Mexican Gothic

Noemí Taboada is a 22-year-old wealthy socialite. She goes to see her cousin Catalina, who is living with her husband's family in the High Place, a mansion located near a small village in the mountains. Catalina has written asking for help. She sees ghosts and believes that her husband, Virgil, is poisoning her. Virgil Doyle comes from a once-wealthy family that has run out of money. Noemí worries that the Doyles are after Catalina's bank account.

At the High Place, Catalina has a fever and is ranting about ghosts in the walls. She is being treated by the family doctor, Dr. Arthur Cummins. Noemí is given limited access to Catalina. Catalina asks Noemí to secretly pick up medicine (a tincture) from the town healer, Marta Duval. But the tincture causes a seizure, and Noemí's visits with Catalina are limited further.

Noemí eventually learns that High Place was built by the Doyle brothers, Leland and Howard (Virgil's father). They also re-opened the town's old silver mines. Howard's first wife was Agnes, who died. Howard remarried Agnes's sister, Alice, and they had two children, Ruth and Virgil. Meanwhile, Leland married Dorothy, and they had Michael and Florence.

Ruth fell in love with a man who mysteriously disappeared. Instead, Ruth was ordered to marry Michael. Before the wedding, she drugs and shoots up the household. Leland, Dorothy, Michael and Alice were killed. Then, Ruth killed herself. The mines were closed around that time. Florence later married and had Francis. But her husband, Richard, went raving mad and was found dead in a ravine. Now, the only Doyles left are Howard, Florence, Francis and Virgil.

As Noemí stays in the house, she starts to dream of ghosts, have strange visions involving the Foyles and she sees a golden woman climbing out from the walls. Noemí forges a friendship with Francis, but he warns her not to trust the rest of them. Virgil is charming but seems predatory. Florence is strict and scolds Noemí constantly. And Howard is old, controlling and a eugenics enthusiast. There are also rumors that the family is cursed. In addition to the family's sordid history, there is a sickness that has at times caused fevers, madness and death in many of the family's workers and staff.

As Noemí's dreams get worse and she starts sleepwalking, and she decides to leave High Place for now. At that point, the Doyles reveal they have no intention of letting her go. They tell her the truth, that Howard discovered a long time ago a mushroom that had the ability to heal and extend life. It is especially potent within the Doyle's bloodline, which is why they have an incestuous family history. This house and the air in it is infused with the mushroom's spores, which has grown around and under it, forming a symbiotic relationship with the house and its inhabitants. It also allows a level of control over people that have inhaled its spores.

The spores have an ability to collect and store memories. Noemí's visions are actually the family's collective memories, which they call "the gloom." Howard sacrificed his first wife, Agnes, through a ritual that turned her into the mind and hub for the spores to spring forth from. Howard is actually around three hundred years old. He has the power to transmute his memories into the gloom and then live on in another's body. He's been doing this with family members to preserve the potency of his powers.

The Doyles have lately been branching out in terms of marriages (Catalina, Richard, etc.) because their inbreeding is causing infertility. Outsiders react differently to the spores, with some getting fevers and dying (the sickness that killed their workers). But Noemí seems to highly complementary, plus she has the wealth they need to replenish their fortunes. They want Noemí to marry Francis.

Francis knows this is wrong, and he tells Noemí that Marta's tincture can lessen the spores' control over people. Francis and Noemí devise a plan for her to go along with the plan temporarily, as he sneaks Noemí and Catalina the tincture. After the wedding ceremony, they want to transmute Howard into Francis. However, Catalina stabs Howard in the eye with a scalpel, and Francis takes Florences gun and shoots her.

They escape into the family crypt, and Noemí sees that the body of Agnes is down there with spores sprouting from her body and her mind still acting as the hub. Virgil stops them. Virgil says he knew about them continuing to take the tincture, but he allowed it because he wanted them to injure Howard. That way, Virgil can take control of the spores. Instead, Francis fights with him, and Noemí lights the body of Agnes on fire. Catalina, Noemí and Francis escape into town with the house ablaze behind them.

The book sends with the police and Noemí's father headed over to the town to check things out. Francis has a dream about the house healing itself and him inside it, with it emerging stronger than ever. He wonders if he should kill himself. However, Francis and Noemí kiss, and they are hopeful they can build a better future.

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