Spoiler Free Review: Silver Nitrate by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

Title: Silver Nitrate

Author: Silvia Moreno-Garcia

Pub. Date: July 18th 2023

Genre: Horror/Historical Fiction

Format: DRC

Publisher: Del Rey

Pages: 323

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☆☆ARC PROVIDED BY PUBLISHER IN EXCHANGE FOR AN HONEST REVIEW☆☆

I’ll be the first to admit I was unsure I’d be reading Silver Nitrate when we got wind of the premise. SMG is and will always be one of my top favorite authors and if there’s anyone who can get me to read a book based on horror films, it could only be Silvia Moreno-Garcia. Character driven and slower paced than some of her other books, Silver Nitrate is a blend of Horror and Historical Fiction set in Mexico City during the 90’s with references to the Golden Age of Mexican Cinema. Our main characters Montserrat is a sound editor who is stuck at a bad paying job where all the projects worth having are given to the owners favorites. Montserrat stays for the love of what she does but doesn’t do so silently, she’s tough and isn’t one to keep quiet at the inequality of it all. Her best friend Tristán who she’s been in love with since childhood, is a soap opera actor whose career is rapidly fading. After a break-up Tristán packs up and moves into a building and discovers his upstairs neighbor is the legendary cult horror director Abel Urueta. Montserrat and Urueta hit it off when he senses her real passion for horror films and so he tells them of the curse he believes is responsible for ending his career overnight. Urueta tells them of his involvement in a cult led by a Nazi occultist and how silver nitrate stock was being used in an effort to dispel magic through the screen. This of course backfired and cast a spell on all those working on the film, Urueta is one of the very few to have made it out alive.

We really get to know Montserrat & Tristán once they decide to get involved with helping Urueta and start living through the repercussions. For Tristán it’s the ghost of his dead girlfriend and for Montserrat its the feeling that she’s being followed by a dark presence. It was around the 60% mark that I started feeling as if I couldn’t put the book down, I was engrossed in the paranormal happenings at this point. Our MC’s who are an odd pairing to say the least are also deeply connected to one another, there’s real care and concern coming off the page. Tristán is freaked out and would much rather close the door on all of this while Montserrat can’t turn away, it’s just not in her nature. She’s always had to play the tough role as someone who’s disabled and was bullied at a young age but never backed down. The contrast of personalities worked really well in getting me to care for these characters which in turn got me to get invested in the horror/historical elements that play center stage. SMG is a phenomenal writer! it was easy to reimagine Mexico City in the 90’s through her pen similar to the magic of Velvet Was The Night. Whether the muse behind this book was my jam or not doesn’t take away from the fact that this author continues to deliver quality story telling. Silvia Moreno-Garcia continues to prove that she cannot be boxed into any one genre and I’m here to read anything she writes!

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