Your Fall Reading List: 7 Must-Read Books by Latinas 

There’s something about fall that makes curling up with a good book feel even better than usual. 

Good thing that Latina authors have plenty to keep us reading this season! From Gothic horror to magical academies, haunted estates, and emotional stories about grief and hope, these seven books deserve a spot on your fall reading list.

---

“Something Followed Us Home,” edited by Cynthia Pelayo

Puerto Rican author and Bram Stoker Award winner Cynthia Pelayo brings together some of today’s biggest Latine horror writers for an anthology about the things we inherit, carry with us, and sometimes can’t leave behind.

Across the “Something Followed Us Home” collection, immigration, colonization, religion, folklore, family, and memory become sources of horror and magical realism as readers move through haunted homes, unforgiving landscapes, sacred spaces, and stories where the past refuses to stay buried. With contributors including Mariana Enríquez, Isabel Cañas, Xochitl Gonzalez, Zoraida Córdova, Lilliam Rivera, and more, this is basically a sampler of Latine horror.

“A Breath Too Late” by Rocky Callen

Latina author, mental health advocate, and founder of the suicide prevention initiative HoldOn2Hope, Rocky Callen, of Ecuadorian descent, takes this list in a very different direction with “A Breath Too Late,” a YA novel about grief, family, mental health, and the pieces of a life we don’t always recognize until we look back at them.

After 17-year-old Ellie dies by suicide, she finds herself outside her body, moving between the past and present as she tries to understand the events leading up to her death. Fragmented memories bring her back to her mother, her complicated father, and a boy who once brought color into her life as she searches for the pieces she’s still missing. Told in an epistolary-like style, this isn’t a light read, but it’s one centered on the possibility of hope even when someone can’t see a way forward.

“The House of Gardenias” by Isabel Cañas

Mexican American author Isabel Cañas knows her way around a haunted house, and her YA Gothic debut is no exception. In “The House of Gardenias,” 16-year-old Minerva has spent her life hungry, poor, and surviving an abusive father in a country resembling colonial Mexico. Desperate to escape, she finds work as a maid for wealthy widow Encarnación del Valle and finally gets a taste of safety.

Then political violence forces them to retreat to the family’s remote mountainside estate, Casa de las Gardenias, where cruel relatives are only part of the problem. Something much older and far more dangerous is waiting inside. If your ideal fall read involves class conflict, political unrest, a sprawling estate, and supernatural forces with bad intentions, this one checks every box.

“Chloe Vega and the Agents of Magic” + “Chloe Vega and the Missing Unseen” by Leslie Adame

First-generation Mexican American author Leslie Adame grew up loving magical adventure stories but rarely saw kids like herself at the center of them. Her “Chloe Vega” middle grade series changes that, starting with “Chloe Vega and the Agents of Magic,” which follows a 12-year-old girl whose fears about her undocumented parents collide with a much bigger revelation: her family is part of a secret magical world. 

The recently released second book, “Chloe Vega and the Missing Unseen,” raises the stakes as Chloe returns to the academy after saving her parents, only to find that her new powers may be as dangerous as the enemies trying to expose the magical world. Check it out if you love magical schools, secret societies, found family, and fantasy that also makes room for immigration, identity, and belonging.

“An Immaculate Deception” by Isabela Livino

Brazilian author Isabela Livino takes readers all the way back to 1877 Brazil for a Gothic debut filled with religious guilt, family secrets, and a deal with the devil.

Madalena is young, unmarried, pregnant, and terrified of what her deeply religious mother will do when she finds out. She plans to marry the child’s father, Leandro, but after a carriage accident she wakes inside his isolated family home and quickly realizes something is very wrong. Leandro has changed, mirrors are disappearing, locked rooms hold strange secrets, and the mysterious doctor caring for them may know far more than he admits. 

Anyone who loves books with dark, atmospheric, and full of “girl, get out of that house!!!” energy needs to add “An Immaculate Deception” to their list.

“Muñeca” by Cynthia Gómez

Last but certainly not least, Chicana writer Cynthia Gómez mixes witchcraft, queer romance, class, and Gothic horror in a story set in 1968 Oakland. Natalia Fuentes is a working-class witch who hears about Violeta Miramontes, a wealthy young heiress mysteriously left unable to move. Nati is convinced dark magic is responsible, so she talks her way into the Miramontes home as Violeta’s caretaker and sets out to break the spell.

Naturally, things get complicated. Nati and Violeta begin falling for each other, the curse proves more dangerous than expected, and Nati’s growing recklessness forces her to confront powers and ghosts she would rather have left alone. At under 200 pages, “Muñeca” is exactly the kind of strange, romantic, slightly sinister book you can eat up over a weekend.