Velvet was the Night: President Obama's Summer Reading List 2022 pick

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The author playlist was great at the end as these are songs I grew up on that have been remade over and over so much you never know who was the original singer. Sometimes the melody sets the tone and all the other notes follow in a certain sequence. Velvet Was the Night does just that as it prepares us for a loud upcoming crescendo. While people tend to lean into the familiar and recognizable, these intricate characters are forced to march to a different drum.....way different. When they really get into the mystery, things just don’t stop. And there’s action, intrigue, a little romance, and some suspense too. A lot of political drama is going on all the while, which is based on the actual history, which makes it more worthwhile. Mexico City: while student protests and political unrest consume the city, Maite seeks escape from her humdrum life in the stories of passion and danger filling the latest issue of Secret Romance.

From the New York Times bestselling author of Mexican Gothic comes a simmering historical noir about a daydreaming secretary, a lonesome enforcer, and the mystery of the missing woman they’re both desperate to find. But before I begin this review I’m going to do a bit of a preface—If you are already a Silvia Moreno-Garcia fan then I’m sure you’ll love this. If the only work of hers you’re familiar with is Mexican Gothic then it may diverge from your expectations. While Mexican Gothic was a slow-burn gothic horror novel set in the 1950s, Velvet Was the Night is a crime noir that takes place in 1971 Mexico City. It’s not a thriller. There’s nothing paranormal. And if those are deal breakers then this might not be the book for you. If you need to be hooked in the beginning, this is definitely not for you. But if you can hang in there till about 50% of the way in, this is well worth the time. It went from being a 3 star read to being a 4 1/2 star read in my mind. I seriously enjoyed that last half!!I loved how this story follows the two main characters Maite and Elvis. I enjoyed seeing how they had separate stories at first but ultimately came together through a connection to Leonora. The dual perspective really strengthens the narrative. It works to explore different perspectives by having an insider and outsider. Readers can see Maite as the outside perspective who is in over her head while Elvis gives the inside perspective into the Hawks and their operation.

Velvet Was the Night will not be for everyone, though. And many of the reasons why I loved it are exactly why some readers won’t. With this stunning cover and engaging title, I expected an amazing story as well. I love Silvia's mexican gothic so much. It was one of my fav book of last year. So naturally I had really high expectations. Why I enjoyed this book: Maite and Elvis were characters that I found it difficult to look away from. I won't say I liked them, per se, but they were memorable. If anything, this book most closely resembles Certain Dark Things to me because Maite and Elvis feel very similar to Atl and Domingo. I will be honest, I have never watched/read an noir before. So I looked up the possible tropes and I felt this book didn't even slightly touched many of them. I loved both of the characters. The pacing was still intriguing. I never get bored till the end. That’s why I’m giving my whirlwind, exciting, powerful, fast pacing, four viva Mexico stars!

My thanks to Silvia Moreno-Garcia and Random House Publishing / Ballantine Books for providing an advance copy to review via NetGalley. Velvet Was the Night is now available. This one ended and had me wishing I could begin another book by this author right away. Silvia Moreno-Garcia did a brilliant job of blending fiction with historical events. You can read her Author's note at the end as she details the events. She caught my eye with Mexican Gothic and I became a bigger fan with this book - I have to say I enjoyed this one more. She's not a likeable character, to be honest. But I didn't care— she was interesting. And interesting people are fun to follow within a story. In this foray into the noir genre, SMG once again transports her readers to 20th Mexico. This time around the action takes place in Mexico City during the 1970s, aka during Mexico’s ‘Dirty War’, a period of civil unrest, with student demonstrators and civilians clashing against and being persecuted/disappeared/massacred by the government. Overall, a very satisfying book that will stay with me for months and possibly years to come! If you are looking for a unique read, look no further!

The story takes places in 70’s of Mexico, centered on high tension political area because the incidents enacted by PRI Mexican Political party! Elvis is member of Hawks : a group is unofficially works for government during the Dirty War as Maite is clerical worker who hates her job, loves reading romance lovers, listening to records, thirty, single. Why I kept falling in love with the book covers of Silvia Moreno Garcia’s! Isn’t this one gorgeous? Mexican Gothic’s cover is still my favorite but this smoky, mysterious vibes of the cover and author’s name made me dive into this one by going blind! While at times I liked SMG’s prose, her style strikes me as passive. That is to say that when she recounts something I feel very much at a distance from what she’s recounting (even if that thing is happening there and then).Now, I'm starting from a place of bias when I say that I love Silvia Moreno-Garcia already. I'm primed to—at a minimum—enjoy their work as I love the writing style and their way of delving into character development. This novel was no exception. I loved it too. Clearly bad characters are revealed to be in fact bad. While our good characters have one or two ‘reasonable’ flaws (she steals now and again, he’s working for the ‘baddies’) that are meant to humanise them, said flaws don’t change the fact that they are very much the good ones. Our MCs were not the morally grey characters I'd hoped they'd be (esp. given that the noir genre lends itself well to ambiguous characters). I feel like the magic of this for me was in Moreno-Garcia's writing; it was the way it unfolded, the beauty behind the slow drama of it all. It's a special book, although admittedly, not for everyone. Silvia Moreno-Garcia is wonderful at setting an atmosphere within her stories. It pulled me right in from the beginning and I was there for the low-stakes and small twists and turns.