In a genre stuffed to the gills with hard-boiled gumshoes and gangsters, serial killers and behavioral shrinks, narcos and narcs, Silvia Moreno-Garcia has cast aside her acclaimed fantasy bona fides to challenge reader expectations by delivering a crime thriller with literary undercurrents.

In her crime thriller debut, Moreno has taken calculated risks in delivering a literary leaning story with a slow crescendo in a genre crowded by over-the-top chases and traumatic brutality.
Untamed Shore is a coming of age story about an eighteen-year-old underemployed guide named Viridiana, who has managed to learn several foreign languages but is incapable of escaping her isolated Baja California fishing village of Desengaño, a town literally called disillusionment. Rudderless, she feels the growing pressure to follow the Desengañera –tradition—marry young and become the subservient wife.

Looking at him Viridiana had read her future in his eyes: the house they would share with his mother, the long hours behind the counter while Manuel went to play dominoes, the three children. She was saving to move to Mexico City and Manuel was talking of tying the knot and settling down. Worst of all, Viridiana was well aware that he was proposing because his mother wanted him to – and he was plain horny.
Viridiana’s dreams are dying like her town, a place where fishermen hunt ocean predators out of habit, the promise of prosperity having abandoned Desengaño long ago. “Viridiana thought Manuel represented more desire than affection, and knew enough about nets and sharks to picture herself tangled in a certain placid mediocrity which terrified her.”

At the end of the seventies, in a place that might as well be the end of the earth, Viridiana relies on silver screen classics as her sole vehicle to see what life holds beyond the desert and the waves.

. . . Viridiana spent a lot of time reading a myriad of books, yes, and the books promised more, as did the films. Rita Hayworth kissed Glenn Ford. Montgomery Clift embraced Elizabeth Taylor. I can see you. I can hold you next to me, they declaimed in glorious black and white.
Viridiana sees a glimmer of hope when three Americans rent the lone manor at the ocean cliff’s edge, their secrets in tow. She is hired as a live-in assistant to Ambrose, a wealthy man with aspirations of writing his life story in the peaceful isolation of Desengaño. She is quickly swept away by Ambrose’s glamorous wife Daisy and his brother-in-law Gregory—“If the woman looked like she could be a film star, he looked like he might be a model. His features were chiseled, his mouth generous.”

She daydreams of having a life like Daisy’s and the love of a man like Gregory. When Gregory seduces Viridiana, she releases herself to his promises of what they could be and where they could go, hoping it isn’t just afterglow.

As time passes, Viridiana sees blemishes in the glossy veneer of the foreign couple’s marital bliss. “She guessed it didn’t matter if you were rich or poor, a local or a foreigner, there were always men wanting to be all-important, making their wives or girlfriend feel like dirt, slapping them around when they got too mouthy.” As more warning signs threaten her fantasy, Viridiana grapples to assuage her fears—“Virdiana told herself that if a man was ever disparaging to her, she would not forget. She wouldn’t sweep it away. She’d hold it in her heart and notch down his cruelties. She’d bite. Hard.”

Like Martin Solares and other Latinx authors who’ve based their stories in the states around the Gulf of California, Moreno brings an authenticity to the cultural pressures and sociological impact of a small Mexican desert town that has outlived its economic usefulness.
When Ambrose dies under suspicious circumstances, Daisy and Gregory ask Viridiana to bend the truth. To keep her fading dreams alive, she takes the bait and ties her fate to theirs. The consequences of her simple lie escalate as more strangers arrive.

Like Martin Solares and other Latinx authors who’ve based their stories in the states around the Gulf of California, Moreno brings an authenticity to the cultural pressures and sociological impact of a small Mexican desert town that has outlived its economic usefulness. The eyes of Desengaño are on Viridiana as she struggles to free herself from her misplaced trust and still escape the life she never wanted.

Moreno makes excellent use of the harsh coastal desert and a time devoid of technological conveniences to amplify a sense of desperation and confinement. In an environment full of natural predators, the most dangerous are the foreign interlopers.

Several times she’d compared them to sharks, but thinking it better, she decided scorpions were the better animal. Scorpions killed a lot more people than anything else in Baja California, lots more people than snakes and black widows. They’d sneak up on you, sneak into your camping tent or your bed roll, your shoes, and that would be the end of it. … Sharks were clean killers. Scorpions were not. Scorpions were secretive little monsters.
In her crime thriller debut, Moreno has taken calculated risks in delivering a literary leaning story with a slow crescendo in a genre crowded by over-the-top chases and traumatic brutality. This is a story where social issues and the environment play an important role in the plot, placing Moreno’s novel in an esteemed class with the likes of American Spy by Lauren Wilkinson and Beautiful Animals by Lawrence Osborne.

Though there were points where the ties that entangle Viridiana to the central crisis seemed to stretch thin to the point of her peril being avoidable, I was compelled to follow the journey to completion to see how she emerged on the other side. Nonetheless, she delivers a compelling character-based novel packed with distressing realism. At the end of it all, I feel the riptide of Moreno’s Untamed Shore pulling me toward her other work, and I’m swimming off to devour her whole fantasy catalog.

Apparently Silvia Moreno-Garcia is a hit or miss author for me. I loved Prime meridian and Gods of Jade and Shadow but couldn't even finish The beautiful ones. However, Untamed shore sort of falls in the middle; while the descriptions and setting are lavish and evocative, something I've come to expect and enjoy in her work, and the characters were masterfully crafted, I didn't enjoy it as much as I hoped. It might be a matter of personal preference, since I usually read scifi, but the story in Untamed shore felt unexciting and only managed to finish it because the psychology of the main character was fascinating.

I received an e-ARC from Net Galley in exchange for an honest review.
I first became a fan of Silvia Moreno-Garcia after reading her exquisite novel Gods of Jade and Shadow. One of the best things about that book was the main character, a strong young woman dealing with the constraints of her life and time and making the best of them. Viridiana, is another main character in a similar vein. She is a small-town girl, living in Baja California in the late 1970s, dreaming of escaping that suffocating small-town life, much like her father did years before, abandoning her and her mother. This being a coming-of-age noir, she soon gets involved with a trio of Americans who have rented a house nearby for the summer and who may or may not be exactly what they seem. The story takes it's time getting started, but the ending is a lovely joy ride. Having read and watched a fair number of noirs none of the twists were especially surprising, but Moreno-Garcia is such a gifted writer that the journey was well worth it

Thank you to Netgalley for the copy of Untamed Shore by Silvia Moreno-Garcia. I had not read a thriller in a while until this book, and I was not disappointed. The story takes place in Baja California, Mexico. I was so excited to know it took place there because I lived there in my childhood. So it definitely made me reminisce of my time there. The author did a great job depicting the atmosphere by the coast. There’s also a sense of time standing still in the small town, and I definitely agree with her on this.

I also liked how the main character, Viridiana, was breaking traditional expectations that her Mexican family pushed on her (took place in 1979). I do want to say that at times it seem like certain actions were contradictory to what the author had intended to do at first. The motif of the sharks is interestedly incorporated in the development of Viridiana’s character. There’s definitely character growth due to the circumstances she dealt with.

Overall, it was a solid read that had me wondering at times (keyword, at times). However, it wasn’t the greatest thriller in that it didn’t have me at the edge of my seat in anticipation of what was about to happen. There was nothing too surprising, in my opinion. It is definitely a quick read as well

Atmospheric, slow-paced thriller. In a small Baja California town where the largest industries are shark fishing and tourists, and not that many of them, a bored young woman constrained by societal mores takes a job with 3 tourists. Although she doesn't care for the temperamental older husband, she's attracted to the glamour of the younger wife and the younger man whose role in the triangle is left undetermined. Convinced to lie for her friends when a death occurs, she begins questioning what's the truth.

Everyoner has dreams and everyone wants to make something of themselves. Viridiana wants out of the village she lives in. There's not much to do. It feels like a dead end for her and her family is set on her to marry a guy she doesn't love just because it's convinient. She doens't want what her mom has. To marry and have kids and just work at a small store. She has bigger dreams and she wants it bad. 

I really liked this story because it shows how Viridiana manage to "grow" in order to move ahead. Seems like those American tourists did teach her what you got to do to move up. It's a pretty cool thriller I got into and having the culture similarites, it was nice to read more about a latina protagonist. 

This was a pretty fast pace novel in my opinion. Definitely worth 5 out 5 stars and I would really recommend this for everyone because it does have that touristy kinda vibes if you are looking for a good book to take on your next getaway.

Deception, lies and blackmail. Silvia Moreno-Garcia's noir writing skills shine in this twisty, slow burn suspense novel!
Living under the adage that a fish can only grow as big as it's bowl, naive 18 year old Viridiana watches classic movies and dreams of a life far away from her small village.
Working as a tour guide in a remote fishing town, it is both luck and misfortune when she accepts a personal assistant job for a wealthy traveler and his two companions.
As the events unfold and Viridiana becomes entangled in a web of duplicity and betrayal, she comes to realize nothing is as it seems, and her life will be forever altered.
Engaging narrative, sinister characters, and vividly described settings create an engrossing story with a stunning conclusion.
This is the second book I've read by this author and I'm looking forward to more!
*Thank you Silvia Moreno-Garcia, NetGalley and Polis Books for the opportunity to read this novel in exchange for my honest review.

This is a really good slow-burn suspense novel that, depending on your relationship with Jaws, may have an eerie setting. And by that I mean it’s set in 1979 Baja California, and there are a lot of dead sharks, guts included.

Eighteen-year-old Viridiana wants out of the town because her mom expects her to work in her shop and marry a man Viridiana has broken up with and has zero interest in getting back with. She also grew up aware that she’s the reason her mom got anchored to her father and stuck with a life she didn’t want, something Viridiana refuses to let happen to her. And so when wealthy tourists show up with a writer looking for an assistant, Viridiana takes the job, including moving into a room in their rented home. You know this tale, and you know someone is going to die in an accident, or maybe not an accident…As the cracks widen and the secrets begin to spill, who will protect themselves and who will come out on top?

If you like character driven suspense, and are looking for an interesting setting you’ve probably never read before, definitely pick this one up!

Garcia managed to do it again and completely shock me. From the lull of her writing and the slow build of dread and the character development of our main character. It was a bit of a slow ride, but that didn't hurt my experience because I was on the edge of my seat. What was up with these Americans? What's going to happen to Viridiana? How is she going to get out of this? And is she going to survive? I don't read many thrillers, but I adored this one.

The atmosphere in Untamed Shore is nothing short of perfect, and I could visualize the setting perfectly. Unfortunately, the rest of the book didn't work for me, and the story failed to catch my interest - it took more than 30% of the book to even get through everything that is described in the synopsis.

Viridiana (never Diana, not Viri), has spent her entire life in a small fishing village in Baja California in 1979. Multilingual, she’s made decent money acting as a translator and tour guide for tourists, but she’s desperately bored. After breaking up with her previous boyfriend, she’s been ostracized by her friends and no matter what she does her family acts like Viridiana is full of herself.  When her mentor advises she take a job with three American tourists for the summer, she jumps at the chance. The three seem glamorous and have ties to wealth and glamour. She is in awe of Daisy, the beautiful wife of a rich and temperamental man named Ambrose. Her brother, Gregory, immediately takes a liking to Viridiana. It becomes quickly apparent that there is something predatory about Gregory and Daisy. Their sudden mood swings, and Gregory’s issue with personal limits are thrilling and terrifying for the eighteen year-old. When Ambrose dies in an “accident,” Viridiana finds herself thrown into a suspenseful world that is like something out of the black and white movies she loves so much.  

Silvia Moreno-Garcia continues her streak of amazing novels with Untamed Shore. Her writing is careful to frame the characters in a way that will set the reader on edge, but also conveys why Viridiana may be taken in by their lies. As with the book Gods of Jade and Shadow, there are plenty of references to local beliefs and practices. This novel, however, is more thriller and mystery. Moreno-Garcia sets the stage brilliantly and the reader truly can picture the village in Baja. Once you’re in this book, you’re in it. It’s nearly impossible to put down, even when the reader is mentally screaming at Viridinana to not be naive and just walk away. 

Untamed Shore is now available and should be read immediately.

3.5/5

Holy atmosphere, batman. With Untamed Shore, Silvia Moreno-Garcia shows why she is one of the best in the craft when it comes to immersive settings and fully-realized protagonists. Baja California is a slow and stifling little town and you can practically feel the heat emanating through the pages as you read. And Viridiana is a realistic product of such a place: a little impulsive, a little adventurous, and very, very naive. The book is more her coming-of-age story than a spiffy crime novel, and I found the latter aspects, with the American tourists and their secret troubles, a bit underwhelming.

Overall, though, it's a lazy immersive sprawl of a story, and I'd happily see Moreno-Garcia branch into other genres in the future, because clearly her talent has no boundaries.

This book was… A Perfect Execution of exactly what it promised and it blew my mind. Completely.

Let me explain.

I’ve recently learned that my definition of noir and other people’s definition go far and wide, apparently. Especially with US based readers? So just to make it clear where I am coming from: To me, Hardboiled Dick Novels and Roman Noir are not the same thing for me. And Noir is not a thriller, not a detective novel at all, and it is not about finding the killer and eliminating or arresting them by the end of the book. So if you are expecting this from Untamed Shore? You might want to reconsider if this is the right book for you.

I found it to be a *perfect* noir, and it did exactly what noir stories do imo. Because noir does not focus on the whodunnit, not really. It’s not about right and wrong and choosing between the two, but more about how many gray areas there are, all in various shades and how life and power and the world corrupt us, especially once something really bad happens and puts us in impossible situations. If I had to sum it up right I’d probably say noir are crime novels with no heroes, no justice, no clear moral path and no happy end. Not in the classic way people think of when they hear the words “crime novel”.

Silvia Moreno-Garcia did a fantastic job of capturing that essence and turned it into an incredible novel that I couldn’t put down. We follow Viridiana, an outsider in her small Mexican town in 1979, who doesn’t want to marry the man the town thinks she should marry, doesn’t focus in the things people think she should be focusing on and doesn’t behave the way everyone wants her to behave. When three American tourists come into town she gets hired as their secretary - kind of - but quickly falls off the deep end with them and the excitement and escape from her real life they seem to offer.

It was amazing to me to watch Viridiana go from the kind of pure and morally “good” girl trying to find her footing to the woman she is in the end. And right from the start you know things will go sideways, nothing is really how it seems and you also know that no matter who is going to die and who is going to kill, there will be no clear division into “bad guy” and “good guy”. And when it happens you know who did it, you just *know*, but the real suspense builds up all around the question how everyone will deal with the death of this tourist, with uncovering or covering up the murder that happened in their midst, and how far every single character is willing to go to get the result they want.

This novel sucked me in deep, it kept me constantly suspended between the disgust you feel when you watch a character absolutely violates your moral code, and empathy for the characters and their situations because deep down I can’t for sure say what I would have done. And rooting for everything being “okay” again, even though you know things were not okay at all before and this murder is just bringing to light how corrupted and distorted morality, society and life has always been, even when you refused to see it or call it that.

I loved this journey. I loved the way in which Moreno-Garcia approached and dissected the layers of deception, secrecy and moral grayness surrounding the crime, the town, and the main characters. It was gritty and thrilling and awful all at the same time, in the most perfect and intriguing way.

I definitely recommend this book if you are a fan of the genre, of this kind of story telling and of truly morally gray characters.

CW: murder, domestic abuse, coercion and sexual abuse on page, alcohol abuse, police corruption, psychological manipulation and gaslighting, misogyny

This just didn't quite hit the mark for me as a thriller in the vein of Patricia Highsmith. It tells the story of Viridiana, a young woman living in a small town in Baja. She is offered the chance to become the personal assistant to an American author for the summer and is drawn into a world of decadence, intrigue and con-men.

The Positives: I liked the setting for this one and thought Moreno-Garcia did a fantastic job of re-creating the seventies. I thought the basic plot was pretty solid and moved at a good pace, particularly towards the end.

The Negatives: I felt like the beats in the narrative were really predictable and each character felt too much like a stereotype for me.

Overall, I just thought this was a bit lacklustre and ultimately pretty forgettable.

I received a free copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for a fair and honest review.

Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for providing an advanced copy of “Untamed Shore” by Silvia Moreno-Garcia. Thoughts and opinions are my own.

I’m a simple creature and when I saw this cover I got the grabby hands. I love sharks! Honestly, I wasn’t sure how I’d take the story because it’s not a genre (historical and/or thriller) I normally read. But I was pleasantly surprised by this story.

Viridiana lives in a beach town by the sea where not much happens. The descriptions were very vivid and I could see the different settings but especially the beach where the fishermen harvest and process dead sharks to make a living. I could empathize with Viridiana’s fear of being trapped in the little town just like her mother.

But everything changes when Viridiana gets hired to work for American tourists for the summer. When one dies under suspicious circumstances, what follows is a twisty story where Viridiana is trying to wade through all the lies (some of them her own) in waters filled with creatures much more deadly than sharks.

I wasn’t expecting this story to grab me as much as it did. The setting was vivid and Viridiana was a character I could relate to and root for. I did feel I was often one step ahead of her as the mysteries began to unfold but I enjoyed the ride anyways.

4/5 stars

This slow build Mexican thriller set in the 1970s follows the turbulent coming of age of Viridiana, an 18 year old teenager who feels too large for her town. Working as a translator and tourist guide in her Baja home, Viridiana is hired as an assistant by a rich American down for the summer. Living with her employer, his young wife and her brother, Viridiana discovers people aren't all they appear to be and some things are too good to be true. Add to that the death of her employer and Viridiana is definitely in over her head.

"Untamed Shore" is an engagingly written novel that skirts the edges of being a thriller, landing unsteadily in ya historical fiction. For the right reader, this book will be a can't put down event. I am not that reader. The main stumbling point for me was the sexually explicit relationship Viridiana develops with a nearly 30 year old man. While the relationship is not ultimately portrayed in a positive way, having to read an 18 year old girl's point of view during the relationship was uncomfortable in a way that soured me to the novel. This is very much a case of personal boundaries and dislikes. These kind of relationship and sexual exploitation should be discussed and is just as important to portray in fiction as anything else. It's simply not something I would have chosen to read.

Very cool that the author writes Latinix characters in different genres. I enjoyed her earlier The Gods of Jade and Shadow. This one was a little too slow paced for me for a thriller.

I'm always a sucker for two things: character-driven thrillers and Silvia Moreno-Garcia. Her recent book Gods of Jade and Shadow is one of my favorite books, so I jumped at the chance to read her latest thriller.; And it delivered.

Viridiana is hired as an assistant and translator for Americans recently arrived in Baja, a welcome break from the boring monotony of small town life she wants to escape. She meets her employers: Ambrose, a wealthy older man; Daisy, his young wife; and Gregory, Daisy's handsome brother. Viridiana is enraptured by Gregory's Hollywood good looks and charm, but a sudden death in the house pulls Viridiana into a tangled web of secrets the Americans brought with them.

Morena-Garcia does a masterful job of sweeping you into the characters' lives. I adored Viridiana's unapologetic ambition and dreams of a Hollywood-style escape that she still knows is too good to be true. The romance aspect of the book is spectacular in the author's usual style, with every shared glance and touch infused with intensity and meaning, every interaction revealing layers of the relationship in subtleties. And just as I noticed in Gods of Jade and Shadow, the setting came alive and set the stage perfectly for the twist and turns of the story. With a thriller more focused on character arcs, I didn't try too hard to predict the plot twists, but I was taken by surprise more than once.

This was a very satisfying read and broke through my reading slump with suspense/thriller. After loving both her thriller and her fantasy romance, I'm all the more excited to see what she does with the upcoming Mexican Gothic.

An excellent story with an interesting setting and a cast of well thought characters.
I like Silvia Moreno's style of writing and I loved this book.
An engrossing and entertaining story, highly recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this ARC, all opinions are mine.

This is an interesting book with strong characters. The pacing is a bit slow and the mystery isn't really the main theme of the book. This is more of a coming-of-age and character-driven book. It's beautifully written and a different perspective.