From the New York Times bestselling author of MEXICAN GOTHIC and GODS OF JADE AND SHADOW, Silvia Moreno-Garcia, comes the 2021 International Latino Book Award medal-winning UNTAMED SHORE, a coming-of-age story set in Mexico which quickly turns dark when a young woman meets three enigmatic tourists.

Baja California, 1979. Viridiana spends her days watching the dead sharks piled beside the seashore, as the fishermen pull their nets. There is nothing else to do, nothing else to watch, under the harsh sun. She’s bored. Terribly bored. Yet her head is filled with dreams of Hollywood films, of romance, of a future beyond the drab town where her only option is to marry and have children.

Three wealthy American tourists arrive for the summer, and Viridiana is magnetized. She immediately becomes entwined in the glamorous foreigners’ lives. They offer excitement, and perhaps an escape from the promise of a humdrum future. When one of them dies, Viridiana lies to protect her friends. Soon enough, someone’s asking questions, and Viridiana has some of her own about the identity of her new acquaintances. Sharks may be dangerous, but there are worse predators nearby, ready to devour a naïve young woman who is quickly being tangled in a web of deceit.

Mexican by birth, Canadian by inclination. Silvia’s debut novel, Signal to Noise, about music and magic, won a Copper Cylinder Award and was nominated for the British Fantasy, Locus, Sunburst and Aurora awards. Her second novel, Certain Dark Things, focuses on narco vampires in Mexico City. It was selected as one of NPR’s best books of 2016 and is a finalist for the Locus and Sunburst awards.

Her third novel, The Beautiful Ones, will be out in the fall of 2017.

Silvia’s first collection, This Strange Way of Dying, was a finalist for the Sunburst Award. Her stories have also been collected in Love & Other Poisons.

She has edited several anthologies, including She Walks in Shadows (World Fantasy Award winner, published in the USA as Cthulhu’s Daughters), Sword & Mythos, Fungi, Dead North and Fractured. Silvia is the publisher of Innsmouth Free Press. She also co-edits The Jewish Mexican Literary Review with Lavie Tidhar and the horror magazine The Dark with Sean Wallace.

She has an MA in Science and Technology Studies from the University of British Columbia. Her thesis can be read online and is titled “Magna Mater: Women and Eugenic Thought in the Work of H.P. Lovecraft.”

Silvia Moreno-Garcia's profile page

OUTSTANDING PRAISE FOR UNTAMED SHORE

International Latino Book Award medalist 2021

Best Crime Novels of 2020 Notable Selection from CrimeReads

"The descriptions of Baja are uncommonly evocative of gritty reality, with poverty and desperation made plain on the page, as well as the lengths people are willing to go to in order to escape...(an) insightful look at criminal life from the viewpoint of a sardonic yet lonely soul seems destined for more plaudits.”—Booklist (Starred Review)

"This thriller sets a quiet tone before building slowly and evenly, showing how a meek teenager trapped by circumstance grows into a strong woman who takes control of her future, though in the end it might change who she is. For fans of Celeste Ng, Alafair Burke, and Kent Anderson."—Library Journal (Starred Review)

"The Great Gatsby meets Night of the Iguana in this elegantly spare and darkly twisted story of undercurrents, deception and colliding cultures. Rich in atmosphere and sinister in tone, this impressive debut is a haunting lesson in the dangers of desire and the illusion of glamour—and how dreams can be devoured by deceit."—Hank Phillipi Ryan, Nationally Bestselling author of THE MURDER LIST

"Silvia Moreno-Garcia is a wonderfully evocative writer, and she uses her skills to their best advantage in her first book of crime fiction. Atmospheric, compelling and very suspenseful, UNTAMED SHORE is a welcome addition to the genre."—Alison Gaylin, Edgar Award-winning author

"Untamed Shore is both transporting and transfixing. Set in a small Baja town in the seedy 1970s, Silvia Moreno-Garcia's latest takes us into a world soaked in sunshine and secrets, where everyone is working an angle and the looming sense of menace builds with nearly each page-turn. A shrewd, exciting thriller by a writer with a fresh vision and a powerful voice."—Julia Dahl author of the award-winning Rebekah Roberts series

"Untamed Shore is a masterpiece. I loved this book, and can’t get Viridiana out of my head. Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s characters are unforgettable and no one and nothing is quite what they seem. I devoured this like one of Viridiana’s sharks. Truly a stunning work."—Amina Akhtar, author of #FashionVictim

"Silvia Moreno-Garcia's UNTAMED SHORE is a treat: the first thriller from a seasoned writer. This is a superb hybrid that's part classic whodunit, part sad love story, and part smart, pulpy noir packed with smiling snakes, a touch of mythology, and a strong female lead that's caught between her immediate reality and her dreams of escape, all inside the hermetic, oppressive hell of small-town gossip and oldfangled morality. This is a novel about greed, murder, and snowballing peccadilloes that moves forward with the power and grace of a shark. Don't miss it."—Gabino Iglesias, author of COYOTE SONGS and ZERO SAINTS

"A sense of inevitable dread builds from seemingly innocuous events in this masterful crime debut from Silvia Moreno-Garcia. The period detail is fantastic, the Mexican setting vibrant and fresh, and the noir is as murky as seawater after a shark feeding frenzy. I loved it!”—Lavie Tidhar, multiple award-winning author of A Man Lies Dreaming and Osama

“An engaging sojourn illuminated by prose as bright and clear as the Baja sun. A plot driven by characters whose motives are as murky and treacherous as stormy gulf waters.”—Mario Acevedo, author of the Felix Gomez vampire-detective series