Silvia Moreno- Garcia makes everything she writes this intensely creepy cinematic experience and I truly am shocked everytime I put the book down. That being said, the character development and story telling in this book were truly lacking. It felt all over the place,. and really missed the mark for me.

I absolutely loved this book - Silvia Moreno-Garcia has become an auto-purchase author for me. I love her writing style and how she effortlessly crosses between genres.

I’ve got to be completely honest in regards to this book. It just wasn’t for me. The story just never hooked me, so this story ended up being a DNF. That being said, Silvia Moreno-Garcia is a terrific writer, and this will not hamper my legitimate need to devour her other books. This would be an excellent book for some readers, but it just wasn’t so much for me.

I genuinely appreciate the ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

DNF. I thought this was about anything other than young mexican boys in a gang. There are plenty of other things I want to read about and I think this is too close to home for me. I don't want to read about something I can see on the news.

I love Sylvia's books, I truly do but when I say everything isn't for everybody. Yeah this applies.

This story didn't move me nor piqued my interest and because of my love for this author...yeah, disappointment to say the least.

Boring characters and story plot is not it for this reader and this story was that...boring. And that's sad, given this cover. What did I want in this story? for the author do blow me away and that didn't happen. Will this stop me from reading her future works. NO. But, no more of this. And honestly Elvis? nooo.

Velvet was the Night by Silivia Moreno-Garcia follows the events that take place in Mexico City in the 1970s after a huge student protest. Maite is the main character who leads a mundane life. She is a secretary, not very social and does not have a family even though she is considered to be an older women to her family. Even with this part lacking from her life, Maite has a fantastic album/book collection. She lives for finding American albums and the latest Romance novels.

When her next door neighbor Leonora is a beautiful art student who leaves Maite in charge of her cat and to look after her apartment when she goes away. This is the beginning of a life that is more interesting, a life that Maite can only read about in her novels.

We also meet Elvis who is a criminal and is part of the Hawk gang. He is on a mission to find Leonora and the film pictures she has taken. He shares Maite's interest in music and books despite his lack of experience in anything but the criminal life. Elvis and Maite are on parallel roads to find Leanora but will these paths every cross and in what capacity?

While this novel has the potential of being page turning, I felt that it was very slow going in many parts of the book. The ending wraps everything up neatly but for a fairly short novel, this one seemed to drag on.

Thank you to NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Amazing book! I would highly recommend this book to my customers and patrons. I would recommend other books by the same author as well.

This book was a little slow/hard for me to get into at the beginning. The characters were not particularly likable and it was hard for me to figure out what was happening from chapter to chapter. The second half was much more enjoyable once I had a general idea of the plot line. I do wish I had some more background knowledge on the student protests and government response in Mexico in the 70s! It also makes me think about long term implications to today. I would recommend this book to other avid readers or individuals interested in the time period/history but not everyone is going to enjoy it.

Velvet Was the Night is Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s first endeavor into the world of noir and pulp fiction-esque stories. Velvet Was the Night tells the dueling timelines of Maite, a bored and lonely secretary, and Elvis, a member of a local street gang. Moreno-Garcia explores Maite and Elvis’s experiences as they learn about the disappearance of Leonora, an art student who may having damning evidence of corruption by the 70s Mexican government. In my opinion, the story was too slow to thoroughly grip me and keep me interested in the story which was quite a disappointment after my enjoyment of Mexican Gothic. I found myself not caring about the characters much making the stakes and drama uninteresting to me. I feel like this novel would have been stronger if Maite and Elvis met earlier in the story, and we had a longer amount of time do develop the relationship between the protagonists. Overall, I felt very underwhelmed by this novel, and the only redeeming quality seemed to be the twist at the ending. Rating - 2.5/5

I loved the setting of this book, in the 1970s in Mexico City. The vivid descriptions and explanations gripped me from the beginning. The main character, Maite, and her love for the magazine Secret Romance remind me of my love for reading. It is truly her escape from the danger all around.

When her next-door neighbor asks her to check in on her apartment, at first it seems like nothing is amiss until the young woman disappears, and the visitors start arriving. Matie gets sucked into looking for her neighbor, Lenora, and learning more and more about her life.

This book is filled with all the things- spies, violence, danger, intrigue, and it kept me guessing until the end. It was a good read!

I love Moreno-Garcia. Period. She has such great atmosphere and tone in all of her novels. It transports the reader in time and place. I also love that she is unwilling to be pigeon-holed into a specific type of genre, instead seeking to write something fresh and new with each new book. These are what keep me interested in what she will do next. This book is full of historical setting and the atmosphere you expect from a noir. She delivers on all accounts.
Definitely recommend.
#VelvetWastheNight #NetGalley #RandomHousePublishingGroup #Ballantine #DelRay

Thank you to @netgalley and @delrey for the advanced ebook of this!

If I had to use one word to describe this book it would be atmospheric. This book is DRIPPING with atmosphere. You can smell the smoke, feel the heat, hear the music. It is full of feeling and drama and not… particularly fast paced. So if you struggled with that in Mexican Gothic, I’m here to tell you this is not the book for you.

It’s the 1970s in Mexico City. Maite is a daydreaming secretary who hates her job, fights with her family, and just wants to read romance and listen to records. When her neighbor Leonora asks her to cat sit and then disappears, Maite’s life is shaken up as she finds herself suddenly contacting dissidents, receiving intimidating office visits from government officials, and becoming implicated in a political battle she knows nothing about.

A steady, if not too speedy, pace through the beginning and middle, the end is a whirlwind of wrap-up and unraveling the mysteries that plague Maite throughout the book.

It's 1970s Mexico City, and student protests and political unrest are taking over the city. While police, hitmen, and secret goon squads attack and sabotage the protesters, Maite watches from afar - keeping herself far away from the danger. Maite lives a fairly quiet life: she is single, lives alone, works as a secretary, and lives vicariously through her favorite comic books and rock 'n roll music. One night, Maite's neighbor, Leonora, comes to her and asks if she can watch her cat for a couple nights. Maite doesn't know Leonora very well, but she knows of Leonora, who is a beautiful art student living a life of intrigue and romance. Maite, who's always wanted to see Leonora's space, agrees to watch her cat and keep an eye on things. When Leonora disappears under mysterious circumstances, Maite finds herself searching for the missing girl, diving deep into Leonora's secret life as a radical and political dissenter. But Maite isn't the only one searching for Leonora - in fact, a lot of people need to find Leonora, and Maite's life is now front and center.


Velvet Was the Night is told between two perspectives: Maite's and goon squad member, Elvis'. As Maite and Elvis fervently search for Leonora, their paths intersect with not only each other, but other dangerous characters. I found the book to be quite a page-turner, and I really enjoyed Silvia Moreno-Garcia's writing style - it was vivid, emotional, and thrilling. Prior to reading this book, I didn't know much about 1970s Mexico and the influence of political oppression/fear of communism on the country's political landscape and citizens, so I was really pulled into the book's plot. While I found the book plot to be fascinating and enticing, I was less than enthralled with the characters. Maite is off-putting, to say the least: she is judgmental, vapid, and unkind. Elvis is a criminal whose persona revolves around beating people up, feeling cheated by the world, and listening to rock 'n roll. By the end of the book, I really didn't care what happened to Maite or Elvis because I couldn't form an emotional connection to either of them. However, I did thoroughly enjoy the book's plot, writing, and noir-style, so I would recommend reading Velvet Was the Night.

I love the way Silvia Moreno-Garcia writes, she really writes a beautiful story. This was a great mystery novel with interesting and real characters.

A compelling and fresh take on noir tropes and archetypes, steeped in the very real history of oppression by the Mexican government of its own people. Moreno-Garcia is one of the best writers out there right now, in any genre.

Members of the lonely hearts club cross paths in this pulpy-noir.

A lonely, pretty average secretary in search of excitement stumbles into a conspiracy involving the Mexican government and military, CIA-trained gangs, an artist collab and underground communists revolutionaries.

A hopeless romantic, obsessed with rock and roll, has found himself in a gang of enforcers, but doesn't seem so sure of what exactly he is enforcing.

Their stories entangle as events escalate in this delightful work.

I received an ARC from NetGalley.

Bumping this from my TBR list, hence the low rating. I heard this was very hard to get into and a super slow burn.
Just can't get excited about that.

Thank you to NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group for the ARC of Velvet Was the Night by Silvia Moreno-Garcia. This review will be available via Goodreads and will be avaialable to read on my account indefinitely. I knew after reading Mexican Gothic, also by Moreno-Garcia, that I needed to read Velvet Was the Night. I am a huge fan of "noir" novels, especially ones where the characters are flawed but dedicated to sovle the mystery. The main character, Maite, has never excelled nor found any great excitement in her life. She wasn't particularly likeable, but I did want to follow her story as she delved into the underworld of various Mexican gangs and political turmoil. Overall it was a solid story and I liked its murky territory. I would be interested in seeing how the characters cointue to grow should there be a second.

Last year, I read and enjoyed Moreno-Garcia's UNTAMED SHORE, so when I heard about this book, set in the early 1970s in Mexico City with a noir flair, I was really excited to read it! And even more thrilled when my NetGalley wish came true! Unfortunately, this one didn't quite live up to my own expectations. I really had a hard time connecting with either of the two narrators - 30 year old Maite, who lives a lonely life as a legal secretary and who's main enjoyment in life are her own daydreams after reading the Secret Romance comics or Elvis, a thug in a group of men working to stop communism from gaining a foothold in Mexican politics. The to narrators don't overlap much at first, and yet, this doesn't stop the plot from following some surprisingly predictable paths.

The political machinations of the time drive the story forward - plus the disappearance of Maite's neighbor. As Maite tries to track her down (largely to stop feeding her cat), her life begins to resemble the comics she loves so dearly - violence, intrigue, spies and more. I did appreciate the musical aspect of the novel, even if the storyline was so predictable. And while that familiarity fits with the noir flair, I just didn't feel invested enough in the characters to feel satisfied about having guessed the storyline correctly so early on. I never really found myself too eager to pick this one back up and because I knew where the story was going, it seemed to take forever to get there. I am still looking forward to reading more from Moreno-Garcia in the future - but this one definitely isn't my favorite of hers!

Silvia Moreno-Garcia always surprises me. All her books are so different, yet so interesting and they really draw me in every single time. This one did not disappoint.