Lucas lives at least some of the time on the island of
Puerto Rico, living in the wealthy powerful shadow of his property developer
father. A father who is know to many islanders as “The Conquistador” for his
business practices.
All his life on the island, he has heard legends of the
cursed house and the cursed woman with in – but when he finally meets Isabel he
learns her story is more complicated and more tragic than any of the stories he
heard as a child.
In some ways, that it’s not exactly our genre per se.
Sure there is something utterly unexplained about Isabel and her peculiar curse/biology is definitely
unexplained and is hinted at being supernatural (and I doubt if there’s any
physical way someone could be that instantly deadly) with its hinted/possibly
backstory. But ultimately she could have had her skin replaced by cyanide, or
electrified… the actuality of it doesn’t really matter. The story would not be
appreciably changed if there was no actual potential supernatural reason and
Isabel was simply ill with an actual disease – a potentially contagious one
that is both killing her and isolating her. It wouldn’t appreciably change the
story and really means that any speculative fiction elements to this book are
pretty superfluous. Honestly that’s kind of off putting to me – it’s slightly
vexing for the element I most look for in a book to be pretty much an off shoot.
I’m not saying that this makes it a bad book. Far from it
– it’s an interesting conflict as Isabel seeks connection, fears for her life,
is faced with some very terrible and difficult choices which are quite
literally involve accepting clearly excusable evil or her own martyrdom. Though
in some ways this does make me wish we followed her more than Lucas since she
seems to have the more involved and important storyline. Especially since we
also centre him and his grief with the disappearance of a girl he barely knew
rather than her own family.
