but there's a lot packed into it. Iglesias doesn't give answers to everything and this works well as a coming-of-age novel that acknowledges the things that haunt you as you grow up can't always be resolved or explained away.

I was a big fan of Gabino Iglesias’ Zero Saints when I read it back in 2015 and The Devil Takes You Home was my favourite book of 2022 (I’m not saying that makes me unique – the book won Shirley Jackson and Bram Stoker awards) so I had big hopes and the smallest amount of trepidation in reading his new book House of Bone and Rain.
I’m pleased to say that Iglesias’ new book is a VERY worthy follow up I read in two sessions: and even that was trying not to race through it to savour the writing.
The author uses a phrase early on – Todas las historias de fantasmas – All stories are ghost stories. And three stand alone books in now it’s clear that’s his philosophy: whether a small time crook, a hitman’s mission or, as here, in the tale of childhood friends Gabe, Xavier, Tavo, Paul and Bimbo trying to live and survive in Puerto Rico, we may start off in a world of crime, but the ghosts are always close by.
Things start bad here and get worse quickly. Bimbo’s mother has been shot dead and Bimbo wants revenge. And because the friends have a motto they live by: ‘someone (expletive) with one of us, they (expletive) with all of us…’ they’re there for him. Even if it means going through the ranks of the biggest drug czar in Puerto Rico.
There’s an ill wind blowing in – literally: as the boys start planning revenge, Hurricane Maria is getting closer, and according to local lore, such storms bring evil spirits with them.
The book starts big and never slows down – it’s the opposite of a slow burn…EXCEPT… are we really talking supernatural elements here or is it just local superstition? When the answer comes with the storm it’s done with the author’s previous horrible beauty. I found myself noting and re-reading long passages once I’d finished the book (too caught up in the narrative first time round) just to marvel at the way he can write such horrible things so incredibly well.
This book is a lot of things – a brutal coming of age story, an eco-political insight, a story of friendship, trust and loyalty…and some nasty things happening.
To say more than that would spoil things – but if you enjoyed the author’s previous work you’ll need no more urging to pick this one up. And if you haven’t? You’ve not read anything like this before.