“It was just like a light went on, and I haven’t stopped since,” she said. Publisher’s Weekly described it as “visceral and disturbing in the best of ways.” And Kirkus called it “a tightly paced story of anti-colonial resistance and shared history that begs to be read in one sitting.”Ĭastro grew up writing - “I have papers and stories that I wrote as a kid with really awful drawings” - but didn’t start pursuing it as a profession until about four years ago. Belinda shares the urban legend with the wedding party and soon becomes obsessed with it, setting the fast-moving story in motion.
Decades later, a friend holds her wedding at the ranch where Milagros was killed, a site that has been turned into an events venue. Many believe her spirit can be summoned by repeating her name over and over while looking into a mirror.īelinda, the novel’s protagonist, first hears the story at a childhood sleepover. In the book, Milagros, dubbed La Reina de Las Chicarras (the Queen of the Cicadas), has become an urban legend along the lines of Bloody Mary. On : SA writer Jonny Garza Villa’s debut novel is a Latino coming-out tale She serves vengeance in forms as brutal as the original murder, which included desiccated cicadas shells being shoved down Milagros’ throat. The gruesome 1952 murder of a migrant worker named Milagros on a farm in Alice attracts the attention of Mictecacihuatl, the Aztec goddess of death. “Queen of the Cicadas” is a read-it-with-the-lights-on tale.
And the way those gods and goddesses were assimilated and brought into the Judeo-Christian culture, that also played in my mind.”
“But even beyond that, the Aztec history, being Mestiza, that history of Spanish conquest, is a horror. “Everybody knows La Lechuza, La Llorona in San Antonio, there’s a ton of urban legends. “Being Mexican American, I grew up with a ton of stories,” said Castro, 41, a graduate of Clark High School who now lives in the United Kingdom. Those tales and others inspired the stories Castro told in her San Antonio-set novellas “Goddess of Filth” and “Hairspray and Switchblades.” And she created an urban legend of her own in her new horror novel, “Queen of the Cicadas” (Flame Tree Press, $14.95), which goes on sale Tuesday.
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