e-ALC, 09:08:54
Narrated by: Danyeli Rodriguez del Orbe
Release Date: March 10, 2026
Published by: HarperCollins
Read from: March 3-4, 2026
Stand-alone
Source: Netgalley (I received this ALC free from the publisher and Netgalley. This did nothing to influence my review!)
Content Warning: Violence, Blood, Injury/injury Detail, Abortion, Car Accident, Sexism, Child Death, Bullying, Confinement
For Readers Interested In: Adult, Audio, Bombshell/Cliff-Hanger Endings, Horror, Sparkly Covers, Most Anticipated, Paranormal (Demons), Stand-alone, Thrillers, Racial/Ethnic Diversity (Afro Latinx/ Dominican)Demons clash with inheritance claims as secrets unfold and violence is unleashed over twelve harrowing hours trapped in a house with the worst thing imaginable: family.
When Papi Ramon, the patriarch of the wealthy Abreu family dies, he gives the family one last message in the will: “One of you is el bacà, the demon that I made a deal with. Get rid of them or you will be damned.” Xiomara, the uncontested favorite of Papi Ramon (and therefore the least liked in the family), watches as everyone dismisses this as the joke of a senile old man and demands the lawyer obtain the previous will Papi wrote.
While the lawyer drives back to his office, a storm breaks out, forcing the entire family—Xiomara’s aunts and uncles and cousins—to remain in the house. And the words of Papi’s will hangs over their heads even heavier than the rain clouds. Over the course of the night, scandal after scandal is revealed to the public about the family. Suddenly a tense few hours of surviving her family turns into a vicious night of recrimination, violence, accusations…and murder.
Xiomara is faced with an impossible task: uproot a demon and somehow kill it or excise the ghosts that linger within her own family.
And the clock is ticking…
*MY THOUGHTS*
This had everything I wanted in a book. I just KNEW I was going to love it. But it’s true when they say the narrator can make or break and audio book. For some reason this one was rough for me. I tried all my usual tricks and it just didn’t work.
OK so the premise was gooooood. I too would act this way if the people I knew had acted like this to my mommy. Y’all would have got me messed up lol But I LOVED the way this story was told. There was SO MUCH drama. And the way they just kept circling the drain and then BAM the climax and then BAM BAM the ending. OMG I legit stopped walking when I got to the end. I had to rewind it and listen again. Idk, I can’t explain it, but this book was just so cool to me. I don’t think I’ve ever read a book like that.
I was actually hella shocked that I loved this one because I am usually a character driven reader. And literally no one in this book has any depth and there’s no real like information about the characters or anything. It’s more of a plot driven book, and those aren’t my favorite, but Lordt I couldn’t pry my AirPods away from my ears. I had to know where it was going and then it just ended and I was like WHAT?! There is a demon in this, but I don’t want to say too much about it because spoilers. It comes at a weird time and might give too much away. If y’all pick this up, I want y’all to be like wtf like I did lolol
But even with me liking it those aspects so much, I hate to say it, but I hated the narrator. They were so monotone. I knew something was wrong when I kept falling asleep. So I had to rewind it, and then speed it up, and then start again. And then it happened again. So I put it down for a bit and then came back to it. But that didn’t work either. I started listening to another audio while I was listening to this one and it finally hit me. They sounded the same when nothing was happening, at the climax of the story, and everything in-between. It upsetting because I know I would have loved this so much more had the narrator been ok. And like no, it didn’t make this a bad book because the meat and potatoes were still there, but it was like you added a bad sauce that changed it.
This was a creative ass book and I’m so glad I picked it up. But I do wish that i had eye ball read it. So basically, pick this up, but only read it with your eye balls. Unless you don’t mind narrators. But as for me, the audio of this one wasn’t for me.
Overall, I give this
